War of the Worship

I don't usually get into many "churchy" topics but the inserted picture was posted on Anne Jackson's blog, Flowerdust , and it inspired me to blog about it especially since the church i was pastor of in Kansas had a split last year over the issue of worship.

There are many reasons why some folks get upset about the worship service in their church. Sometimes it's a matter of ideas on mixing sacred music with secular music. It could be over certain scriptural principles of worship with technique vs un-scriptural principles. Or true worship vs entertainment or reaching out to the culture in our worship service vs having our worship shaped by the culture. My church split had more to do with allowing certain manifestations of the Holy Spirit during our regular Sunday morning service.

Here's my point: The split we had in Kansas over the "right way to worship" did tremendous damage to individuals, families, and the community, let alone the purposes of God. Relationships were broken, people became disillusioned, and i believe it broke the heart of God. It gave people that were skeptical of church one more reason not to visit a church and potentially have their lives changed for good.

The next time you decide to get critical of your church's worship service and gossip about it think about the consequences for that action. If you don't like your church's worship service communicate appropriately with the leadership about it and if your conscience bothers you about something they are doing, deal with it the right way. Don't cause a split over it.

Have you ever been involved in a war of worship? Did anything positive come out of it?