One of my major premises in the writing I’m doing these days is that evangelicals have become a movement actually destroying itself.
At no point does that seem more obvious than in the recent evolution of worship within evangelicalism.
Does anyone- I mean, really, seriously- have any idea what is actually happening within the worship culture of evangelicals?
We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what is a worship service. We’ve adopted an approach that demands ridiculous levels of musical, technical and financial commitment and resources.
We have tied ourselves to the Christian music industry and its endless appetite for change and profit. We have accepted that all of our worship leaders are going to be very, very young people. Traditional worship – a la Tenth Presbyterian in Philly- is on the verge of becoming a museum piece.
The reformed- of all people- have led the way in this revolution. I attended a seminar last week where a room full of reformed were instructed in why the optimum worship leadership option was “the band.” Not the choir, the worship team, etc. But “the band.” Does anyone realize what that means for public worship?
Diversity, generational compatibility, even simplicity are all being blown up. Worship is now a major audience event, led by skilled entertainers, aimed at a demographic and judged by the audience reaction.
God? God has been moved around to be things like a reluctant Spirit we sing down with our songs or a divine innovator always blessing as much radical change as possible.
Why do I call this a goof? Because there is no way for this to end well. This is like a NASCAR car with the throttle stuck open. We’re stuck on a roller coaster and we can’t get off.
Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play. We need to give more time to worship doesn’t mean silent prayer or public scripture reading or any kind of participatory liturgy. It means music.
Even singing is getting lost in this. As the volume and the performance level goes up, who knows who is singing?
And who can stand for 20, 30 or 40 minutes?
We have a lot of happy people right now. They have no idea what Biblical worship is outside of the context of their favorite songs played by a kickin’ band. They have little idea of worship in vocation, in family, in ordinary work or in silence. They credit their favorite songs as major spiritual events.
We have goofed up. Simple, plain liturgy. Diversity and inclusion. Appreciation and full Biblical understanding. Cross generational intentionality and suspicion of the profit motive. Renouncing the spirit of competition. Hearing the prophetic warnings about God’s disgust with much of Israel’s “big show” worship culture. We need all of this.
We need Jesus shaped worship, and we need worship that promotes a simple, direct, uncompromising Jesus shaped spirituality.
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Commenters: If you start a discussion on hymns vs choruses I will not post it. Read that sentence twice.
The Internet Monk Archives 
I’m saying nothing against a good beer, Sue! 🙂 Nothing at all! Good beer is . . . good! (I wish my wife could make an Orval ale.)
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OK, OK, Bill. Be an old stick in the mud. Luther’s wife did own an operate a brewery! A skill she apparently learn while being a Cistercian Nun. Maybe that’s where the Trappist beer can from? What do ya think?
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It’s gratifying to see that a thread like this can run to almost 200 posts without mention of Luther’s tavern tunes.
In case you’re one of those still passing around this tired old urban legend, let me set the record straight by quoting something I wrote on another blog.
“For years now, when using or making music intended for Christian worship, people have rationalized their conformity to popular culture by repeating the widespread myth that Luther (sometimes in the myth it’s Wesley) used drinking songs as the basis for his great hymn tunes.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Luther (Wesley too) abhorred the idea of borrowing a tune or style already saturated with secular connotations. Why the myth, then? Because of a misunderstanding. One of the many forms of music (i.e. sonata, fugue, minuet, rondo, etc.) is called “bar form”—three or more stanzas, each divided into two Stollen (section a) and one Absegang (section b)—and it happens that Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is a perfect example of this musical structure. So Luther did indeed write a bar tune, but it was not based on a barroom tune. (If you want to look it up yourself, check out the article on bar form in the Harvard Dictionary of Music, or just Google it and read the more obviously scholarly articles that pop up. You’ll learn that many Lutheran chorales are in bar form, and that the Star Spangled Banner is another good example.)
Next time somebody tells you that Luther based his music on the popular tunes of the day, ask him if he learned this from a musicologist—or if he’s just perpetuating an urban legend to justify the church’s increasing conformity to the world.”
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Hooah IMonk, Hooah
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What I would say (in support of Bill) is that the present age seems determined to discard any and all songs (regardless of quality) once they get too old. The choruses I sang as a youth in the 1980s are seldom heard today, and I am confident that the same will soon be true of the current crop.
The trouble with this mindset is that, once songs become disposable, the incentive to write good ones diminishes; the desire to write well becomes subordinate to the need to write quickly and in quantity. We are likely to get plenty of bad songs in this environment, but we will insist on using them because the existing songs are “too old”.
