I first thought I would love answering this question, but the more I ponder it, the more challenging it becomes. So I thought I would tell you a story of Jason, a student beyond belief.

Jason and I first met at the Christian group meeting at the private high school where he studied. Several of my other students led the group, and their debates on theological issues were surprisingly robust, so they asked me to pop my head in. Jason was a self-proclaimed atheist—and very specifically atheist, not remotely agnostic, he told me.

It’s important to point out that Jason is one of the most intellectual students I’ve ever had in my ministry. Ever. And I’m a pretty smart cookie, with a passion for Socrates, philosophy, the renaissance of wisdom, etc. Jason was at the Christian group because, like any philosophy student, he loved a good debate.

Challenge #1: Hearing Jason’s point of view, never condescending or defaulting to spiritualizing what, for him, was a deeply intellectual and rationally based conversation.

Let’s skip ahead to challenge #2: Jason (after a long, intellectual journey) became a Christian. He leapt into full-on, five-point Calvinism, and I was his favorite debate partner, though I was also happy to oblige.

After a long period of discipleship by way of conversation at the coffee house, Jason’s theological views shifted, not just slightly, but a lot—all the way to liberalism.

Challenge #3: Realizing I had something to learn from Jason’s processing and his story. Realizing that some doctrines are, in fact, subject to change, but well-thought-out values are not.

Learning to objectively reason with yourself is a hard skill, let alone trying to explain it or pass it on to anyone else, but I can say this: It always starts with me. In an argument, in a difference of a opinion, even when someone is angry with me, it always starts with me. What could I learn from this, what insights does this other person have?

God doesn’t need me to defend my traditions or my point of view. He prefers it much if I listen and weigh up what I hear from others so that he might have the opportunity to point something out to me that I haven’t seen before. I simply cannot know it all. In fact, the only certainty is that I do not know it all. We do not know it all as the church. We are sure as anything still figuring a lot of stuff out. And the more the world changes, the more we’ll need to figure out.

So I try to always be on the lookout to learn something new from those who differ from me. And it’s been an amazing journey. I have some friends who are of a different faith than I, but their faith has taught me a lot about the values of community in marriage and how individuals can truly respect one another. I am fascinated by what I learn when spending time with them, especially when they interpret the same Scriptures I am so familiar with. Their understanding leads me to understand more of God than I have before. Therefore, I don’t need to address them with fear or insecurity. God is God, but this is my learning opportunity.

Women are allowed to vote, but we didn’t always think that way, and somewhere along the way it had to change. Therefore, what is concrete? Just because this is how we have practiced faith, I need to be able to think through that commitment and those rituals so that I can always answer the question Why? in a way that is meaningful and authentic.

Jason has reaffirmed to me that we are never truly static in our beliefs and practices. The only thing that is really concrete is God and his gift of Jesus, the Son. But everything else is up for grabs, or at least requires thinking through.

So I carry two stones in my pockets, sure of what I know: that God is God and that I have much, much, much to learn.

He reminds them that we are God’s offspring, and as complex and multifaceted as we are, so is he. And just as we can be learned through study and observation, so can he.

In a nutshell, this is how I’ve come to look at church traditions, denominational theologies, and cultural mindsets. They’re good. I mean, they’ve gotten me this far, right? But how arrogant is it to think that the only right way to learn and know the infinite and indefinable God of the universe is the way that I happened to learn it first?

I realized that a lot of what I came to regard as sacred and sanctified as a young believer was just a matter of style and culture. Though that doesn’t discount it, it doesn’t deify it either. I’m black, so the dominant church culture and theology I learned was from that perspective. And don’t give me that “there’s only one race; the human race” stuff. We are different and different for a reason.

Paul says that reason is so we might pursue God by embracing and exploring the vastness of all his creation. To ignore my race and inherent culture is to ignore some part of God (and I happen to think it’s a pretty amazing part). It also makes the pursuit of relationship with God pretty boring. Seriously, if you put me in a room of my own people, I tend to rest on the idea that I already know them and what they do (whether it’s true or not). But in mixed company, I feel like discovering the unknown and seeing how it agrees or doesn’t agree with what I already know. It broadens me just to be exposed to different.

As a young person growing up at an African Methodist (then Baptist) church, I learned that the preaching pulpit was the absolute most sacred place in the church. That’s why it’s the center of the congregation’s view. Only the called and most revered could stand there. And everything he said from there was law! And if you stood there undeserving, you could assume the worst, whether it was from God or the head missionary with a mean pinch. I was also taught that we only did communion, with the little cups and broken crackers, once a month because that gave us time to think about all our sins and repent accordingly. I accepted all that as true and sacred.

Then I ventured out to a Presbyterian service, and the first thing I noticed was that the pulpit was in the wrong place. It was kinda to the right and not really as big or grand as the one from my old church. At the center of the congregation’s view was the communion table with real bread and only one cup of wine from which everyone was to dip. It was there every week, and people could choose to partake. Choose? What?! My first thought was, These people have it all wrong. Then I sat. Asked some questions. Listened. Tried it their way. And to my surprise, I still experienced God.

