What’s the difference between themed worship done the way you like it and using the specific gifts God has given you to create worship that is different from what other people create with the gifts God has given them?
I’m really asking, because, other than having a whole bunch of different types of worship in one location, I’m not sure what the difference is between the two.
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7 Comments(+Add)
A quote from a commenter:
And thus lies the ultimate of false dichotomies. You can either have Cowboy Church, or Biblical Church. Not both, but either/or.
This idea is hinted at in the Slice article as well…
That’s right, if you enjoy any part of the service, it must be about me, me, me. You must be ignoring God’s expectations (everyone knows God wills that we meet for worship at 11am sharp on Sunday mornings).
This only further proves that some people just haven’t figured out that our traditions don’t necessarily please God, and the “new” traditions (cowboy church) don’t necessarily displease him. You may notice that the article was completely lacking any biblical support for their criticism of cowboy church. I think they also miss the fact that if “church the way you like it” was a sin, most of them would be sinning every week because their churches are perfectly within their comfort zone … just the way they like it.
Yes, Nate –
You’ve identified the classic “Tyranny of the ‘OR’” (also known as a false dichotomy)…
“Today you can worship your way, just the way you like it, when you want it. What God expects from us is irrelevant, because it’s always, always, about me.”
I must be a great Christian as I have attended many churches and have not enjoyed most of them…
LOL!
iggy
If we take that to the extreme, then it is wrong for, say, Mexicans living in America to gather with other Mexicans in a church, because that would be a Mexican church i.e. a kind of theme church. Never mind that they may have only wanted to go where they understood the language.
Just like a cowboy might not be caught dead in a church such as some on SOL prefer. Just as the SOLers might not be caught dead in a church a cowboy would prefer. Really, they’re shooting themselves in their own foot. It’s clear they have a church preference, only they believe their preference is Biblical Church when it might be something with a little different adjective. Hymn-loving church. Calvinist church. That kind of thing.
Julie,
I was thinking the same thing, I almost threw in the way different cultures worship, as well as things like deaf churches.
” they’re shooting themselves in their own foot.”
Do they have one left?
iggy
I found this one especially weird on Slice for a site the spends so much time talking about their favorite worship styles and services to condemn others for doing the exact same thing.
Keeping a variety of styles is one way to fight against the idea that church services should be styled just for us, reading this I thought I would probably gain a lot from going to the cowboy or island services because I don’t really jive with either, it would be a good reminder that it’s not about me!