I’m reading the autobiographical Time to be in Earnest by P. D. James. She’s the author of the mystery novels featuring Commander Dalgleish of Scotland Yard. My life and hers have little in common. I’ve never written a best-seller or been elevated to the peerage. But there is this:

“It was King’s College Chapel which, during those years of early adolescence, provided me my most meaningful religious experience. . . . I can recall the solemnity, the grandeur and beauty of the building, the high soaring magnificence of the roof, the candle-lit gloom, the decorous procession of the boys of the choir, the order and the beauty of the traditional service.”

I have seen videos of services at King’s College. They would have moved me in the same way when I was in my teens, but would have left many of my peers cold. That worship would probably leave many contemporary Christians flat, but it would inspire me.

As a pastor, I constantly faced the challenge of people with different perspectives on worship. I lost one family because we had communion every Sunday and another because the choir used a tambourine in one anthem.

I don’t know how to resolve the differences among people in worship style preferences. I can only tell people that we are all trying to “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9a) and we must deal with each other in “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).

Worship the Lord, all you saints, as best you can.

Read Psalm 96 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne