The Church of a New Age
The young folk ordered and operated the service at church today. This is the second time to my recollection that they have "taken over" in this fashion. Our church is pretty good at involving young people on a regular basis, especially in leading worship and serving visibly up front. These youth services are a special time when the high school group and their leaders have domain of the entire service, including worship, skits, testimonies, sermon, illustrations, etc.
Our church has been on a big kick lately relating to reaching the modern culture. Unfortunately, it seems the modern culture has for the large part been turned off by church. So it our challenge as Christians not to hinder the kingdom of God by demanding to follow outdate practices and traditions just for the sake of personal comfort. We must reach out to the culture we live in, lest we quickly become irrelevant. Not that God Himself is hindered by our personal preferences, but it sure would be nice to open our hearts to the work that He will do in these days.
When the youth group does the service, it becomes quite apparent how detached old church has become from the postmodern generation. Even though my age bracket qualifies me to be part of the postmodern generation and/or Generation X, I feel somewhat displaced among such crowds. I was raised very traditionally in a conservative church, so I am comfortable in a "church atmosphere". However, I can see and appreciate some of what is happening in the culture, and I am in no way offended to see that others think differently and have alternate views of tradition and authenticity.
My hope in the end is that some sort of balance will be achieved between the traditional church and the emerging church. There are certain traditions and practices that have always been part of the church, and I believe these things were designed by God to establish His holiness and bring Him glory. Some of them, though ancient, have eternal value and must be continued in obedience to God's established will on the matter. For example, I don't personally believe that anything that goes completely against the written Word of God or the perfect Gospel (message of good news) of Jesus Christ should be tolerated. On the other hand, the specific method for achieving effective ministry can and must be altered to fit those being ministered to. If the church of tomorrow (or even today) must look almost entirely different from what I have come to know as church in order to reach the postmodern world for Christ, and God is pleased with these changes, then so be it. I certainly don't want to get in the way!
I really appreciate seeing the young people of our church finding value in being involved with the service. In a time when the youth are often mistaken for being outright rebellious, it is a good thing to see them sharing their perspectives and trying to make ministry more effective and valid to the new generations.