Church as the World Sees It?

Brett, my colleague at Boulevard Church, is using this picture on a poster advertising a young adult event. Aside from the weird twin thing going on, what's with the clothes and the hair? Did someone actually think this looked good?

I wonder if a lot of congregations don't look a bit like this picture to the world, or at least to people who did not grow up in the church. After all, you can enter into many congregations on a Sunday morning to find things virtually unchanged from what took place there in the 1950s.

Of course many would argue that part of Christianity's strength lies in its traditions. That is certainly true. Hearing Scripture read, sharing the peace that comes from being loved and forgiven by God, joining together at the Lord's Table; these are all wonderful traditions that have sustained the Church over the centuries. But that is not to say that most everything going on during Sunday worship is tradition. Much of it merely custom, the way we do it. Customs are like clothing and hair. Styles come an go. I thought that silk shirt looked good when I bought it. By I cringe to see a picture of me in it now.

Customs and styles change. But sometimes we in congregations act as though our styles and customs of worship are eternal. We insist that the hymns we grew up with are a tradition, not a custom. Pastors are supposed to wear robes, and don't dare mess with the layout of the sanctuary.

I ran across this quote from Abraham Heschel the other day. "Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless."

Looking around this congregation, what part of us is genuine, Christian tradition bearing the truth of our faith, and what part is mere custom? Something to ponder.