More from the cutting room floor

Here's another piece I've picked up from the cutting room that didn't make it into my book. This one is from chapter 9 - "Introverts in Church" - and it was cut because I was reiterating other parts of the book:

Some introverts will find that "contemporary" worship services are not fitting environments for them. The chatter and overall ubiquity of words, the overt enthusiasm, the social informality, and the call for public displays of devotion may all contribute to a general uneasiness. My wife and I attended a large evangelical church last year where they handed out kazoos before the beginning of a service. The worship leader explained that just as David danced before the Lord, so should our worship be childlike and shameless. Matt Redman has written that "Our Heavenly Father loves us with an extravagant abandon. Passionate, undignified worship is our only reasonable response."(1) Although introverts are capable of emotional and celebrative displays of worship, "passionate" and "undignified" would generally be exceptions. Churches that seek these kinds of responses, and elevate them to the pinnacle of Christian experience, run the risk of alienating introverts.


(1) Matt Redman, The Unquenchable Worshipper, p. 44.