The church has not always done it this way; the older tradition (in the western church) is more cumulative. A typical Protestant hymnal frequently contains elements of Latin plainsong (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”), Reformation hymnody (“A Mighty Fortress”), Methodist revivalism (“O For a Thousand Tongues”), 19th century revivalism (“When We All Get to Heaven”), spirituals (“Lord, I Want to be a Christian”), and 20th century gospel (“I’d Rather Have Jesus”), among other things. The arrival of new songs did not mean the automatic end of all of the old ones; “Great is Thy Faithfulness” did not relegate “Now Thank We All Our God” to obscurity. These songs, while different in style, could exist in a common repertoire, be accompanied by a common instrumentation and be sung in a common setting. Not everything from every era was retained, but there was no notion that the old songs HAD to be replaced en masse, simply because new ones had been written. The mindset today is much different.
The saddest part of this whole scenario is the likelihood that the worship wars will never really end. As long as the old must constantly give way to the new, people who actually value the old songs will clash with devotees of the “latest and greatest”. We may not be fighting over hymns 20 years from now, but I suspect that we’ll have the same sort of ugliness over Chris Tomlin’s songs, which will seem quite dated by then. The combatants and battlefield will be different, but the nastiness and lovelessness will be strangely familiar.
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After I read this post, I went away and pondered what I read. I disagree with you on this. There are seven references in Psalms about worship through songs. Two of the references in particular provide a counter argument to your post:
Psalm 95:2
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
Psalm 98:4
Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.
Most evangelical churches that I have attended have offered two different types of Sunday services — one is focused on members of the church where the music you decry is more prevalent; another (usually later) service focuses on unbelievers and is far more traditionally evangelical.
I have always liked the formal liturgy that is used in Catholic and Anglican churches. However, the younger generations that fill churches today grew up with far different secular music and are far more comfortable with more modern music.
I know what you mean about posting in haste and regretting in leisure. I’ve done the same. But you certainly sparked discussion!
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Err… spirituals and gospel music, for two. 😉
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Bill,
Might it not be that rather than a “revolution” you’ve just seen the continued modification of music sped up as nearly every other area of human endeavor has?
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I appreciate everybody’s dialogue with me on this, especially those who think I’ve gone too far by saying there have only been two true revolutions in church music (that’s western church music, T). I’m rethinking my position to try to justify calling another shift somewhere a revolution rather thatn just a development or modification. Music has changed constantly, styles coming and going, this or that new idea being promoted or some tradition being modified or challenged–that’s the way of all music history. But most changes have been incremental or in some way a modification of existing norms. To me a “revolution” is something that changes things at a deeper level, a level that is neither a development nor a modification, but is rather a comprehensive rejection or demolition of an existing norm.
I’d be interested to read what others regard as the true revolutions and what others regard as merely modifications or developments.
Sorry to have displayed my pedigree in the way I did. I tossed that off rather hastily and without much thought about how it would come across. Reading what I wrote a few hours later makes me cringe a bit. Altogether the wrong tone. Oh, well. Good fuel for some furnaces of forgiveness others can light up.
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I recently attended a worship conference at one of the churches you might consider one of the chief offenders. Darlene Zschech of HIllsong fame spoke at one of the breakout sessions and said that while music can exclude, true worship always invites people in. I agree and think you overstate your argument, coming off a bit demagogue-ish. Maybe you are not aware of how many evangelical churches are effectively and faithfully addressing the very concerns about the substance of worship you raise without retreating from a more modern musical style. But they are. Can modern songs with their volume and pop feel exclude? Yes. Can hymns be exclusive? Yes. The issue is not musical style (for the ump-teenth million time), but one of authentic worship helping to facilitate a transformed life. Churches of all styles are great at true worship, and churches of all styles stink at it. Anecdotal stories abound in support of both realities. To Bill above, degree notwithstanding – only two revolutions in the history of church music? I would not much care to have to defend that one.
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Now I’m trying to grapple with there having only been three musical styles across church history in all geography, Latin plainchant, four part congregational hymns, and whatever it is we have now.
Somehow it just doesn’t compute.
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Considering most folks get their theology from Christian Rock is it any wonder Hyper-Calvinism is considered Biblical!
Amen and amen, Mich.
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oh my, that is quite depressing, Bill. Fear not. I’m sure you are well educated in your field but you will be happy to know their are still Christians who worship in Word and Sacrament and without rock music. The revolution may have over taken your traditions but not all of Christianity.
What’s popular has always been a problem for Christian Worship and Christian living. I am old enough to remember what was popular in the 1950s. Being a Church member. Mostly of a mainline variety. Jobs, socialablity were tied to being a looking good Christian and church member and church worker.
That’s when I learned from my mother never to call hypcrite in the church. Lot’s of people were jamming the church who could care less about Jesus and his teaching. My mom said at least they are here and can hear the Word proclaimed and preached. It is not our place to judge because only God can see their hearts.
It will all sort itself out in the end Bill. Never quite trusting in God’s mercy. Ask God what your role in this is and do it.
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As one with extensive education in music history (master’s degree in musicology; thesis about hymnody), this revolution grieves me deeply—and it grieves me even more to have no voice about it in my church, because shared ignorance there is preferred to knowledge.
I have a lot of fellow-feeling, Bill, though I’d say there’s probably been more than two “revolutions.” (Coming more from a perspective of spending a lot of time dealing with American popular music during the 19th and 20th centuries.)
Having no voice about it really *is* hard.
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Revolutions are always times of turmoil and uncertainty, times when everybody is scrambling to recover the equilibrium of more stable days. Revolutions are also times of widespread misunderstanding and shared ignorance about what is happening.
I wonder how many people are aware that the evangelical church in America has just experienced not a change in musical style but a musical revolution.
This is the second musical revolution in the entire history of Christianity. The first was the rejection of Latin plainchant sung primarily by those who had taken ecclesiastical orders, in favor of four-part homophony sung in the vernacular by the entire congregation. This accompanied the theological revolution known today as the Protestant Reformation. The second musical revolution, which is under way today (and is already victorious in many churches), is the rejection of the Protestant hymn, hymnal, and musically educated congregant in favor of CCM/pop Christian solos adapted for congregational singing and mouthed by musically illiterate congregants reading lyrics alone from video screens. This is accompanying the dawn of Post-Protestantism, or postmodern Christianity, or pop Christianity, or whatever it is we’re now experiencing.
For the most part, when I discuss church music with people, they treat the revolution as though it were just another change of style. They do this because they don’t know enough music history to make a sound judgment about how a musical revolution differs from a change of style; and, as in so many other areas where people don’t know that they don’t know, the result is often the loud proclamation of total nonsense and the lack of respect for those who do in fact know something. These are the times that try men’s souls—if those souls know something about music history.
As one with extensive education in music history (master’s degree in musicology; thesis about hymnody), this revolution grieves me deeply—and it grieves me even more to have no voice about it in my church, because shared ignorance there is preferred to knowledge.
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Mich,
I don’t know exactly you mean by “public Scripture reading in church” but every Sunday we read a section of one of the Gospels and two accompaning scriptures. Usually one from the Old Testament and one from the letters in the NT and one of the Psalms. I think that is pretty common in all liturgical churches. What would a minister preach on if He/she didn’t have a given Scripture?
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Could someone explain to me what Evangelicals do for a funeral?
I recently attended a funeral for a friend’s husband. I was unfamiliar with the type of church this was. The ‘sevice’ began with a country music song. Then a poem by a family member. Then the preacher. I kid you not he went on for 25 minutes and would have gotten a ‘f’ at any seminary homiletic class I could think of. Then two verses of a hynm and a very very short prayer. Then the preacher dismissed everyone except the family. So the family could bury him privately. What!!!
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This is too ironic–yesterday EVERYONE at my Church was overmiced–the band, the singers, etc and it was earsplitting! This coming from an old fart who used to go live concerts in the 70’s! I agree it’s all too much, but I believe the older folks, such as myself, have kept silent because we’ve bought into the con that current Christian music will bring in the kids. Whether is does or not I have NO idea. What I find ironic is ALL denominations complain that no one reads the Bible anymore, but NONE of them ever considers PUBLIC scripture readings in Church! Considering most folks get their theology from Christian Rock is it any wonder Hyper-Calvinism is considered Biblical!
🙂
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I’m unable to find a theological position that eliminates or endorses only one style of worship. I’m fairly certain that any member of the early church transported to today would find just about every worship service in existence nearly incomprehensible (even with the language barrier removed), though that is neither an endorsement or condemnation.
Do with that what you will, God knows I have.
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I think that this worship movement leads to spltting christians even more. We recognize and catergorize christians based on the music of their church, contemperory, traditional, etc. Sometimes these splits even happen in the same church. Thenof course we are all trying to out perform the next church. I agree, it is rediculous, we need to get back to the basics of Christian worship.
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I haven’t had time to read through all the comments yet, so at the risk of repeating what someone else has already said…
1. I used to be part of a “worship team.” While it was fun to play with the group, the music was just terrible. I tried to overlook it, but never quite could.
2. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone describe a reasonably decent guitar/bass/whatever solo as “anointed,” “prophetic” or “godly,” I’d be able to finance a 3-month trip to Monaco. (Well, OK – maybe to London, Ontario… 😉 )
3. I have never, ever understood why “worship” is supposed to consist of saccharine choruses and lots of repetition of the phrases “thank you, Jesus!” (etc.). And for a long time, I tried not to see that the emperor had no clothes.
4. Our love for entertainment and trendiness are going to make us fall hard. Though goodness knows, there’s nothing truly “trendy” about so-called “worship music.” It’s more like bubblegum pop from the 70s-early 80s than anything that’s actually occurring right now, in both popular and classical music.
5. Singing from a hymnbook requires some degree of reading skill (with words) and a reasonably good vocabulary. Reading ultra-simple words on a screen… not so much.
6. I am so ready to go back to a liturgical form of church service, but also agree that anything can become a kind of liturgy – and that so-called “contemporary worship” is the unacknowledged liturgy of most American Protestant churches.
7. Catholics who were alive during the “folk mass” period (lasted about 20 years post-Vatican II) will remember that there were a lot of lousy songs, and a few good ones. I mean, really lousy songs. But did we Protestants learn anything from our Catholic brethren on this score? Nope! 😉
8. Some of the more memorable (read: awful) things I heard while being part of a “worship team”:
“Jazz isn’t worship.” [I guess folk rock/soft rock is the only God-approved genre.]
“To worship is to kiss God’s face, like a dog licking a human. Kinda messy and slobbery.” [OK, not the exact words, but a very close paraphrase.]
“You’re a really talented musician, but I can’t see how I could possibly fit you into the music we do.” [Scout’s honor, I was actually told this, because I play percussion instruments that were unfamiliar to the person who made this statement.]
9. Oh, and – obligatory worship team meetings are invariably closed with at least 2 hours of “ministry time” (read: personal prayer) and always run until midnight-1:00 a.m. I literally know folks who ended up having to sack out on someone’s couch because if they drove home, they’d end up getting a whole 3 hours of sleep before having to get up for the a.m. commute. (I packed up and slipped out before the prayer sessions started; or else avoided practice altogether, because the songs were so easy to pick up on the bandstand, without any prior hearing.)
10. We were not supposed to be “performance-oriented,” yet our music was nothing if not performance.
11. The so-called “worship leader” is allowed to make completely nonsensical decisions at any time. (Includes claiming that the bassist and percussionist had never been placed next to each other at any time in the past, when in reality, they’d been paired up on the stand for the past 6 years.)
12. “Worship leaders” may be as dictatorial as they wish, because that’s how God wants it. No questions allowed.
All this to say that yes, iMonk, I like your post. 😉
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As a slight counterpoint to this, I extend the following link:
“Starting at the end, ‘the traditional liturgy’ strikes me as a deeply problematic concept. There are many different liturgical traditions, each instantiating different theological concerns. For some reason, theologians from a broadly evangelical background (who tend to be the ones decrying contemporary worship music, on account of the fact that they have encountered it) tend to point to Anglican liturgies for proper doxological theology. With all due respect, every Anglican liturgy ever promulgated is, as far as I can see, a theologically-incoherent political compromise between Catholic and Reformed traditions”
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Playing music Skillfully is not a bad thing. It is a biblical thing. The Psalms demanded it. (Psalm 33:3)
The same passage also says to sing to Him with a new song.
The idea that contemporary music is a faux pas is itself a faux pas. The trouble is content, focus, and teaching.
Content is simply the subject matter of the songs. Yes, there are many mamby pamby songs that are just feel good tripe, but there are many songs out there that really focus on biblical matters of worship (Ever heard Justice and Mercy by Matt Redmond?) This means we have to be thoughtful and selective of the material we choose.
Focus is the that which we point others to in our worship. IF it it polish then you are selling a shell. No one can say that having production values is inherently wrong, though I honestly find myself wary of them, but when having the most flawless transitions and the most emotive pictures on power point is what you struggle most with in preparing worship, then you are off base. So it is a constant thought about how we expose others to Christ, point them, and help spark a dialogue between them and the Spirit, by taking them to the Cross deliberately and pointing to the blood there found.
Teaching. Churches need to be more deliberate in their communication of what worship is. Making sure that Praise does not become wholly synonymous with music is the Job of the church that is supposed to be teaching, correcting, admonishing, etc. This also means that new leaders are mentored. Having all grade A musicians in front means you do not care to teach others behind. I have been to the churches where only professional caliber musicians are leading the praise singing… and getting to become a part of that team takes years of pre-qualifying. Mentorship almost doesn’t happen in that context.
