Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, FL recently announced they were combining their separate contemporary and traditional services into one blended worship experience. As reported in The Christian Post, the reason for this change was to reveal the power of the Gospel to create unity within the congregation.
“The best way a church can demonstrate the unifying power of the Gospel before our very segregated world is to maintain a community that transcends cultural barriers,” Coral Ridge’s pastor Tullian Tchividjian said in a sermon earlier this month. “The church should be the one institution, the one community—this countercultural community—in our world that breaks barriers down.”
Tchividjian, grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, has lamented that “segregation seems to be as prevalent inside the church as it is outside.” He claims that many churches in the U.S. are following the lead of the advertising world by targeting specific age groups and employing a separate contemporary and traditional worship services model.
Do segregated worship gatherings hurt the church? What do you think?
