Decidedly Un-Hip

The church gathered is not about dispensing information, like a lecture hall, or for cheering those in attendance, like a pep rally. It is a formative encounter, where we are to be shaped in the image of God.

Liturgy is the dreaded “L” word of evangelicalism, but it is through the repeated acts of worship that we are shaped. I don’t know that one sermon and one service can change anytbody, but over several years, we are changed. As Dallas Willard says, we need to do the disciplines together—silence, confession, affirming truth together. When we hear the word, not as an expository distribution of information, but proclaimed over us, the word shapes us.

Admittedly we are fighting an uphill battle as we seek to worship in ways that don’t encourage consumerism. At one point in our church’s life, it was as if liturgy was becoming hip. People were coming to experience it but not to be changed by it. So we made a few changes. We arranged the chairs around the altar—in the round—so that the “up front” aspect of preaching is deemphasized. We have four pastors who share the preaching responsibility, so we don’t make the sermon a “show.” We ask the speakers to wear black when they preach, so that speaking is not about us, but about Jesus, and we minimize the personality-driven aspect of preaching.

And we tell newcomers to the church the things they should NOT expect from a missional church—which is often the very things they expect from their church experience.

—David Fitch, Life on the Vine Long Grove, Illinois