I am part of the worship team for an alternative worship service at Trinity Lutheran Church, an ELCA Lutheran church. This service is a mostly lay-led worship that includes contemporary praise songs, audio and video media and often times hands-on elements to give it an interactive feel.
The question was raised by our Associate In Ministry who is in charge of evangelism. He and our interim pastor have called into question our motives with our service and the "theology" which is presented. We've been told that our music and our message rings of "decision theology" and that we are "leaning towards evangelical or fundamentalist thinking."
I don't get it!
Our service is designed to be an outreach to people who either are uncomfortable with traditional church worship or who have never been to church before and that might be intimidated by a traditional worship style.
The message we teach is simple...you and I are saved because "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16), that we "must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39) and finally that we are to "go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19)That's it...it doesn't get much simpler than that. We are saved so, let's love God, love each other and tell EVERYONE about it!
Do you have to do these things to be saved? No, you've ALL already been saved, that's the GOOD NEWS! But in knowing that you are saved, my prayer is that you would "give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. And use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God." (Romans 6:13)
Peace
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