Have been going on for a long time. They still exist. We Christians have a long and inglorious history (that even predates the existence of Christians) of arguing over the nature and practice of worship.
This mountain or that mountain?
Your city or our city?
This building or that building? Or no building at all?
This liturgy or that liturgy? Or no liturgy?
Formal or informal?
Traditional instruments or contemporary instruments? Or no instruments at all?
Psalms or hymns or spiritual songs or pop songs?
Arranged or spontaneous?
Lights on or lights off? Or somewhere in between?
Long or short?
Loud or quiet?
As one who loves worship and has been deeply formed by worship, I humbly suggest that if any of these questions (or similar ones) are a big deal in your circle, then you’re having the wrong conversation. Not that some of these aren’t worth talking about. They are. But they don’t matter as much as we think we do. In fact, in the end, I think that the sum total of how much any of this matters is zero.
We at least ought to have more central in the mix the kinds of qualifiers that came to Jesus’ mind when he thought about worship:
Spirit or flesh?
Truth or falsehood?
Spend more intentional time unpacking what those might mean, what they might look like in practice, and I suspect all those other conversations will fall into their proper place. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
