As a three year old I had learned to play quietly off in a corner and not disturb adults as they visited, whether they were working or talking together.  I could make play out of the simplest objects, including Mother’s hairpins. 

The church ladies had gathered together to roll bandages for a leper colony in Africa.  As they settled in, I was quietly taking my hairpin ladies through common activities.  One hairpin lady needed to go to her “kitchen”, which happened to be located in the nearby electrical outlet.  My comfortable world was suddenly disrupted, and my screams brought Mother and her bandage rollers running.  I was rescued and guided toward a safer activity, and the hairpins returned to their original home in Mother’s bureau.

            There is always someone who wants to try something new in a comfortable world.  Sometimes it works, but most often the innovation ends with a screaming defeat, drawing concerned other to the rescue.  But how often do we scold the one who has tried innovation and fails, rather that rallying around them and encouraging them to seek better ways to accomplish their goals?  And if they eventually succeed, do we sit back in our own comfortable world and condemn them for change?

Comfort may confine an infant in a walker, disabling him from exploring possibilities; tradition may trap us into a snare of thinking that old ways are the only ways; familiarity may fetter us with bindings that restrain us from extending hands to others who need us.

Certainly, is no more wrong to enjoy comfort, carry on traditions, or maintain familiar associations than it is to affect changes.  All are equally valid.  On the other hand, when diversity divides over non-essentials, unity is disrupted and wrong ensues.  Further, when innovation crosses the line away from established rules, laws, ethics, or principles, separation is necessary.

Within today’s Church divisiveness over worship style is obscuring the vision of the Church.  Traditions are being trashed on the one hand, and an introduction of a new familiarity is alienating those who hold tenaciously to what some would suggest are five hundred years of tradition.  Somewhere along the line transcendence in worship that rises above the culture has been lost.  Both the traditionalist and the innovator are guilty of creating conflict whereas unity is supposed to be a characteristic of the Church of Jesus Christ.  Compromise is attempted as leaders suggest blending tradition and innovation.  This is missing the point.  One has only to look at a vibrant church—one where people are being changed and where the impact is felt in the community—to see that culture does not dictate this change.  These changes are a result of God’s intervention and not man’s.  The Church is vibrant, not because of her method, but because of her ministry.  Outreach proceeds from the Word of God, praise in word and song, community, sacrifice, and blessing upon the world about us.  These elements comprise true worship in a transcendent form that stabilizes the church community in a way that they can join hands to reach out and evangelize the culture, rather than the culture “evangelizing” the church.

Traditions may serve as a mold, whereas innovation may provide illumination, décor, or enrichment to what is forged by the mold.  The Church is an organism that needs the mold of truth and the means to perpetuate that truth.  To remain in the mold is like remaining in a walker after we have learned to walk.  The imprint of the mold is upon the Church, but the innovations paint it, illuminate it, and enrich it in ways that reach beyond the past and embrace the future.

Embracing either the culture or clinging to the past are both counterproductive.  Change is inevitable but must not have a life of its own.  Tradition is only as good as the product it preserves.  The Church is timeless because God’s Word is timeless.  God does not change and neither does His message.  Tradition and innovation must recognize their purpose which is never contrary to that timelessness that transcends culture.  Transcendence includes a stability—a liturgy, perhaps—that rises above the common thought and diverse opinion. 

As either gray-headed traditionalists or trendy innovators, what are we doing to provide that screaming spark to demonstrate God’s strength and power to the children of tomorrow?