Kingston Avenue…Trying New Things
When I attended my first Sunday as the ‘Intern,’ I noticed a young man who very closely resembled Chris Tomlin in dress and style of hair. Later I learned that his style of music and his voice also resembled this renowned artist. Now although many of us own a Tomlin cd or a Passion record with Chris on it it, these people have really never heard of him. Their favorite Christian artists are people like William Cowper and John Newton. Needless to say, Chris (ironically the guys name) really didn’t ‘fit here with the traditional crowd. Many lessons are to be learned from this situation from both sides. One is that if you are leading in a particular area of ministry, you may want to figure out what the people are used to doing in the first place, aka hymns rather than the latest K-Love update. This is a problem that is destroying many healthy churches today, it’s called a preference. It is preferred that people wear suits and ties on Sunday to church, therefore we are to tell tribal Africans (who wear nothing but a gourd, or other type of veggie, around their private areas) to dress up on Sunday in American attire. Sounds silly right, but it happens. This is the same thing that has happened here although in a different fashion. So they asked the guy to change his tempo a little, slow it down. He couldn’t and just kept playing the same passion songs that the congregation had never heard and they began to miss the sweet poetry of the psalmists. They told Chris he just wasn’t compatible and that they just didn’t feel they could worship in this way. So they went to their last option…me. I brought my djembe and two guitars to play along with the guy who was going to be here (who is no more). As it turns out, they would rather have me play less skillfully and sing less beautifully in the words of the hymnal than to listen to a concerto. Pray for me in this time because I don’t know what I’m doing. Haha no really, I only know a few chords and I am a decent singer at best (ask Chandler…we actually sang in the ‘big choir’ at Porter). Anyways just thought you might find humor in this or see what kind of things God can force you to do beyond your ability and realize, he really can use you for anything as long as you are willing.
I think this situation is very helpful in illustrating the mission of God and the nature of His church whom He has sent on mission. What this illustrates is what it means to be incarnational; just as Christ came in the flesh so He has sent His church in their flesh to accomplish His mission on earth.
There are two dangers that could be present in any situation. First, a church can impose their cultural preferences upon new believers; this is seen in the NT when Gentiles come to faith and the church denies them fellowship because they are uncircumcised. Second, individuals coming into a church may impose their cultural preferences on that local congregation; this is seen as Judaizers travelled to Gentile churches and declared their need for circumcision.
The “worship wars” is a prime illustration of this phenomenon today. How are we to decide what kind of music we play in our church? Simple, we look to the incarnation. The musical style is not determined by the preference of the music minister, it is not determined by the church, nor is it determined by other churches or governing boards. The style of music is determined by the culture in which the church exists, this is what it means to be incarnational. Now the culture does not determine the theological content of the music, the wine never changes; however, the wineskin in which the unchanging truths of Scripture are transmitted must adapt to the environment. This has been the practice of missionaries for quite some time, you do not plant a church in the jungles of South America and train a minister of music to play a pipe organ, you teach indigenous individuals how to write theologically sound lyrics and play native musical instruments with those lyrics. A final word of caution against equating our cultural preferences with biblical truth is this: the tragedy in so many churches is that the “worship wars” point to a fundamental denial of the incarnation of Jesus Christ as we sever the connection between Jesus and His body the church and that is antichristian!!!
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