I still get a newsletter and updates from a church back home in Killeen that I have’t attended in over 8 years — how do they keep finding me??  I’m to lazy to tell them that I’m not coming back haha.  Anyway, recently I got a letter from the pastor of this church that disturbed me a bit.  Some background; the church was pretty much dying, and apparently there was some inner turmoil about the time that this new pastor took charge.  They have nearly twice the number of members than active attenders and were struggling to make ends meet which resulted in the sale of their south campus building.  They have an aging downtown facility which they claim is outdated and will not provide for future growth so they are selling the current facility and building a new bigger and better one soon.  They just kicked off their capital campaign which was the topic of the most recent letter.  In it, the pastor stated:

“Our new facilities will give our church family the space for meaningful worship, Christian education, fellowship, and recreation.  We will have a greater opportunity to share in ministry, outreach, missions, and to invite others to Christ and His church.”

My question, and what I take issue with, is this — can a building influence worship?  Or, SHOULD a building influence worship?  I just don’t buy the tired excuses “I can’t worship to that style of music” or “I can’t get into worship sitting in a pew”.  I think that line of thinking results from a misunderstanding of what worship truly is.  Christian culture has (in my opinion) done a great job of narrowly focusing the definition of worship to what we do on Sunday morning before the sermon.  Terms like, “worship leader” and “worship music” and even “worship service” seem to place more emphasis on the event than on the act or art of worship.

If you cannot worship in an environment, the environment is not the problem; it’s a heart issue.  I cannot imagine “because the drums were too loud” being a valid excuse when Christ asks why we did not worship Him.  “The service was too crowded” doesn’t cut it either.  We are called to worship in spirit and in truth — that call is not environment dependent.