Two left to go!!

I took a hiatus from the blogging. When I started the blog I confessed starting others and then leaving them high and dry. This blog has been different, however. I've gotten the word out, I've linked to other blogs and I've been linked to other blogs. This blog is much more of a conversation ("convo" as my beautiful wife calls it) and I'm much better because of it. So why the silence? I hate to say it but I will: I've been busy. But let's get to point number sixteen (16)

16. The church celebration values tradition and cultural relevance
I went to Aldersgate Bible College from 1989 - 1993. Between my second and third year I moved back to Edmonton to work. One Thursday the phone rang and it was a lady from my, at that time, home church, Mewassin Free Methodist Church. Our Pastor, Todd Sinnett, had moved on and the church was without a preacher for that Sunday. "Could you come and preach for us?" It was Thursday night, I still had Friday's work to do at the construction site, so that didn't give me much time to put a sermon together. "Yeah, I'll preach," I said. So I got to work on a sermon that night, thought about it all day at the job site, and worked some more on it Friday night. Saturday came around and I drove out to the area (my mom still lived out there) and finished off the sermon. Then, like every good Bible college student, I practiced it over and over again. As part of my responsibility I had to pick what hymns we would sing as well as typing up and photocopying the bulletin. That was one Sunday in May. The following Thursday I received another and very similar phone call: can you preach again this weekend? I said I would and I also said, "Just count on me for every Sunday this summer." Every week I preached at my little country church. Every week I picked the hymns we would sing and I put together the bulletins. In our church we had a very fine pianist who would get a list of the hymns we were doing and she'd faithfully practice them on her own. We had no choruses and we had no contemporary songs. We just sang the hymns and we worshiped God.
In 1998 I began the work of planting a church in Mape Rige, BC. I was blessed to have on board a very fine guitar player and worship leader. From 1998 - 2002 I pastored the church plant. In that time we sang only one hymn. Every Sunday we used only contemporary songs and choruses. We sang them and we worshiped God.
I love the hymns but I also love new songs. In my current church we use all kinds of psalmns, hymns and spiritual songs. Each style of song appeals to a different segment. Sure, we argue and complain about certain things, but I think we have a pretty good mix here. It's important for churches to value tradition. As Leonard Sweet wrote in Aqua Church, "...we will need in every age to cast the anchor of tradition into the future and then winch our way forward." Our Christ-centered traditions anchor us all the way back to Christ himself. These keep us grounded. We need be wary, though, of "traditionalism." That is, doing things a certain just because that's how we've always done them. We also need to value cultural relevance. I believe this is reflected in the songs we sing, the sermons we preach, the carpet we select and the ministries we provide. Billy Graham's first slogan was, "Geared to the Times. Anchored to the Rock." I believe churches function best when they live within and accept the tension between valuing the past and valuing cultural relevance. It'll be tough work and not everyone will "get it," but it's work that must be done.
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