Traditional Service Vs Contemporary Service

I was listening to the Wired Jesus podcast recently and hearing Tom reflect over the battle that often emerges in churches between doing the Sunday service in a traditional way or a contemporary way. A battle that for most mainline denominations always falls in the traditional way camp, with the occasional groovy service pitched so perfectly in the middle that both traditionalists and contemporaries walk away feeling like the service just wasn’t for them. As someone who has worked for a mainline church, attends a mainline church and has a lot of respect for the traditions of church I was thinking if I had a group of over 50’s wanting to do church one way and group of under 20’s wanting to do it another way which would I choose?

I’d choose the under 20’s way, which will most likely be nothing like either the over 50’s ideal or even my own mid 30s ideal. Why? Well it’s simple if I had two groups of people one who was very mature and strong in their faith and one who was younger and more fragile in their faith I would choose a service that would best minister to those who were younger and more fragile – which would almost always be the under 20 crowd. Those who were over 50 I would encourage to live a more churchless faith. To look back on the life’s well of resources and draw on that, this maybe just by them selves but more likely it would be joining together to help each other. The Sunday morning service would then become a time of mission where they would immerse themselves in a new culture and serve those in need there. There will be those who say that “this is not the way we do things in this denomination”. I’m not sure how I would maturely respond to that the temptation would be to get on my high horse and say that church has to connect with those on the fringes. Before anyone says so I should say that yes I do realise that church is more than the Sunday service, but the reailty is that for some in the church and most out of the church this is the flagship event of the church that says to others “this is what we are about”.