worship talk with high school students

I had the priviledge of being on a panel Sunday night with a couple of leaders from our church and talked about worship with the high school students. They had some questions about worship and we gave our input. It was quite fun. Some of the themes we talked about were very important. They extended past Sunday morning worship services.

One such theme had to do with outward worship practices. For example, why do some churches - more charismatic or pentecostal churches - have more demonstrative expressions of worship and we don't (as Presbyterians). Good question. I told them that I don't raise my hands in worship because they are on the piano. Everyone laughed but I wasn't joking. We spoke of some things that we need to be in agreement on with other Christians, like the Trinity, for example. Things like that and othres in the historic creeds like the Nicene and Apostles' creeds are non-nogotiable in my opinion. They have stood through the centuries as embodying essentials of the faith. We can't compromise on those things.

Then comes the majority of things that separate us from one another, like the typical outward things like raising hands and clapping and such. What we ended up with was that we need to show a lot of grace to others about their particular style and convictions about worship.

I related the story about one of the vice-presidents of Wal-Mart in a southern town for some grand openings and the founder of Wal-Mart, Sam Walton, was with him. Sam suggested that they check out the competition at a store across the street while they had some down time. They walked across the street and Sam said to walk in one section of the store and he would walk in the other section. They were to meet back in 20 minutes. They did. Sam said, "What do you think." The vice-president said, "We have NOTHING to worry about. This is the most poorly managed, dirty, unstocked, rude-clerked store I have seen. We're going to mop up." Sam then said, "Yes, but did you see the ethnic hosery racks?" The VP responded, "Ahh, no I didn't." Sam exclaimed, "They're fantasic! They're better than anything we have in our stores. I got the manufacturer name and number off the back of one of them. Here. Call them and get them in our stores."

Our tendency when we encounter someone who worships differently than we do, or a church or denomination that is different than us, is to point out the differences and state that we are superior and they are wrong. How about we take the Sam Walton approach and look for ways and things they are doing that are better than us? See if kindness and humility and growth don't occur in our hearts as we do.