Adventist styles of worship
by Bert B. Beach
As I become acquainted with different cultures, I
am intrigued by the broad variety of Adventist styles of worship. I expect
that these varieties will increase as the Seventh-day Adventist Church
grows steadily around the world. Are there any principles that can guide
us in connecting culture with worship?
History shows that culture greatly influences worship.
While the community of faith in its worship is not to be of the world,
the church, nevertheless, exists in the world and that worship takes place
in a cultural setting. In that context, we may take into account five
principles regarding Adventist worship and culture:
- Adventist worship is transcultural. Christ and the
eternal gospel transcend culture. While the Christian message is preached
in a cultural setting, it must overcome the setting and transcend the
limitations of culture. The gospel is eternal, but culture is tied to
time. The gospel is “ecumenical”; that is, it must reach
the whole world.
- Adventist worship is contextual. The form of worship
adopted in any given locality will incorporate components from the local
culture. Great care must be taken to ensure that this contextualization
does not include elements that are incongruous to the gospel of salvation.
At the same time, it is important to place the gospel and Christian
worship in the context of the culture in which they occur. Some theologians
use the term incarnation to describe this process. Whatever the term,
worship should not adapt to culture, but should adopt helpful elements
in a culture to aid in the communication of the gospel.
- Adventist worship is counter-cultural. What this
means is that worship must not conform to the world, but must transform
the worshipers and their culture. While worship is not necessarily anti-culture,
we must realize that there are components of culture that are contrary
to the Christian norm and mandate, and therefore must be rejected. Where
such is the case, the church and her worship may have to speak against
certain cultural practices and issue a call to “come out”
of cultural Babylon.
- Adventist worship is cross-cultural. Christianity
cannot be limited to one cultural expression, to one nation, to one
ethnic group, or to one language. It is counterproductive to refer to
a church as “American,” “suburban,” “Latin,”
or any other such limiting prefixes. Culture is limited by space, but
the gospel in worship knows no longitudes or latitudes.
- Adventist worship is multicultural. Even in its
local setting, the church need not be identified with one given culture,
language, or economic stratum of society. The church must be multicultural
and provide a worship that serves varied cultural backgrounds. The better
the church accomplishes this, the more effective will be her evangelistic
and service outreach. After all, the Lord of the church Himself emphasized
that His church was to be “a house of prayer for all peoples”
(Isaiah 56:7, NRSV).
Bert B. Beach (Ph.D., University of Paris, Sorbonne)
is the director of inter-church relations at the world headquarters of
the Seventh-day Adventist Church. His address: 12501 Old Columbia Pike;
Silver Spring, Maryland 20904; U.S.A.
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