We’re a reactive people aren’t we? We are pendulum swingers. In the past, I have railed against traditionalists who appear more committed to do the same thing than they are to doing the right thing. I’ve become more conscious recently of the way those of us who carry traditionalist baggage do the same thing. Instead of doing something because it’s the right thing, we simply do the opposite of what a traditionalist might do.
The first church I served as a staff member had grown out of split from an old traditional downtown church. I remember the pastor telling me I could do anything I wanted as long as it didn’t look or sound like something a traditional church would do. I remember a worship leader from a very progressive church suggesting that his church didn’t use video projection of song lyrics during worship because they didn’t want to be “that kind of church.” Recently I’ve been in conversation with some progressive Christ-followers who have become convinced we shouldn’t participate in international mission work because of the self-centered excesses in mission work in the Church’s recent history.
I suppose it’s not realistic to think that we might divorce ourselves from the past enough to choose the right thing instead of simply reacting to past thing. If small groups are a great way to build community, maybe we should try them even if they look or sound like the Sunday school of our childhood. If a video projector helps people lift up their heads and free up their hands in worship maybe it’s okay even though there are also showy, performance oriented churches that all use projectors in their worship gatherings. If God has made the call for us to “go and make disciples of all nations” abundantly clear in scripture maybe we should go wisely even though in the past some Christ-followers have gone on mission trips that refuse to live missionally while at home in their own community.
I’m another wounded Christ-follower trying hard to put down the baggage of past church experiences and figure out how to do the right things whether they’ve been done that way before or not.