I'm not sure what to call'em anymore. I used to refer to them as worship wars, but the assembly is not any more worship than any other act of obedience that glorifies God. It's hard to find an alliterative word to go with assembly - at least ones that won't offend somebody. Since time together was intended to be used for giving and encouraging one another, I could call it Giving Grumbles, but that's just too ironic, not to mention it's a spiritual oxymoron. The reason folks fuss and fume about the assembly isn't because they have a passion for giving, it's because of a tradition of receiving. Threaten that expectation and you're in for the fight of your life. So how about calling them RECEIVING RIFTS? Okay, it doesn't really sing as an alliterative title, but unfortunately it is an accurate description.
We are blessed to be part of a church family that has very few Receiving Rifts. Oh, we have the occasional wish for certain types of songs and there was that couple that got upset because we used a video clip that had instrumental music in it. I tried to get the word out that the "opening prayer" that day was really the "closing prayer" so any use of instrumental music was technically "scriptural," but I forgot to say that upfront. We don't have much fussing here, and for that I am soooo grateful. Even more, I love the spirit of giving that just about everyone seems to bring to the assembly. Maybe my weekly mantra, "If what you're doing this morning isn't giving, then what you're doing isn't worship" has really caught on.
Anyway, what started me on this blog was my reminiscing about the most memorable Receiving Rifts I've experienced over the years. Here are a few:
* NO - we can't replace our pews with stackable chairs. "Pews are more comfortable."
* "If we cancel our evening worship to watch the Redskins play in the Super Bowl, we will be selling out to the world."
* "Telling us to stand and greet the people around us is unscriptural."
* "If you take the Lord's Table out, I'm out of here."
* "You can serve communion from the back if you leave one set of the trays up front for people who need that to focus on."
* "Why did you remove the pulpit?" (Esp. huge in TX and TN)
* "Can a bell choir be used during a wedding?"
* "You can't sing songs during the communion because that is superimposing one act of worship on another, and that's unscriptural."
* "Singing during the Lord's Supper keeps me from thinking about Jesus." (Old Rugged Cross will do that!)
1 comment:
Chuckling about your "opening prayer/closing prayer" statement. You have to joke about these things, or it's too easy to get cynical--then, we're no better than the people that are causing the "rifts"!
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