I won’t belabor your Slant33 reading experience with any theology lessons. I’ll just let you know that being raised and reared as I have has served me well, but opening up to learn the rituals and reasons of other expressions has made me a better, more rounded believer and follower of Christ. Somewhere along the way, I recognized that God was bigger, much bigger, than my experience. He was even bigger than the experiences of my ancestors. And in my exposure to other traditions, theological perspectives, and mindsets, I’ve gained everything, and I lost nothing. And yet I still think there’s more to God than what I already know (Acts 17:24-34).

Two years ago, my Army son was serving in Iraq. We SKYPEd a great conversation with him as we all lounged around in our pajama pants and sweatshirts. The next year, his sisters claimed that pajama pants had become the new traditional wardrobe for gift opening and our meal together—a concept he rejected. I remained neutral as the family gently teased their way through this holiday debate. The girls tipped off his girlfriend, and she showed up at our door in pajama pants as well.

We started with the opening of presents. My defiantly jean-clad son received the very first gift, and it was clearly marked from me. He opened it and rolled his eyes; he now had his own pair of pajama pants. He excused himself and went to change.

Pajama pants on Christmas is not my tradition. Yet my family is now clearly coming into the age of making their own traditions. The challenge for those of us who are keepers of tradition is to remain open to the full community’s experience, to allow all members of the family of God to find themselves represented.

Nearly thirty years ago John Naisbitt, author and futurist, claimed in the book Megatrends that “leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.” In these postmodern times, that line seems so relativistic. Yet, in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (4:8), he encourages us to assume this attitude: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

When we limit God only to our own limited experience of God, we are denying the omnipresence and the omnipotence. When we lead and cannot get beyond our own traditions, theology, and mindsets, when we fail to remain open to God’s ongoing revelation in our own lives, we find ourselves teaching about a limitless Lord from a nearsighted perspective.

To best avoid this, we need to think outside ourselves. Therefore we need make choices that get us:

Out of our box. When having God in our lives can be a source of comfort for our days, discipleship and being comfortable were not necessarily meant to be identified as complementary terms found in the thesaurus of faith. Our ministries are meant for “awe and wonder” and not boredom. We need to be mindful to challenge ourselves spiritually and continue to grow anew in faith.

Out of our molds. If the only adult volunteers or core team members we recruit are those cut out of our own molds, then we have only drafted an army of clones. We have a responsibility to recognize those who are different from us but are true, honorable, and just.

Out of our minds. Author Mike Carotta often wonders why we seemingly forgo the opportunity of preparation for the sacrament of confirmation to actually collaborate with the Holy Spirit and work toward driving kids out of their minds…and into the mind of Jesus. To do so demands that we are a little bit out of our own minds as well and working toward developing a spiritual whatever attitude about that which is excellent and worthy of praise.

Our openness is a matter of hospitality. The vitality of our programming as well as our own personal faith should be considered in light of a farsighted sense of vision of acceptance to be able to get in front of the parade of all that is pure, lovely, and gracious, even if it originates from outside our own experience. Paul reminds the Hebrews (13:2), “Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.”

I am a church mutt—or, for those needing a more dignified description, I am what you might call well rehearsed in navigating through different church cultures and traditions. While that might seem like a negative, for the most part, I believe I’m better for it. For the minor part, I’ve learned that many of the traditions we hold sacred are attributable to nothing more than personal or communal style, preference, or mere adaptations. Conversely, there are things we hold sacred in youth ministry that I’ve found to be not much more than an oftentimes feeble attempt at being trendy.

The kids in my youth group are by most accounts normal, but even so, they are an interesting bunch indeed. They regularly shoot bullets into many textbook youth ministry traditions. While they may like and appreciate the pizzas, games, and fun outings, they consistently remind me that those are not the reasons they come to youth group.

A few years ago, I decided to surprise the kids by converting one of our regular youth group gatherings to a game and movie night. My team and I worked hard to turn the youth room into a movie theater, complete with fresh popcorn, a candy bar, dim lighting, surround sound, and a larger-than-life projection. The night went well. Kids had fun. But as they left with an abundance of treats, one student turned to me and said, “This was cool, but I come to church for church.” I might have brushed that off as just one kid’s little opinion until a good number of them chimed in with agreement. It was agreement dripping from melting popsicles but agreement nonetheless.

Likewise was the time I skipped prayer in order to give a visiting artist more time to perform. The reminder was a smarmy yet again a clear, “Liked it, but…” I learned that while people appreciate keeping things interesting and current and relevant, they (even youth) “go to church for church;” to worship, pray, receive instruction, and be reminded of and connected to the one thing that is and forever will be bigger than themselves. Those traditions are sacred. But, as always, there’s another side.

