Why Worship is not working well today?

Having been out on the road with some mates I was encouraged by the link I found via John Greenshields to Kenny Lamm and his 9 reasons people dont join in worship singing.

 I am no old boy with a few years experinece in the front and at the back of corporate worship and I do see some common recognition to the things Kenny has said in Church leaders website. My thanks to him. 

They dont know the songs

Songs not suitable for that gathering

Wrong key for gathering ( Too high?) (or even shy men)

Potential singers cannot hear those around them

Worship singing seen as a performance spectator event

Congregation feel they are not expected to sing

Book of songs to fluid song list issues

Leaders of worship ad lib too much

Worship leaders not connected to congregation 

As I am involved in worship i take recognition of these comments. I hope others do too! 

However . I am encouraged in the Highlands of Scotland, people are, taking recognition to music worship some refreshing their approach others discovering for the first time a wealth of song to use.

Highland Church part four

Consider scripture, there is no divide “The Enlightenment” and future generations have created the myth about a secular and non – secular world.

How damaging that is. We know we do not need to go to a church building to pray, yet we constantly compartmentalise on the basis of modernity. The secular / non secular dos/ and don't s might have worked for a generation but scripture calls for a more radical reformed “reform!”.

The result of this secular divide is the thought that God is no longer required; based on the modernity of the church it is no wonder. 

 

The emerging church folks, have noted that the church needs to be wholly working in the community and certainly not seen as a non secular group of people. Their worship is less scripted with beginnings and ends and more of a flow of what was happening before “formal worship”.

However we are in this post modern post Christianity era where people are discovering mysticism and spirituality. All the more the Church can bring God to the spiritual seeking community who are not in this generation stuck in a dual format of thinking of secular and non-secular. The work in the Highlands could grow if a long term commitment could be made by the Union. When churches are joining and constricting under Synod instructions at the disapproval of the members an opportunity to promote the “local church - Baptistic” could well have success once more.

I appreciate we cannot fund 27 Baptist missionaries in the Highlands like in the past but there is a need to have a presence and to support Christians who wish to worship and be an evangelical witness North of Perth.

Apart for the extensive work of the Perth Christian Centre there are a few itinerant ministries.

Despite the challenges of the North and the Presbyterian culture, there can be new pockets of witness, like Dingwall, where I had a vision for a church way back in 1982,- but the work does need commitment.