Recently, I have been thinking about a church in Canada that is currently struggling with unity. Several years ago, they made the decision to begin a Youth/Young Adult worship service on Sunday nights. It started well and soon drew a large congregation of younger people, but after a while, this became the only service that these younger people were attending. The Youth/Young Adult service has since become more and more trendy, continually cutting down message time, and the Sunday morning service has become more and more traditional, drawing mostly families and older people. As a result, the church’s congregation has become polarized. Grandparents and parents no longer worship alongside young people and vice versa. I wonder how this affects us as God’s people.

At Bethany, it has been vitally important to keep all of our age groups together in our services. As time has passed, I have been so thankful for this value and the theology behind it. Working within its margins has shaped the way I understand community worship and the God behind it. We are meant to learn from and inspire each other in the way we communicate with God—whether it be in the excitement of new-found hope or the steadiness of deep faith that only comes through years of knowing God’s faithfulness. Many of you have expressed that the feeling of community we have at Bethany has been blessed by God as we all “give a little” to look towards each other’s interests and passions. The people of God serving, loving and worshipping together is a beautiful thing.
I believe this value has taught us, as God’s people at Bethany Community Church, to honour each other’s diversity and interests, knowing that we all connect with God in different ways. Gifted artists, dancers, actors, musicians, technical artists and speakers can all express how God is touching their lives in their own medium. We can all learn something from each other and bring glory to God. For this is the purpose of the priesthood of all believers, “that [we] may declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  (1 Peter 2:9, NIV)