People often write about worshiping in diversity when it comes to age, race, ethnicity, politics, etc. But what about diverse theology?

Most people assume that a church community has a unified theology, especially within denominational churches. In non-denominational churches the theology of the community is often set by leadership and tiers of theology are created, with the prescribed theology reigning and those who have theological differences are often separated or not allowed in higher leadership positions. You just don't really have an elder board of five-point Calvinists invite a person leading a small group on Arminianism to join the elder board. In most cases the person with the divergent theology is not belittled or scorned, they are just implicitly not allowed to be in a presiding role over the church.

Yet, the intended purpose of non-denominationalism is to have diversity and a loose hierarchical structure. Without specific doctrine statements on theological issues that go beyond a vague Evangelical Orthodoxy (which is usually a definition based on not being a church that is mainline, Catholic, or liberal) the non-denominational church should become more open to theological diversity within the community.

This train of thought came to me as I was reflecting on the liturgical service my non-denominational church had this past Sunday. Namely: what is happening during communion if half of the congregation is taking it as sacrament and the other half as ordinance? Is the Table divided or not ? (For my thoughts on this see my post The Table Surpasses Theology.)

So how do we worship in diverse theology? In four ways:

1) The church should be welcoming of differing voices of theology from the puplit as long as they do not disagree with the doctrinal statement of the church or with the norming norm of orthodoxy, particularly the Apostles Creed or a confessional statement.

2) The church should not be scared that a certain theological camp will run the congregation into the ground.

3) The church should stress the unity of differing theological views in Christ. Having a diversity of theological views should always come back to seeing Christ as revealed by the Word and Spirit as the foundation of theological discussion. If a theological discussion does not start with the centrality of Christ it is misguided from the beginning.

4) The church should take time to explain the theology behind the music, preaching, and prayers of the worship service. This is probably the hardest and most eye-opening task for a congregation, especially when a church begins to discover the songs they sung because they were hip and sounded cool have little theological significance or, God forbid!, the song's lyrics convey a theology that is counter to the beliefs of the community. If the song was being sung in the first place, what does that say about the theological diversity of the church or the preparation and thought that goes into worship?