How to eliminate confusion

Define terms
An example: traditional worship.
What does that mean? Is there such a thing? In my experience most churches and people who hold to traditional worship are typically referring to a tradition that is around 200 years old and uniquely American. Normally, "old fashioned" hymns were mostly written after the 1800s, not the 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s, you get the idea. If someone were to truly be traditional, their worship service would be quite different from nearly any service the average American would know.

Now, there is a great movement among many in the American Church toward the ancient-future paradigm. There's a great article on this in the current Christianity Today, which for some reason is not online. I think one of the problems in American fundamentalism and evangelicalism has been to throw the baby out with the bathwater. As I have mentioned this month, just because Roman Catholics may do something doesn't mean Protestants can't.

Basically, what I am getting at is that we need to stop pretending that because we sing a hymn that is 150 or 250 years old, that somehow it is traditional. Our traditions are much, much older. In fact, there are so many beautiful hymns and chants which are 1500 years old, we cannot begin to exhaust the great bodies of work left by those from long ago.

But how? In my opinion, I believe Christians should use draw upon older works and newer ones as well. We should strive to employ the richness of our heritage, while expanding upon it with new songs and hymns. They should reflect truth and our unique context. Meaning, lets write tunes that sounds like they are written today and not 1877 when revivalism was running through America. I also think that we can take older hymns that may be difficult to sing to their original tune and update the music so it is accessible. There are many groups doing this today from Indelible Grace to Sovereign Grace Music. Let's get out of our boxes and discover the richness of our past and present.