I have been having some conversations recently with people. Some conversations about church. What is church? How should it work? What is a “worship service?” Is the American tradition of singing songs in church appropriate? If so, what kind of songs? Hymns? Praise Choruses? Rock ballads? All these questions and more.
As someone who is actively involved in my church, East Valley Bible Church or EVBC for short, I want to constantly be evaluating where my church is and involve myself in accordance. The topic of Sunday46, our two evening services, has been something I have been thinking about with some fervor. For those of you not intimately familiar with what Sunday46 is, they are “modern” style services at our church. At these services, the music is loud, the songs have rhythm, and sometimes, people have been caught dancing. Not a “Hey, look-at-me dance,” but a, “I’m-excited-to-be-here-slightly jumping-in-place-dance.” The room is full of energy, which one could say is fostered by the environment. The question that I have always asked of this is, why? Why do we have a “modern” worship service? Why do we have more than one style at all? And perhaps most importantly, why do we need to call it something? Why does it have to have a name? Why can’t it just be the 6 o’clock service at EVBC? Why do we feel the need to differentiate it from the rest? Why don’t we have Sunday 8:301146? (Those are the other service times.)
Here is some background for where “Sunday 46” came from.
We used to have a Wednesday night youth event called Fuel. Before that, it was Rock.com. Rock.com was an attempt at having a stereotypical “outreach” night for the student ministries. It was a time where you were encouraged to bring your friends while our teaching team, through the exposition of scripture, talked about what the Bible had to say on issues like relevant to a Jr./Sr. High school student. Fuel changed gears a little. We took the focus off outreach and placed it on believers. Fuel was a no-holds-barred rocking “youth service.” It wasn’t intended for non-believers, although if they came they would hear the gospel over and over. Fuel was a time of “modern” worship songs and then solid teaching from the book of Acts. The teaching team, specifically Tim Maughn, went through the book of Acts slowly and with an excellent exegesis.
All during this time, the elder board was meeting. They came to Fuel, they saw some of the passion with which students expressed their worship of God. Not only through song, but through the careful study of his word. The elder board began thinking, “what if we had adults here?” “What if some of the parents of these children saw their passion for God?” “What if…?” Thus was born what is now called Sunday46. Fuel as it was, eradicated and replaced with more small group time for student ministries (a decision I thought was long past due). Sunday46 is a couple services at EVBC that have a certain style. This “style” is conducive to a “free” environment. What I mean by that is their intention is to create a place where parents, children, young and old, can and will all worship together. Not only worship together through song, but the study of his word and through the solid expository teaching of it.
The question that this raises is an interesting one. Why? Weren’t the services before sufficient? Or is music that big of a deal? What is the purpose of church? Is it for enjoyment or the exhorting of God’s name? Should you have different styles of a service? The elder board wanted to try it out, and Sunday46 has become a very popular service each week(We have on some nights, in excess of 800 people there. With only 652 chairs.). These discourses are things I have done before with people, but I need to have them again.
I do know one thing, when solid churches take even the smallest of cues from the ECM. One has to ask the questions.
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