For those of you that know me well, one thing you would certainly not say is that I’m a traditional kind of guy. I don’t sit still long enough to establish traditions. I love to try new things with the intent of meeting and connecting with new people. I’m one of those blaze your own trail kind of guys. Or to quote another phrase grass doesn’t grow under my feet.
All of that said I’m actually more traditional than you may realize. Some traditions are just good. Take for instance our day after Thanksgiving tradition. Every year on Friday we cart the tree, decorations, and other festive paraphernalia out of the basement and begin to deck the halls. We don’t do it the day after Halloween like many of our neighbors. And it’s all taken back down on Epiphany, unless my schedule is going crazy and we’ll take it down as close to that date as possible.
Or there’s the tradition of daddy’s tree. I’m a bit of a tree snob. I really don’t like all of those crazy and often gaudy ornaments all over the tree. I’m a traditional tree kind of guy. I like my tree with white lights, silver and red ornaments in varying sizes, and a nice translucent ribbon wrapped from top to bottom.
Then there’s the old 
chocolate
advent calendars. I used to get
these on the first day of December every year as early in my childhood as I can remember. Every night after dinner we’d open another door getting us one day closer to Christmas.
But what’s the purpose of tradition, especially for a person who loves new things and likes to think outside the box? Well tradition is actually a great foundation. Take the Christmas tree for instance. We decorate the tree in similar fashion every year. It’s the anchor of our Christmas celebration. But everything else about our decorations for Christmas changes. I don’t think we’ve ever done the same thing for decorations two years in a row with the exception of our tree.
The same is true for other traditions. The traditions in worship are there to act as anchors for the rest of worship. The traditions aren’t really the hows and whats of worship but the whys of worship. Some people like to focus on the forms of worship – all of the parts and pieces of it. They ask questions like are we using the hymnal or some creative expression of worship? But that’s really not a question of tradition but more of form. I tend to be traditional when it comes to the function of worship. What is worship intended to do?
When we can first answer the question about the function of worship then we’ll be better able to address the issue of what it looks like. So often we get too wrapped up in the hows and whats of worship and completely forget why we do it in the first place.
Take some time as we end this year to ask why. Find out why you do the things you do. Seek answers the fundamental heart question why. Then let the answer to that question help shape creative, new expressions in how you do what you do.
Do you know your why?
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