How cultural is our expression of the Christian faith? How much is our way of doing things – our Sunday services in particular – a sub-culture among other Christian sub-cultures? Some jumbled thoughts for you today because of the sad experience I recently had.

I attended a ‘big meeting’ or as we say in Welsh, ‘cyrddau mawr’. The cyrddau mawr is the annual preaching festival that many a nonconformist chapel would hold as part of their diary of events during the year – though they are far less common than they used to be. For Welsh speaking nonconformity the cyrddau mawr were the highlight of the year and would be more important than some of the established events of the Christian calendar – like Christmas. (In some chapels the cyrddau mawr would be held to coincide with the date of a Christian festival – Ascension Day being one example.)

The only real difference between a cyrddau mawr meeting and any other Sunday worship service was that the preacher would be one of the denomination’s big guns. The top preachers would be invited and a feast of preaching was expected. In the meeting I attended (not as the preacher!) all the expected elements were present and as an example of cyrddau mawr it was of a high rating indeed.

What we have here, of course, is a sub-cultural expression of the Christian faith. Now that in itself is not a bad thing. We all do it; we all have our sub-culture within church. Theirs is a hymn-sandwich with an emphasis on preaching the word, where the only congregational participation is in the singing of the hymns. It is quite formal in its appearance and it all happens through the medium of Welsh, though there are similar examples where the language is different. It is a highly appealing sub-culture to a small cohort of people that is getting smaller. And because of this it is a sub-culture that is slowly dying out. There were only some 20 people or so gathered in a chapel that sits 6-800 – a deeply depressing scenario.
But as I said, we all belong to a particular sub-culture within the church. We all have our set ways of doing things; our set theology; our set worship styles etc. The church has become – maybe it always has been – a collection of sub-cultural expressions of the faith. And who are any of us to say that one is better or more in tune with the Bible or indeed with God than any other?

The danger comes when we decide that our sub-culture is God’s answer for the struggling Western church and as a result close our doors to any other influence. For once that happens we will see what all sub-cultures that have closed the doors have seen – a slow and painful decline leading to death.

Is your sub-cultural expression of church open or closed to new influences? Which doors will you allow to be opened and which will you not allow?


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