Doxiemom
July 28th, 2007, 03:12 PM
Now this is just my personal opinion and I admit that I may be quite wrong as I have absolutly no experience with this kind of church.
The protestant churches of today have so many fine preachers. They are masters of Scripture. The churches have talented choirs and the congregations most certainly worship the Lord without reservation, loudly in some cases and physcially like shaking and the such. You have musicians right up there on the platform.
But perhaps this emergent church is a reaction to what may have been missing all along. Not that it is needed- and certainly it has all the earmarks of new age-which usually is old pagan. These people seem to want to escape from the modern world.
I am talking about the quietness of ritual. Ritual was a part of the Jewish faith. Certain things done on specific days. Holy items One could not divorce ritual from being a Jew. Then the early church developed from these rituals a newer form of such. Specific prayers at specific times. Certain rituals on Sunday. The central part of Sunday worship was the ritual of Holy Communion. For sure, they went too far and blended a lot of roman paganism into the judean-christian form.
All this has fallen away since the reformation in the non-liturgical protestant churches.
In the last few years I have begun to hear some of the more prominant preachers of our times talk about bringing back formal blessings at service. The Lord's Supper-holy communion- is being touted as more central also in a service.
Can it be that people are just responding-albeit sometimes wrongly- to a need for ritual? Can it be that the bands and singing and the fiery sermons are not fulfilling a need that God Himself addressed for the Jews?
I say this because if you ask a "catholic" who really has rejected many of offical "catholic" teaching and is far more evanglical why don't they just leave that church but stay and still go to the Mass? They will tell you that it is the quiet reverance, the rite of Holy Communion each week, candles, clerical clothing, that Crucifix. It is just missing from so many other christian churches.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
The protestant churches of today have so many fine preachers. They are masters of Scripture. The churches have talented choirs and the congregations most certainly worship the Lord without reservation, loudly in some cases and physcially like shaking and the such. You have musicians right up there on the platform.
But perhaps this emergent church is a reaction to what may have been missing all along. Not that it is needed- and certainly it has all the earmarks of new age-which usually is old pagan. These people seem to want to escape from the modern world.
I am talking about the quietness of ritual. Ritual was a part of the Jewish faith. Certain things done on specific days. Holy items One could not divorce ritual from being a Jew. Then the early church developed from these rituals a newer form of such. Specific prayers at specific times. Certain rituals on Sunday. The central part of Sunday worship was the ritual of Holy Communion. For sure, they went too far and blended a lot of roman paganism into the judean-christian form.
All this has fallen away since the reformation in the non-liturgical protestant churches.
In the last few years I have begun to hear some of the more prominant preachers of our times talk about bringing back formal blessings at service. The Lord's Supper-holy communion- is being touted as more central also in a service.
Can it be that people are just responding-albeit sometimes wrongly- to a need for ritual? Can it be that the bands and singing and the fiery sermons are not fulfilling a need that God Himself addressed for the Jews?
I say this because if you ask a "catholic" who really has rejected many of offical "catholic" teaching and is far more evanglical why don't they just leave that church but stay and still go to the Mass? They will tell you that it is the quiet reverance, the rite of Holy Communion each week, candles, clerical clothing, that Crucifix. It is just missing from so many other christian churches.
Anyway, just my thoughts.