On any given Sunday morning, you would possibly maybe well maybe plod accurate into a church and journey one thing that feels… familiar. The hazy glow of LED stage lights. The perfectly timed contain of an emotional bridge. The love leader in the trendiest Carhartt jacket, eyes closed, insist cracking on cue. The bass drops. The fog machine whirs. Hands spin up.
It’s bright. It’s noteworthy. It’s effectively-produced. But is it love?
For an extended time, church love has been evolving from a communal act of reverence into one thing that step by step looks more fancy a concert journey. What started as uncomplicated musical expressions of faith sooner or later changed into elephantine-scale manufacturing numbers, entire with industry-customary stage construct and strategic emotional pacing. Esteem grew to change accurate into a genre, then a slip, then an industry. Major love collectives grew to change into household names, writing the soundtracks of church companies and products worldwide. The Sunday morning setlist grew to change into predictable—soft opening, mid-tempo chorus, dramatic contain, emotional bridge, and the final second where the song swells, hands elevate and emotions high.
There’s nothing inherently snide with this. Song has repeatedly been a segment of affection, and emotion is intended to be stirred. But after we rely on a system to generate those emotions, it’s price asking if we’re trying to procure God or staunch chasing the excessive. If the song stops, if the lights go, if the perfectly executed second doesn’t land—are we still worshiping?
This isn’t a critique of smartly-liked love leaders or the impossible artists growing song that moves other folks toward God. It’s a critique of how without effort we, as a church culture, enjoy diminished love to a fastidiously manufactured second in preference to a staunch come across. One of the most valuable most formative moments of faith in history weren’t loud or dramatic. Moses met God in the light of the desert. Elijah heard God now not in the wind, earthquake or fire, however in the still, shrimp insist. Jesus withdrew to desolate places to pray.
Yet someplace along the manner, we started equating non secular depth with emotional intensity. We realized to quiz every love journey to be noteworthy, overwhelming, transcendent. We assumed if we weren’t feeling one thing, then God must now not be bright. But that’s never been the level of affection.
The early church didn’t enjoy love bands, lights or effectively-rehearsed setlists. They gathered in properties, sang hymns, read Scripture and prayed. Their love wasn’t dependent on a mood—it modified into as soon as rooted in reverence and a deep consciousness of God’s presence. That’s the more or less love that sustains faith, even when the wide moments aren’t there.
So how save we get motivate to that?
For starters, we enjoy got to shift how we deem love. It’s now not a efficiency. It’s now not a product to be consumed. It’s now not a spin of emotion designed to create us indubitably feel terminate to God. Esteem is an act of renounce, a response to who God is, whether we indubitably feel it or now not. And that more or less love doesn’t require the very ideal setlist or the correct atmosphere—it requires design.
Which implies that partaking, now not staunch drinking. It means asking if our love is rooted in actuality or staunch an emotional response to a effectively-crafted second. It means trying to procure God beyond the Sunday setlist—studying to love in the light, the extraordinary, the unseen moments. Correct love happens in the auto on the manner to work, in the moments of frustration when patience runs thin, in gratitude for shrimp joys, in picking to belief when faith feels fragile.
It also means church buildings enjoy to rethink how they manner love. Production isn’t the impart, however when manufacturing rate is prioritized over non secular formation, we’re lacking one thing. Are we growing condominium for stillness, for reverence, for love that isn’t driven by adrenaline? Are we equipping other folks to love beyond Sunday morning? Are we instructing a generation of Christians that love is set dismay, now not staunch an journey?
If we’ve spent an extended time comely-tuning church companies and products to be excessive-energy, highly produced occasions, perchance it’s time to steadiness that out. Per chance it’s time to include love that doesn’t rely on the wide second—love that makes condominium for lament, for reflection, for depth. Per chance the correct part we can save is step motivate, let spin of the expectations, and remind ourselves that love isn’t a mark, a enterprise mannequin or a efficiency. It’s a posture.
Because if the song stops, if the energy dies down, if the manufacturing fades—what’s left? If love is real, the acknowledge must always be uncomplicated. God is still there. And so is our love.
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