Segregation In Worship Is Alive And Thriving
Posted July 7th, 2008 by Tullian Tchividjian

(Here’s an excerpt from a chapter for Unfashionable that I finished on Saturday. I’m getting close to the finish line!)

The work of God the Son reconciling us to God the Father is to result in the reconciliation of people to one another. When we come to God through repentance and faith in Christ, one result is that we come into a new relationship with God’s people—many of whom are quite different than we are (some of my closest friends today are people who I would have never hung out with in high school). In Romans 10, Paul argued for the Gentiles’ place in God’s redemptive plan when he said, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon him” (Rom. 10:12). Also, in Galatians where Paul decried certain Jewish leaders for teaching that the sign of circumcision was a condition for justification, he said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). And then in Colossians 3:11, Paul addressed class distinctions which were threatening to divide the church by declaring the new creation in Christ—a newness in which “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” In these ways, Paul affirms a foundational reality that always accompanies true Gospel belief: When God makes us one with Christ he also makes us one with each other.

This means that, in contrast to the tribal-mindedness of the world around us, the church is to be the one social structure in our segregated culture that brings people together who, in any other sector of society, would remain separated. Our society groups people together according to fundamentally worldly notions of class, race, economics, age, and so on. These divisions prove to be root sources of loneliness, fragmentation, and alienation in the modern world. Their effects are ones which the Church should strive against in establishing a new community. For, the Gospel is not simply the good news that God reconciles us to himself, but also to one another. Therefore, the church should be the one community breaking down barriers—not erecting them. God intends the church to be demonstrating what surrounding communities could look like where God’s reconciling power is at work. Sadly, however, the church is often as tribal as the world.

Most churches would agree that racial or economic segregation runs contrary to the very nature of the Gospel. Most would also acknowledge that any sort of class bigotry is antithetical to the Gospel and should therefore not be tolerated. But there’s another, perhaps more subtle, type of segregation that many churches today have actually adopted and embraced. Following the lead of the advertising world, many churches today (and more specifically worship services) are targeting specific age groups to the exclusion of others. For years now churches have been organizing themselves around generational distinctives: busters, boomers, Generations X, Y, and Z. Many churches offer a “traditional service” for the tribe who prefers old music and a “contemporary service” for the tribe who prefers new music. I understand the good intentions behind some of these efforts but something as seemingly harmless as this evidences a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the Gospel. When we offer, for instance, a contemporary worship service for the younger people and a traditional worship service for the older people, we are not only feeding tribalism (which is a toxic form of racism) but we are saying that the Gospel can’t successfully bring these two different groups together. It is a declaration of doubt in the reconciling power of God’s Gospel. Generational appeal in worship is an unintentional admission that the Gospel is powerless to “join together” what man has separated. Plainly stated, building the church on age appeal (whether old or young) or stylistic preferences is as contrary to the reconciling effect of the Gospel as building it on class, race, or gender distinctions. Negatively, when the church segregates people according to generation, race, style, or socio-economic status, we exhibit our disbelief in the reconciling power of the Gospel. Positively, one of the prime evidences of God’s power to our segregated world is a congregation which transcends cultural barriers, including age.