Does our worship service lead people to an encounter with Christ and the Holy Spirit? Think about why we do what we do in worship. Do we worship the way we do because it is how we have always done it? Do we worship the way we do because it is what we are best at? Do we worship the way we do because it makes certain members of the church happy?
Many people want a tangible, transforming encounter with God but never found it in worship, because worship has been focused on everything but that transforming encounter. If we don’t offer people a venue through which they can access the spiritual, they will gladly find some other venue and substitute the pursuits and pleasures of the world.
The church has to adapt its worship because our culture doesn’t recognize the value of worship when done as it was in generations past. Each generation is different in what it resonates with because over time the culture changes. Ultimately, the problem isn't that each generation keeps changing. The problem is that as time passes congregations and their leaders forget to keep the focus of worship on the encounter with the Holy. They forget that unless people sense that they have had an encounter with Christ, an experience of the Spirit and that through worship they are increasingly established in the Creator, then worship is no longer God-focused.
Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services? The challenge in restoring the Holy to worship is to recognize that different people experience the Holy in different ways. Churches cannot account for every difference, but they can become sensitive to these differences and adapt to them.
Article adapted from "Why Do We Worship the Way We Have Always Worshiped When People Keep Changing?" by N. Graham Standish. http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9140
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