You Don't Have to Be Hip

Several years ago, I took my family on a vacation to Orlando. While we were there, I made the decision to visit a church on Sunday morning — not just any church, but St. Andrew's Chapel, the church that was once pastored by R.C. Sproul.

We are not Presbyterians. We're not even Calvinists. But I wanted my family to experience something different. I wanted to see what it was like.

It was a life-changing experience.

I am a fairly formal guy. I preach in a suit. We sing hymns. For a Baptist church, we were already more formal than most. But I had never been to a church more formal than St. Andrew's Chapel. People were standing and sitting in unison, the choir wore robes and processed down the aisle singing. The whole thing carried a sense of reverence that almost felt like a pageant — but not in a showy way. In a sacred way.

People were dressed up. Even in the heat of a Florida summer, nearly everyone wore a suit. The sermon was substantive and doctrinal. The church obviously revolved around the teaching and preaching of the Word of God. Everything about it was serious, intentional, and deeply rooted.

And here's the thing that really stood out to me: there were so many young people in that church. So many young families. We attended the second of two services. Their auditorium seated thousands. It was packed. And over forty people joined the church that day we were there.

Forty.

Let that sink in for a moment, because it challenges almost everything we've been told about church growth for the last several decades. We were told — loudly and repeatedly — that the only way to grow a church was to be cool and trendy and contemporary. That the pastor needed to wear ripped jeans in the pulpit. That we needed to keep things casual. That the music had to be upbeat and hip. That formality was the enemy of relevance.

And yet the biggest, fastest-growing, healthiest-seeming church I have ever stepped foot in was the exact opposite of all of that. No fog machines. No light shows. No casual cool. Robes and hymns and doctrine and reverence. And it was bursting at the seams with young families.

So what's going on?

I think we've misread what people are actually looking for. I don't think people are looking for a hip church. I think people are looking for something real — something they can connect to, something that feels anchored to more than the latest cultural moment. I think there is a deep hunger for depth, for substance, for something weighty enough to build a life on.

I don't think tradition is necessarily a bad thing. Dead tradition? Absolutely — empty ritual that has lost its meaning is a problem. But tradition that is alive, that carries the weight of centuries of believers who worshiped before us, that points beyond itself to the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever? That's not a liability. That's a gift.

You don't have to be a Presbyterian. You don't have to adopt a formal liturgy. But you don't have to be hip, either. Just be biblical. Be real. Connect people to something bigger than themselves.

That's what they're actually looking for.