Do "THEY" like chicken nuggets or steak?

So to piggy back on my last blog, I thought I would share my thoughts on the idea of setting a feast for a congregation. This is not my original idea by any means but it is an idea that has settled in my heart as truth. People have different ideas about what they should feed their children. Some say totally organic, some say who cares, some say they will eat what everyone else is eating and some say give them what they want. But we would all agree that children need to eat. We have tended to tell our children that you eat what is served and if you don't like it you won't starve and there will probably be something that you will eventually eat. We also believe this is incentive for our kids to try new things. They often prefer this to eating nothing. I think it has been a fairly successful philosophy as we have watched each of them not like things only to find that they really do. Anyway, that said, if I asked my youngest child what she wanted for dinner every night, she would probably say bean burrito or chicken nuggets. With an occassional pizza thrown in, she would be set for life. As a parent, however, it is important for me to present her with other options. To have her eat vegetables, fruit, steak, pasta, fish. It is my job to expose her to the variety, which is food.

So if we look at most congregations we could ask them on any given Sunday, "When you come to church, what do you want?" Or another way to say it, "What do you want to eat?" I am sure that you would get many different answers. So our options as leaders are to say to them, "Well, we only serve chicken nuggets here. So if you like chicken nuggets, then you are in the right place! Now we might serve different sauces with the chicken and sometimes we will throw in a dessert. But what you can expect from our service is chicken." The positives are that people know what to expect. They can invite their friends and say, "This is the best chicken anywhere and I want you to try it!" It gives a chance to refine our recipe and not have so much on the menu that nothing tastes good. There are good things to being an all chicken service.

On the other hand sometimes it is nice to go places where i have a choice. Where I can eat chicken one week and steak the next. There might be things I don't particularly want to eat, but I know there will be something that will taste wonderful. I come to the service with expectancy because i don't know what the special of the day will be. I know it will be good because the chef is the same but it might stretch my taste buds if it is a new delicacy. I might even turn my nose up at first glance, but upon tasting, will be pleasantly suprised. I think the positives are that I don't get comfortable and bored with the same thing every week. I am excited to experience new things. It forces me to understand that we are all different and just because I like something doesn't mean everyone else does. If we set a feast then doesn't everyone get a chance to taste and enjoy something?

So as you think about worship services. What do you like? Do you like to taste the same thing or do you like variety? Is it our job, as worship leaders, to give them what they want or to expose them to the variety of tastes available to them?