At our church, we talk about how fun personal preferences are, and how cool it is that God has given us 168 hours a week and how in most weeks, we are allowed to engage with our favorite music, our favorite books and sermons and Bible passages for around 165 of them.

For about 3 hours on Sunday morning, we are going to invite you to engage in a touch challenge – to worship and serve IN COMMUNITY.

To worship and serve in community requires most of us, most of the time, to NOT get to experience our very favorites.

Rarely do the elders or pastors or worship leaders call us during the week to make sure they are teaching from our favorite passages or singing our favorite songs/psalms/ spirituals/folk music/gospels/hymns/praise music/instrumentals/special music, etc. using our favorite instruments at our favorite volume.

I am the pastor of a church and I don’t get that call either.

So, set your Spotify or iTunes or vinyl however you like them for 165 hours a week.

Instead, when we come to worship in community, we are trying to determine what they believe that God has for us.  Worship is about seeing what God has for us and communicating with our lives and words what we realize have in & from Him.

In community, this has to be a partnership of leading and following… and sacrificing our own preferences, tastes and styles.

So often, there are people who hop from local church to church in an effort to appease their appetites for their own personal preferences.

This can even apply to some theological topics.

Years ago, I found my Summa Theologica – the massive theology paper I wrote to pass my theology classes in seminary.

When I read it, I found that I disagreed with much of it.

Most of it was fine in regard to the Basics (I only danced with heresy in one section, in my opinion), but I would disagree in places with a pastor who taught from it today… and that was me.

Precisely how a teacher stands on topics that may be important to us but are not doctrinal deal-breakers (age of the Earth, eschatology, favorite passages to teach, etc.) may be something that we need to deal with rather than switch every time we have a teacher who has a different view on a non-essential.  At least, consider whether the issue is just a preference or a Basic.

So, when something isn’t going the way you like it, consider whether it is merely a preference.  Is it worthy of a conversation?  Maybe.