A certain malaise

seems to hover above the church today. The church is neither hot nor cold.

Leaders parade program after program to engage the people to get involved

with ministry and discipleship only to learn about a new program that

really does the job. You indeed would be amazed at the number of programs

and products that are hawked to pastors with the promise of resurrection

of a malaised church.

Of course,

the malaise pleases the devil. A teenager turns his life over to the Lord.

The church yawns. The youth leader reports that ten kids rededicated their

lives to the Lord at summer camp. The church yawns. The things that should

thrill the church are putting her to sleep.

I figure it

has happened so, in part, because the church has finally become a well-greased,

finely tuned religious machine. The church has become an assembly line.

In comes a raw believer and out comes a dull disciple.

As I read about

the early church, they were always getting arrested by the authorities;

they were preaching the Gospel among the cults and being stoned; they

were holding all night prayer meetings and seeing people healed of life-long

sickness and disability. The early church was the action center in town.

Today, there's more activity at the pool hall or Wal-Marts than in a dozen

or so churches on Sunday morning.

We preachers

are leaders of the Yawn Brigade. After all, we have seen too many of our

number to upset the "apple cart" and be carted out of town.

We want some stability. So, we massage our congregations with the message

that God loves them and leave it at that. Hardly do we ever get in their

face and tell them to repent and get the hell out of their lives like

the prophets did. Like John the Baptist did. Like Jesus did. Like Simon

Peter did. Like the Apostle Paul did.

Let me offer

an area where the church needs upsetting: we begin by examining our worship

of the Most High. My word may be disheartening to some congregations who

have just recently convinced their song leaders to sing of those new contemporary

choruses like "Pass It On." However, many congregations have

gone big time into total contemporary worship, comprehensively eliminating

2000 years of church worship materials.

The word out

on the street among postmoderns is that they want a more conservative

style of worship that integrates a variety of Christian traditions. My

generation (boomers) have held to a view of worship as market-driven,

music-driven, and numbers-driven. Now, we find that we the boomers are

the traditionalists and need to repent. We must repent of ignoring the

music of church history. We must repent of ignoring the liturgy, the creeds,

and antiphonals of the ages.

When in Africa

recently I worshipped at the All Saints Church in Kampala, Uganda. Their

second of three services incorporated what the postmoderns are looking

for: they had the formality of a procession, the informality of greeting

and laughing, the music and drums of Africa, the hymns of the greats like

Wesley and Luther, and contemporary praise choruses.

The church

needs a little shaking up. Worship should never be a performance to be

watched, but an experienced to be had with the one true and living God.

Worship deserves our constant attention.

River's Edge Community

Church

1091 South Jeff Davis Drive

Fayetteville, Georgia 30215

770-719-0303

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