Liturgy or Lifestyle

"We are going to do things differently."

This is deep in the marrow of our bones. Not just my own, but many of my dearest friends. We long to see the church become what God intends, and fiercely believe that she must change her ways...

I find, however, that this is often conceived in terms of different liturgy.

When we first moved to Buffalo, I had a conversation with a young 'postmodern' type. She was talking about doing church in a different way. She divulged her frustration with the way church fails to conform to God's desire. When I asked her what she meant; what her ideal church would be like, she began to describe her ideal worship service.

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My Pastor, after seeing a video poking fun of contemporary mega-church worship services, once said:

"I really like these types of parodies but I also find that it can often times keep me from at least attempting something. Because no matter what kind of “liturgy” makes up our contemporary churches its never the lack or style of liturgy that needs to be our focus. More importantly, whatever liturgy we use (and we all have one) must be infused with power of God and His Holy Spirit in such a way that it produces men and women who are learning to trust God more and more everyday as disciples who are forever learning to live in his kingdom. "

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Differences in liturgy can be important, and we should be reflective in our liturgies, but the issue of primary importance is not liturgy, but lifestyle! It is here that the church truly needs to "do things differently!"