As he was talking about how the church is not to conform to the culture, he mentioned that in the parlance of today's youth, Christians are to be "hipsters," although in my mind that term carries additional connotations of unhealthy pride and self-absorption in knowing better than "them."
What struck me more was what he said about different kinds of worship service styles. In particular, the Bible church style, or maybe more so what I find a lot of churches that don't have the word "church" in their names do: exciting music praising God, stirring particular emotions, impressive visual aids grabbing the congregation's attention, etc. I normally have the impression that is a way of conforming to the culture: "This is what (young) people like these days, so let's do exactly that, and even more, or else there's no way we'll reach them." So although I wouldn't say that there's no redeeming factor in that, it has not attracted me as a helpful habit for Christ's local body. But Chris pointed out that to some people, some parts of our society, that kind of worship goes against everything they know and it is counter-cultural.
That was good food for thought. After all, in some other people's eyes, the fact that we use a drum kit in the church's music is a sign of conformance to the surrounding culture.
That said, I do still think certain worship service styles are much richer than that mentioned above, even if they may not be as quick to grab the attention of some segments of the population.
I was blessed to have grown up in churches that had intentional, thought-through liturgy that better covered the breadth of the Christian walk. It was not just because that's what had been traditionally done. It was meaningful and purposed. And it follows scriptural examples. As an example, when the Israelites gathered as a people upon leaving Egypt, they first joyfully praised God for who He is what He has done and His amazing goodness; then as they came to meet with the Lord, He revealed the way things are, what He wants and expects of His followers, and thereby putting a mirror to the sin in their lives; so they repented of theirs sins, and they recommitted themselves to the Lord; then they were better able to follow God's leading.
As that's what I was raised with, I saw all that as normal. That was how churches prepare hearts to listen to the sermon, to better build one another up to go back into the world, to which we do not belong, for the week ahead. That is how church functions, through reading the Bible, prayer, the different steps emphasized with fitting songs, in preparation to hear the main message clarifying God's word for life in our current situation.
There are of course a variety of ways to practice this in its details. However it reminds me of my first real church search when I left home for college, and Sunday after Sunday I was shocked by how easy it was to go to what felt more like a praise music event (or maybe a Christian music and prayer event) with a message from the pastor thrown in. I'm sure many of these establishments do wonderful things for the Kingdom of God, and their members can have a faith that is on fire, but going there on Sunday morning, I'd feel like I missed church and would be disappointed that so much of the wealth of the Christian experience that was thrown out of the service and ignored.
This is all mulling around in my mind, as we are starting to look for where we will move to next, which is intrinsically tied to our next search for a church family, with which we can grow into the man and woman, and family, God created us to be.
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