Variety is the spice of life

Ge 1:20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”

Ge 1:21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (NIV)

There is the saying that variety is the spice of life, but if you walk down any street, you will see that rather than variety you will have conformity. Look in clothes shops and you will find many adaptations of the same "now" style - whatever that currently is, but try and look for other things and you will struggle to find it. We may call if fashion or trends, but basically we are creatures of conformity. God though creates all sorts of wondrous creatures. God is a God of mountains and plains, all sorts of wonderful and different creatures, there is an amazing variety to creation.

There is also an amazing variety to humanity, we are all different and we work in different ways. One man's drink is another's poison, what works for one, will not necessarily work for another. God gives us a lot of freedom. There are no biblical passages specify particular worship style (though there are general principles it should be reverent and about God etc). There are no biblical passages about pews or seats or little knitted kneelers. However at various times the church has made up these rules. The service had to be in Latin, even though not even the priest can understand it. Today of course we do not do such silly things as that, we do other silly things instead.

We enforce conformity, because it gives us security. God works this way for us, and therefore it must be true for others. I have seen church leaders cause amazing problems trying to enforce what perhaps God was saying to them for them on others.

Paul wrote, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds." Rom 12v2 NIV

Meeting Jesus is about transformation, Jesus had a tendency to turn the world upside down, to embrace the leper and the unclean, to be tranformation. It is not about enforcing conformity, it is about finding freedom. A freedom to break free from conformity and discover who God created us to be, not in a selfish way or a way that damages other people, but one that can serve in the security of knowing that they are accepted, loved and precious.

God is a God of amazing variety, God's dream is of a church that can bring together different people and make them one, but still maintaining their own uniqueness and God created identity.