Posted on 05/14/2015 1:45:17 PM PDT by EBH
A lot’s been made over the millennial generation and their religious life. Why they go to church. Why they don’t go to church. What they want. What they hate.
I’m going to do something different here. I’m not going to cite Barna. I’m not going to quote Rachel Held Evans. I’m not going to link to any articles or blog posts.
I’m just going to tell you what’s true for me, and what I’ve seen to be true of others like me.
I am one of those rascally millennials, by the way. One of those enigmatic, paradoxical, media-dependent, coffee-drinking young people swept together under this millennial umbrella. Except coffee tears up my stomach, so I dropped that stuff.
I was born when a washed-up actor was in the White House. I was crushed the day slap bracelets were banned from my elementary school. I remember hiding in my room with my five-inch TV to watch Friends and Seinfeld and the Simpsons, and all the other shows I wasn’t allowed to see. I don’t remember what it’s like to not have a home computer. I can barely recall a time before cell phones. I’ve never left home without one.
I’ve always been in church. I’ve never left, though I’ve come close several times. I would have left in high school if I’d had the option, but in my house, attendance at my cool, hip, contemporary-worshiping, youth-group-glorifying, moralism-preaching, theology-eschewing McCongregation was a non-negotiable.
So I went. Through every repetition of “Shout to the Lord,” every True Love Waits commitment ceremony, every rapture-ready dispensationalist Bible study, every sermon series on how to make myself into a good, moral, well-behaved person so that I wouldn’t tick off God and bring condemnation to America.
(Excerpt) Read more at theologyinworship.com ...
Liturgy means different things to different people. Scripture is our only foundation for the proper worship of God.
John MacArthur says that "biblical worship--worship in spirit and truth--is a constant attitude. It's a persistent inclination of your heart and mind toward the majesty and glory of the Lord ... a nonstop activity that is borne out in faithful praise, prayer, service, and study of God's Word."
JOHN: I don’t think we have a clear-cut confining mandate in Scripture about that. I don’t think the Bible limits us to liturgical high church kind of worship. I think probably the early church was very informal. I don’t think there were any organs in the early church going from house to house. I don’t think there was ever an intention that it would be anything other than speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing, make melody to the Lord in your heart. There’s a whole lot of variety in just psalms, hymns, spiritual songs and singing and making melody in your heart to start with before the Lord. So I don’t think there’s any way that we should unnecessarily limit that. I think music can be informal and simple and it can also be lofty and exalted and big. You know, we can have an orchestra or it can come down to a beautiful acappella. Some of the most beautiful music in the world is acappella music and many, many beautiful pieces written in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, acappella pieces are just magnificent pieces of music, harmonies and beautiful music. Very different than huge orchestrations of great music or big organs or things like that. I just don’t think the Bible puts any limits on it.
Contemporary Worship, Civil War in the Church, Phil Johnson and John MacArthur Q&A
Not that we can be sure, but religious enthusiasm has ebbed and flowed even since the English settlement of this country. Roanoke was founded by Ralegh who was both an adventurer and a zealous Protestant. Virginia is not remembered for its religious zeal, but large numbers of Puritans settled in the Chesapeake area, although they were scattered all over the place. New England was colonized by Puritans, of course. Until 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was ruled by Puritans. After wards, the zeal flagged especially after Enlightment ideas began to have an impact. But in the 1730s, a reaction took place and we have the beginning of the first Great awakening. That fervor diminished in the 1760s, but in New England at least, the Quebex Act, which gave the French Roman Catholics religious Freedom, which erased New England, who had been had war with the French for a hundred years. The possibility of the Church of England setting up a bishop in the colonies also angered many colonials and not just in New England. Nonetheless the Revolutionarygeneral was not as religious as the one before, although the Congregational, Baptist, and Presbyterian clergy were among the most zealous Whigs, Without the Presbyterians, Washington could not have hung onto New Jersey. The French revolution, who was so unreligious provoked a New Religious awakening in the colonies, and while only a minority of Americans belonged to a Church, the Second Great Awakening adoused great enthusiasm and by the 1850s, most Americans belonged to one “denomination” or another. A Protestant Establishment ran the country and continued to do so until after 1960.
Song was always part of Church worship, and Paul even includes snatches of hymns in his letters. The first “assemblies” were small gatherings, modeled we can assume after Jewish synagogue services, including at least sometimes, a celebration of the Last Supper.
I am not sure what contempary music is but about the second time a rock band showed up I left as it gave me the feeling I was at a swingers club instead of Church.
I was born when a washed-up actor was in the White House.
Clinton?! ;-)
But considering the generation he is from what can we expect.
crackhead pope
I am all for singing and for communion. But they are not in and of themselves worship unless the worshipper has the right heart attitude and true faith as outlined in God’s Word. If you worship with a wrong attitude or worship a false god made in the image of your own choosing rather than the one revealed in scripture then it may be a kind of worship, but it is sin — even if you sing like an angel and have the most elaborately beautiful service.
Operant term, meandering! Couldn’t stay with it long enough to find anything worth wasting the time to continue reading it.
No. He’s asking the Church to address the ‘grey’ and not ignore it. The messages that this generation have been bombarded with all their lives (heck, my generation as well) conflict with many religious teachings. Society has muddied the waters and too many churches are trying to ignore these things rather than confront them.
It’s better to say, “I know that this *looks* grey, but it’s not. And here’s why this church is going to stay on the straight path.”
Did you even read the article?
He’s saying to STOP trying to cater to that generation and to go back to traditional teachings. That it the very focus on the ‘kids’ that has driven the ‘kids’ from the church.
He said that the ‘kids’ don’t want that. They crave tradition and solidity from their church.
Lots of red flags. Lots of valid points about trashy contemporary worship and youth-worship, really. But sounds like this Freak is a confused, narcissistic liberal who simultaneously wants old time religion and for Homos to have the right to bugger the congregation.
That comment made me take his article less seriously than he would have wanted. That "washed up actor" became the greatest President of the 20th century.
Wait until our generation has died off and they have to take care of themselves or die. They will starve or freeze to death because they do not know how to take care of themselves.
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