A Response to Blended

The Church today faces "the spirit of individualism" and has succumbed to tailoring worship to meet the expectations of various age groups by fractionalizing the church into what are now called "venues". No longer called sanctuaries, these "venues" cater to the "experience" one is up for. If you don't like the "Traditional" try the "Edge" or the "Over the edge"..........whatever works for you! How dare we ask a teenager to sit through a hymn or a senior to listen to a song by Delirious!

Just listen to this comment:

"There are several reasons for opposing it: It's too new. It's too worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style and because there are so many new songs you can't learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than on godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances, making people act disorderly. The preceding generation got along without out."

Those comments were made in 1723 and they were made in criticism of Isaac Watts who wrote "Joy to the World" and "I sing the Mighty Power of God."

I do understand that it is appropriate for children, youth, seniors or those of other cultures to have a meaningful experience within the context of their own group, but what ever happened to "corporate worship"? Indeed worship is both vertical and horizontal; it is about God, yet it is about people in fellowship with one another before God.
But when the focus is on people (mostly ourselves) there will always be battles because we are diverse (and opinionated!). If you think it's hard trying to please everyone at your church, imagine how difficult I thought it could be leading worship for a church in the Middle East with 500 members from 40 different nationalities and dozens of denominations. Yet somehow it worked.....not perfectly...but it worked because the greater focus was on God. They had their individual meetings throughout the week, but on the Sabbath they were in corporate worship.

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