Reasons to be happy

It is a bit of a fashion to speak dismissively of the "happy-clappy" element in the modern church. The phrase has become a catch-all for the evangelical/ charismatic/pentecostal tendency, which straddles denominations and is seen to threaten traditionalism.

Certainly, there can be things about happy-clappydom which make one's toes curl with embarrassment: a forced spiritual jollity; an over-emphasis on emotional response; an inability to see anything other than the starkest black and white; a blurring of the line between worship and entertainment. But this is far from the full picture, and it is high time happy-clappydom was treated more fairly.

For one thing, the movement forces Christians to ask serious questions about what actually constitutes an "act of worship". The emphasis has traditionally been on dignity, order, ceremony. And who could argue with that? But dignity can spill over into pomposity, order into rigidity, and ceremony into mumbo-jumbo. Without naively idealising the primitive New Testament church, it is worth asking whether the apostles, if they returned today, would recognise what most Christians do in church on a Sunday morning.

The fact is that we know very little about how worship was conducted then. Certainly, the first Christians prayed together. And they sang: Paul makes this clear in various places, on one occasion telling his readers to "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord." Indeed, the experts believe that embedded in his letters may very well be scraps of ancient hymns; the early part of Philippians 2 is a case in point. Clearly, too, they listened to what nowadays we might call sermons; teaching was crucial.

But, if Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth is anything to go by, their gatherings were also characterised by the kind of thing that might strike us today as emotional excess - including that symbol of all things charismatic, "speaking in tongues".

Paul certainly lambasts the Corinthian Christians for their lack of balance, but his concern is to moderate their behaviour, not to forbid it. He does not condemn, in principle, what they were doing; and when it comes to tongues, he roundly asserts, "I speak in tongues more than all of you."

If we reach further back into the psalms, we find ourselves in a world of joy and tears, laughter and wailing, loud music and dancing. There is plenty of emotion, and precious little reverence. No one in their senses wants anything to do with plastic smiles and ersatz joy; but is there really no pleasure in being in the presence of a gracious God? And may not that pleasure find true and heartfelt emotional expression when God's people gather together?

There is another important reason why the happy-clappies are worthy of greater respect; like the fabled lager, they often reach the parts of society that other churches fail to reach. Look round your average traditional church any Sunday morning. Where are the converted drug addicts, the alcoholics, the drifters, the feckless?

The happy-clappies do not have a monopoly on such areas of ministry, but the chances are that they are the church at the cutting edge of the local community. Their congregations are not infrequently characterised by doctors, solicitors and teachers rubbing shoulders with those who society regards as being at the bottom of the pile. In a word, they are often far more in touch with the life of ordinary people than the traditional church.

Happy-clappydom is not all froth and bubble. Take these Christians out of their services and meetings, and, very often, they are the ones putting in the time, the grind, the effort and the money - not to mention the real, focused, intense, passionate prayer - in order to make contact with the local "yoof", and those conveniently lumped together as the marginalised.

Does this not remind us of Corinth just as much as those excesses to which Paul took exception? Judging by his account, the Corinthian church was made up largely of riff-raff. But more to the point, does it not also remind us of Jesus, who attracted the poor and the outcast, the despised and rejected? It is no coincidence that churches of this character are often the growing churches in their locality. They can be guilty of excess, naivety, arrogance and narrow-mindedness - but they are also frequently the risk-takers and the boundary-breakers.

Could it be that they are closer to the heart of Christ than many of us like to admit? They may make other Christians feel uncomfortable, or threatened, but we dismiss them at our peril. Perhaps an open-minded visit to the local happy-clappy church would not be a bad idea. Who knows, if we are prepared to be just a little bit humble, we could be in for a life-changing experience, even an authentic encounter with God.

· The Rev Colin Sedgwick is minister of Lindsay Park Baptist church, Kenton, Middlesex