Why the Black Church Has Failed

At least once a week, usually on Sunday people all across the nation and around the world gather together in the name of Christianity in order to participate in a very organized worship service. Although they all claim to be legitimate churches why are they so vastly different? Why is there such an enormous difference in worship/meeting styles? Is there one church or many? Is there one head of the church or many? The church seems to have raised more questions than it has provided answers. If you have had difficulty in finding a church that you like then you’re just not looking hard enough because there is a church on almost every corner with almost as many different beliefs and styles.
Church styles range from one end of the spectrum where you have the extremely laid back; where there is a motionless, almost completely silent gathering to the other end of the spectrum that is characterized by a completely off the chain, over the top, all the way to the wall, knock-down drag-out emotional experience. Since this is the case then surely you can find a church among them that you’re comfortable with if you’re really looking for one. It seems to me that these differences in worship styles indicate that they originate from the worshipers rather than from the one being worshiped.
Wouldn’t the one being worshiped have the right to determine what it is that truly constitutes true worship of himself? Yes he does and yes he has. We only need to look at the scriptures where God has given us very clear information as to what coming together to worship him should look like. However, the variety of styles indicates that we have rejected that information and we’ve created a purpose and style of worship that suits us. And since different peoples have different backgrounds and different cultures we seem to have made a priority of designing worship and meeting styles that allow us to be comfortable in our individual traditions and cultures at the expense of preventing impartial truth from coming forth.
In the case of the Black church of which I have had many years to experience first-hand, it has been the display of extreme uncontrollable emotion that has defined our worship services. Our style in the Black church is a very lively and noisy gathering. There is considerable movement, swaying and rocking; there is also much standing, shouting and vocal expression. It seems that the main objective in our churches is not to have the people be spiritually edified by the Word of God through preaching and teaching but rather to just enjoy a very highly entertaining, somewhat theater-like performance by the Pastor and choir. The goal is to attain and maintain for the next thirty minutes to one and one half hour the highest emotional experience possible through the music, the preaching, the singing, and the testifying. But the question is; is this kind of activity, behavior and mindset consistent with God’s expressed expectation of those of us who claim to assemble in his name?