Tradition and Culture

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This past week I gained a new appreciation for tradition and culture. Specifically religious traditions and cultures. Every church had it's own traditions, meaning it's customs and beliefs, Every church has it's own culture, meaning they way their traditions are carried out. Sometimes they are explicitly taught. Sometimes they are unspoken. But they are always there.

This past week it was my turn to provide the content portion of my house church meeting. I decided to focus on prayer, something that I have come to appreciate more and more from my previous church experience. I come from two religious traditions with two different religious cultures. One fairly traditional, Christian Missionary Alliance, and the other charismatic, The Vineyard Christian Fellowship. My experiences on prayer were more shaped by the latter, through small groups, retreats, and all night prayer meetings.

I wanted to share some of my experiences from the past 10 years with my new house church, but I only had one hour to do it. As I struggles with how I might do this I realized that following Jesus is a lot like looking at a sculpture. Our religious tradition and culture help to shape our thoughts on what we see. But if we allow ourselves to move around the room we can see the sculpture from another vantage point, and gain a deeper experience, understanding and appreciation of what we are looking at. We can see those things that are not visible from any another place in the room.

The same is true with religious traditions and cultures. By trying our new and different way of experiencing God we can gain a deeper understanding of him. And by reflecting on our past religious traditions and cultures we can gain a new found appreciation for what we once had even after we have moved on to new experiences and vantage points.