I go to church weekly and lead a small group studying the church fathers and how they read the Scriptures. I'm a worship leader and musican. I've served in many roles in various churches over my life.
What bothers me about the modern evangelical non-denominational church is how we have watered down the church litergy. My church is no where near the extreme on this but I beleive we should be looking further back into church history prior to the reformation and be more humble about our interpretation of Scripture.
Novel teaching has crept into the church and the focus on individual interpretation is leading us down a dangerous path. Our pastors preach expository (verse by verse) not topical and that is good but the lack of understanding of church history concerns me. It concerns me in myself and I've been working on correcting that for a while.
I think many of the issues in my church tradition stem from ignorance and over-reaction to Roman Catholicism. The rejection of tradition. The watering down of the litergy. The lack of reverence. The focus on the comfort of the individual. None of this started in the last 30 years.
I really beleive all church traditions can learn from each other and I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to be humble and teachable. But, I am deeply concerned about cultural drift in the church. The diluting of long held orthodox Christianity due to cultural pressures. The acceptance of novel doctrine over orthodoxy. I've seen it in friends and family and I think my tradition needs to reckon with it very seriously.
I don't have a simple answer to any of this. I do think that answer is not to leave your church because it has it wrong in some areas. Maybe the answer is that we each work on these issues first in our lives and then with others in our churches. From the bottom up. For some, maybe they should leave their church but that's a serious decision.
I go to church weekly and lead a small group studying the church fathers and how they read the Scriptures. I'm a worship leader and musican. I've served in many roles in various churches over my life.
What bothers me about the modern evangelical non-denominational church is how we have watered down the church litergy. My church is no where near the extreme on this but I beleive we should be looking further back into church history prior to the reformation and be more humble about our interpretation of Scripture.
Novel teaching has crept into the church and the focus on individual interpretation is leading us down a dangerous path. Our pastors preach expository (verse by verse) not topical and that is good but the lack of understanding of church history concerns me. It concerns me in myself and I've been working on correcting that for a while.
I think many of the issues in my church tradition stem from ignorance and over-reaction to Roman Catholicism. The rejection of tradition. The watering down of the litergy. The lack of reverence. The focus on the comfort of the individual. None of this started in the last 30 years.
I really beleive all church traditions can learn from each other and I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to be humble and teachable. But, I am deeply concerned about cultural drift in the church. The diluting of long held orthodox Christianity due to cultural pressures. The acceptance of novel doctrine over orthodoxy. I've seen it in friends and family and I think my tradition needs to reckon with it very seriously.
I don't have a simple answer to any of this. I do think that answer is not to leave your church because it has it wrong in some areas. Maybe the answer is that we each work on these issues first in our lives and then with others in our churches. From the bottom up. For some, maybe they should leave their church but that's a serious decision.