Boys aren’t supposed to wear hats in church. That’s a big deal, particularly in the African American church because, to some degree, the act of wearing a hat represents clout and stature. To wear it in the “house of de Lawd” is an absolute offense because it makes your stature of greater importance than his. But see, for a millennial teenage boy, the hat is nothing more than a fashion accessory. To him, it means nothing and has no direct bearing whatsoever on his focus. Nor is it an indication of his lack of reverence for the Almighty. Removing of the hat is a tradition I’ve seen many a deacon and teenager squabble over, and while the Deacon usually wins it comes at the expense of the boy being so confused that he ends up completely checking out for the entire service over something that didn’t really matter.

But you know what modern accessory is clearly a threat to a young man’s reverence and focus? The cell phone; be it an iPhone or an Android. To the worship service, the smartphone is a handheld distraction just waiting to draw your attention and reverence away from the communal worship experience. Yeah, no matter how powerful and inspiring the worship service might be, it seems the urge to be connected to the outside world, even at the expense of being connected to God, is so alluring that we lose thousands of teens (and adults) to its intoxicating grips Sunday after Sunday. It matters, and every teenage boy and girl knows it.

So, rather than focus on the dated, ineffectual tradition of removing the hat, I’ve elected to zoom in on what the tradition is really intended to achieve: respect, reverence, and focus on God. So go ahead and wear your hat, Mr. Millennial Teenage Boy, but texting, Tweeting, and status updating on your cell phone are a no-no because it steals from you the whole reason you come to church. And while we're at it, please stand for the reading of God's Word. But don’t worry, in a few years it won’t be your cell phone. It’ll probably be your hat.

There’s a story about why people cut off the end of the holiday ham. Lots of people speculate about the meaning and reason for such a long-held tradition. Many thought and accepted that it was because it cooked better by giving the ham juices room to flow. So one day, after many years of going to Grandma’s house, it became time for the daughter to prepare the big dinner. Over at the daughter’s house, Grandma conspicuously watched as the meal was prepared, and sure enough, the time came to prepare the holiday ham. The daughter, per the tradition, cut off the end, put it in the pan, and then put the pan in the oven. She turned around to catch Grandma’s gaze. Trying not to be critical, Grandma squirmed before asking, “Why did you cut off the end of that ham?” The daughter quickly and proudly responded, “Because that’s what you taught me to do. It’s the tradition!” Grandma chuckled, shook her head, and sweetly said, “I cut the end of the ham off because my pan was too small.”

Don’t neglect traditions for the sake of fleeting trends. But neither uphold them just to exercise ineffectual customs. Let the reason be the reason.

Four benefits to tradition:
Shared stories. If you do an event or have a ritual or keep a tradition over the long haul, then your ministry has a consistent shared journey. Students and staff can say, “Remember that time at summer camp…” and they all have an instant shared story. Sure, each year was different, but there’s camaraderie and unity and ownership in shared language and experience, all of which are like gold in youth ministry.

Calendaring and family planning are easy. If you always do a Christmas party the first weekend in December, or every year you go to summer camp the second week in July, you become a staple in a family’s planning. They know what to expect and when to expect it. They know how to budget and what you generally tend to do. You make it easy for a family to plan with you.

We can learn and improve based on experience. If you constantly are changing stuff, then you will constantly be trying to reinvent the wheel or guess about variables you can’t predict. In traditions, you’ve done it before and figured out what works and doesn’t work. Therefore, you know the best road to get there and where to stop for dinner, the best place to do small groups, the best format for a rite of passage, the best way to run your weekend service, the best way to do all kinds of things because you’ve also done them wrong and fixed them. Tradition lets you learn from your mistakes and improve.

The logistics can be done in your sleep. You already know the family that does the food. You know who plays the music and who your leaders will be. You just call them, confirm a couple of things, and move on because they already know what to do, what to expect, and how to help. The logistics are virtually done before you even start. Tweak the flyer, fix two things you learned last year, make some phone calls, put it up on Facebook. Done.

Four dangers of tradition:
We can get in a rut. I once had a mentor tell me that a “rut is nothing but a grave with the ends kicked out.” Ruts are dangerous and should be avoided. Instead of thinking about what is best or what could and should be, we just do what we’ve always done and hope it’s better this year. We start worshiping sacred cows instead of Jesus, and before we know it, the nonnegotiable thing in ministry is not following the leading of the Holy Spirit to advance the spiritual lives of students; now it’s, “Do whatever you want, as long as you do this thing, this way.”

We get predictable. Tradition can also lead to predictability in a bad way. Instead of keeping your students on the edge of their seats, wondering what will happen next, they start to ditch stuff because they’ve already done it. Even if it was amazing the first time, the second time was okay, and the third time was, um…predictable. When we do and say what everyone thinks we’ll do and say, we lose our leadership edge in the lives of students.

We start to tell a boring story. Tradition has a way of leading us into boredom. No one wants to be boring. No one wants to tell a boring story. But when tradition trumps risk and new adventures and uncharted ministry territory, we start to tell a boring story. That’s a danger worth avoiding.

We become modern-day Pharisees. There’s a fine line between respect for tradition and legalism. Whenever we create new or hold onto old traditions, we risk becoming the very people Jesus so sternly rebuked. We are called to honor the sacred. We are not called to worship the traditional.