Contemporary vs. Traditional Churches

Reposted from a comment I left at  http://sovereigngod.wordpress.com/

There was an assertion that I and other contemporary church advocates dislike or don’t respect traditional churches. Actually I don’t have a problem with traditional churches.  I have probably been in one of those far more than the church I attend now. I feel more connected to my current church and I always find myself learning from the messages.

I think the difference for me is that when one of the large or small traditional churches in our town says that they had (X) number of people receive Christ my first instinct is to think man that is awesome.  I think isn’t it amazing that God can use so many different types of churches to achieve the same results. 

We don’t want someone to just attend our church….If they don’t like it or feel like they can be a part of what we are doing we want them to go to another contemporary or traditional church.  Our main objective as a church is to see the 60,000 unchurched people in our community find a church home whether it be ours our someone else’s.

 I don’t think most of the folks at Old Truth (that I interacted with) could honestly make that same claim.  I don’t want ours to be the only kind of church but I don’t want to have to constantly defend its right to exist and do the mission of God either. 

Anything that minimizes the work of the Holy Spirit in my view is probably a bad thing for the Christian Church at large.  We as a faith are under constant attack from government, special interest groups, and in the most extreme case radical fundamentalists who would like to see Christianity removed from the earth. The amount of time devoted to tearing down other churches and ministries from these “Theologically Puritan” web-sites astounds me. 

For all of the labeling and criticism that the contemporary church movement gets…..We are far more complimentary of our fellow churches that what we get in return.  I think that it is far less important for a lost person to understand Calvinism, Arminianism or some other deep seeded doctrinal truth. They need to know that sin separates them from a Holy God and that asking Jesus to save them and repenting of past sin is the way to eternal salvation. 

I don’t claim to be the smartest person to ever post a blog but I do care about other people and their choice to follow or ignore Jesus.  I am proud of the work we are doing at Oakleaf Church and I welcome all who want to learn more about Jesus and be challenged in their lives.