Accepting Diversity in our Corporate Worship
Spiritual dynamics begin with a commitment to and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Beyond this beginning point, however, we as a church possess great diversity. The individuals and families of Faith Community Baptist come from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences.
As the church’s elders’ board, we believe God has given us the diversity we have. New participants are coming and choosing to join us regularly in Sunday worship in spite of our diversity, because they sense that God is in what is happening among us.
An initial question of newcomers is an obvious one: “Among this diversity, where is the church in its practice of worship?” We cannot answer this question with a quick reply because of our diverse backgrounds. There is no universal terminology that fits this discussion. Therefore we as an elder’s board thought it would be helpful to give some affirmations of where we see ourselves at present.
With regard to spiritual diversity and its outworking among our church, we see the following applications:
- That unity and our diverse mix of believers comes from the Holy Spirit, and we choose to cherish both.
- That the resurrected Jesus Christ is actively working in our midst today, infiltrating and intervening continually through His Holy Spirit.
- That each individual’s experience of Christ may be rich, but is not as full as it shall be as we continue to be individually responsive to God.
- That we as a congregation are to desire to be open to the Lord’s leadership and to be experiencing more of Christ on an ongoing basis.
- That true worship may or may not be expressed in a visual manner. Individuals are welcome to worship in a manner they feel comfortable and spiritually challenged.
- That unity does not come through uniformity.
- That it is the privilege of participants to believe or affirm another’s spiritual experience.
- That the exercising of the gifts of the Spirit must be in harmony with the fruits of the Spirit.
- That the gifts of the Spirit belong to individuals, but within church ministry situations those individuals and their gifts are to be accountable to the church’s leadership.
- That patient discernment by the congregation needs to accompany our openness to diversity of spiritual expression.