I grew up in a very traditional Southern Baptist Church. The kind where we sat on wooden pews and the preacher had a sing song quality to his delivery. I’ve sat under a few hellfire and brimstone messages in my time. I’ve seen alter calls that had half the congregation on their knees at the front of the church and the other half holding on the pews for dear life. I grew up in a time when the women wore dresses and only dresses to church and Peggy Blevins once held together my skirt because she was scandalized that it had a tiny slit up one side of it. To this day you can start any number of hymns in the Baptist Hymnal and I can sing all four verses.
Without looking.
Over the years I’ve seen the church, both my small country church and the church in general change. Wooden pews gave way to cushioned pews or folding chairs. Praise music replaced hymns. The preachers delivered messages with fill in the blank notes to follow along on and dresses became completely optional.
If you listen to the church leaders of today, most will tell you that the church has had to change. We are catering to a generation that has grown up on video games and reality shows and is used to being entertained. The church needs to be culturally relevant to attract and keep the young people. The term “seeker” became the word of the decade.
But is it working? I’ve been hearing that young people who are very involved in the church are leaving for college and promptly leaving the church behind just as they did the rest of the trappings of their childhood. And what about those of us who aren’t “seekers” and crave a deeper understanding of God and his Word?
And how about the reverence factor. Do we still revere God? Do we understand the awesomeness of who He is? Are we teaching our young people and new believers about this? Do we enter a place of worship with a sense of respect?
My parents and I agree that most of this has been lost. And I think it’s sad. Do I think God cares if we have on a dress and panty hose or a shirt and tie when we come to church? Certainly not. But I do think that perhaps ripped up jeans that show your boxers are out of place and that short shorts should not be your first choice when you are getting dressed for church.
A couple of years ago, reading “The Shack” was all the rage. I only made it about a third through before I couldn’t read it anymore. I couldn’t go with the idea of God being portrayed as someone who we’d have a relationship with just like we’d have with any other nice person we ran across. I thought it left out the reverence that I think God deserves.
I think the church is on a pendulum. Perhaps we swung way too far away from the traditional church in order to stay relevant. And I swung right along with them. There was a time I would have (and did) poo-poo the idea that there was anything wrong with shoving the piano under the stage and exchanging it for an electric keyboard (sorry, Kathy. Do you forgive me?)
Maybe I’m just getting older and becoming nostalgic for the things of my youth. That’s probably part of it. I do think there were bound to be changes in the way the church does things and for the most part they have been good. I also see a swing back toward some of the things both my generation and the generation of my parents held dear. My church has a band but last week we sang hymns for the entire worship time. Thank you David Crowder. I see more emphasis on discipleship and bible study. And I think we are doing a much better job of connecting people and teaching about the doing of Christianity and not just the being of Christianity.
Here’s what I know for sure. My God is awesome. He is faithful and just and merciful. He has been gracious to me beyond measure even when I am faithless and lazy and self-centered. Regardless of what His church is doing wrong or what it is doing right, He is sovereign over all.
He is worthy of our reverence. It’s something I don’t think we should forget.
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