A while back, I preached in a City Church.After the meeting, some elderly people wanted to talk with me.They told me that the history of this Church is longer than 50 years.A few years ago, the sermons were quite conventional.But after the graduation of a student majored in piano, the worship and praise began to become popular .The Church then became quite active on Sunday, when a large group of young people would jump and cry on the stage. The elderly people found this kind of worship and praise quite different from the belief in Jesus of their time, and this different form is what represented secularity at that time."When I open my eyes, I know I am at church. When I close my eyes, I suspect I was in a ballroom."That is their view of the worship and praise. However, because of the attraction of this approach to a lot of new young participants, they just grudgingly acknowledged this new form instead of stating any clear prohibition.
The Christian worship and praise in this period is actually from South Korea.Due to the influence of the social music, they use popular music singing methods with the strong rhythm of electronic musical instruments, accompany the songs with some with plain and sensitive lyrics and lead the audience affectionately singing along with waving and raising their hands and other actions. Some churches will set light and smoke to reflect the atmosphere. The worship and praise is very different from the traditional hymns. In terms of the content, the traditional hymns are slower, while the poetries of worship and praise are more rapid. The traditional hymns are more graceful and implicative, while the poetries of worship and praise are more sensitive.The traditional hymns are apparent religious music, while the poetries of worship and praise are very difficult to be distinguished from the secular music without their lyrics. So the trend of worship and praise became popular as soon as it was dug out. Because it is a way that does attract many young people, many churches have changed the way of worship to the worship and praise.
Today I shall not discuss whether "the worship and praise" is right or not with you.What will be mainly discussed is how the elderly marginalized by "the worship and praise" should be shepherded. As everyone knows, the older generation of Christians think differently from the young people in Church nowadays. Many of them began to believe Jesus from their childhood. What they were taught to do to believe Jesus was unlike the worship and praise today and even could be said to be the opposite. For example, when I read the biography of Watchman Nee, I found in the older generation's opinion, the faith was supposed to do everything deliberately in a way that was contrary with the world. For instance, after Nee joined Methodist Seminary, he was continuously educated by the preachers for he loved to wear "good-looking" clothes, and he was said to love the secularity because of his love of eat ing"delicious" food. In that situation, believing Jesus meant learning to suffer, which is somewhat similar to the idea of "People get closer to God in suffering" in Dostoevsky's works.That kind of idea is also similar to "Theology of the Cross " of Luther. But today that kind of idea has almost been uprooted, which makes the elderly believers feel confused in the Church, and even doubt if they made the wrong choices. That is what we need to think about.
It is more difficult to change the idea than to change the activity.On the one hand there are indeed more young people in the Church, which the elderly people are very happy about. But on the other hand, the idea of them is suffering from a violent impact and always stays in a contradiction. It can be described as "pain and happiness".Some Churches strategically transfer to the main object to the young people and marginalize the elderly believers. This kind of shepherd is not correct. Faced up with the marginalization of the elderly in society today, we can not bring this kind of marginalization into the Church. So we need to make balance in the strategy and try to prevent the elderly from feeling that they are outsiders in the worship of the Church.
The reason why I talk about this talk with the elderly people is that I have believed Jesus for many years before the trend of the worship and praise and the way of worship as the praise and worship is also a "marginalizing" revolution for me. So when I sometime notice there is time for "the worship and praise" during a worship in some Churches, I can't help shrinking back. Because the impact on the idea is difficult to be changed, and those who began to believe Jesus after the trend of the praise and worship trend have difficulty understanding the faith of "the elderly people" like me? As a marginalized person myself, I have a very good sense of identity with what those elderly people said, and I clearly know that the Church does not have a reasonable arrangement for their needs.
Actually, there was an incident focusing on those who were marginalized in the Bible, which was recorded in Acts of the Apostles.It was recorded that "now in those days, when the number of the disciples was increasing, protests were made by the Greek Jews against the Hebrews, because their widows were not taken care of in the distribution of food every day.And the Apostles sent for all the disciples and said, It is not right for us to give up preaching the word of God in order to make distribution of food.Take then from among you seven men of good name, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, to whom we may give control of this business.Then we will give all our time to prayer and the teaching of the word.And this saying was pleasing to all of them: and they made selection of Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolas of Antioch, who had become a Jew:These they took to the Apostles, who, after prayer, put their hands on them.And the word of God was increasing in power; and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem became very great, and a great number of priests were in agreement with the faith."（Acts 6:1-7）
It is unavoidable that someone would be marginalized in the Church, which requires the shepherd to have the keen eyes. It is a mistake that we do not think about those who are marginalized until they are totally desperate. Instead, we should come up with the solution as soon as the problem comes out. It is recorded in the Proverbs that "take care to have knowledge about the condition of your flocks, looking well after your herd"(27:23) The keen eyes are indispensable. Don't come to realize after a sheep died because of injury. Don't get to know after a cow fell because of illness. Make a reasonable solution for the problem before it breaks out.
Rejecting and pretending to be fine can not solve the problems. Just like the elderly people in front of me. Why did they talk about this with a stranger? I just gave a sermon to them and they consider me as their brother. However, what if I were a heretic? This incident actually makes me shudder.
(The author is a preacher in Henan Province.)