Most of the above has nothing to do with traditional or contemporary styles. Todays traditional Hymn was once the “Pop” of it’s day. It just didn’t have the commercial drive that so much music has to day because of radio. Let’s divorce ourselves from style issues and ask instead the questions that matter.
One more thing. A dear friend of mine wrote a magnificent book on worship that I think gets into this a lot. It is called “Experiencing Worship, and Worshipping Experience – The Effects of Post Modernism on Evangelical Worship” You can find it at his website. http://www.danradmacher.com
Thanks
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I used to be involved with “praise and worship” music until about 10 years ago. Every time I think about doing it again, I read some article like this and I think, “Forget it. Not going to become part of the problem.”
And it IS a problem. Every time Michael brings this up, he knocks one out of the park.
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I have concerns about comparing organ music to a worship band. It might be more fair to compare a chamber ensemble with a worship band. A church with an organ might need at least two capable organ players to cover the services in a given month (growing up, we had one organ player). To fill a capable worship band every Sunday, especially during summer vacation season, requires a pretty deep bench: either at least two musicians each for electric guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, etc. or several musicians who are talented on more than one instrument. How many even mid-to-large size churches can do this and still find enough volunteers for Sunday School? The alternative is hiring paid musicians, but even then vacations and sick days need to be taken into consideration.
Our church appreciates the musicians – even when only a skeleton crew is available, but when things don’t sound right, the musicians themselves take it really hard.
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Who is the worship service ‘playing to’ would be a good question for all church elders to ask.
Of course, everyone would answer, God.
But IS it?
There’s the real question.
Is He pleased?
(LOVE this post. But it made me cry.)
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Psalm 150….. speaking in broad general terms – just about everyting in that Psalm is existant in one way or another throughout the various traditions. Some have the the trumpets, pipes, flutes, strings others don’t while some have the percussion and the dance yet others do not. Point being is that over the whole of christiandom all of that is taking place from that perspective. Culture has been mentioned many times and that has an effect on things – some world cultures have more of the rhythmic and percussive while others have less of it and the general worship existant in western culture in recent times has been what we call traditional though aspects of that were argued and debated from time to time over the years as contemporary much like we have now yet there were, as there are today, adhearants to their particular interests.
My personal approach is traditional – my worship of God in the coporate church body is best expressed in the churches that have the more traditional approach yet others prefer the contemporary setting and that’s fine but the issue that has bothered me is the forcing of unwanted/undisired change upon church bodies. Sure, some want the change yet others don’t why force it if it’s not wanted? That goes back to the idea that contemporary worship seems to work best in churches that were started with that in mind to begin with and they would no more welcome someone with a traditional bent to come in a force that change on them than traditional churches that have had the contemporary forced upon them. There’s room for both.
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Then what do you do with Psalm 150????
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My last input on this particular post…. Folks, I’ll just be quite honest here and tell you that I simply do not like much of the contemporary worship approaches and the music that comes with it and that’s the bottom line. I tried going down that road and for a short time thought that was the way to go – the way of the future for the church until I began to see what was happening when these changes were introduced to churches, especially to long established church bodies that had a definate order to their worship practices.
I think the contemporary approach works best in churches that were started that way versus established traditional churches that have it forced upon them as has been the case so many times in these situations. My not liking contemporary is not a whack at those who do but is a statement of where I am personally and the people who like contemporary feel the same way but coming from a different direction. Maybe we need to agree to disagree, forget it and move on in our respective “traditions” as there is plenty of room for both and the people interested in them plus the traditional church worship is not gone nearly as much as some would have you believe these days.
Well that’t all on this one.
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Just my two cents. Episcopalian music kicks ass
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Teri:
“The church is US – the body of believers. If you think there is something wrong in your church’s attitude to worship what are YOU doing about it?”
What would you suggest? Interrupting the service? Making complaints through channels? Voting with our feet…?
I’m just one person. I’m dispensible. In cold reality, the church doesn’t care what I think. It’s not that kind of community where everybody is equal (like a family), it’s more like a business model. I might have more of a say if I became the pastor, or the music director, but then I would find myself beholden to a whole new set of pressures.
Here’s a thought. Why couldn’t we have church totally on-line? With a variety of listening options, including the style of background music. (If you want to sing, it could be karaoke.) Add paypal instead of the collection plate, and of course the times would be totally flexible…you could even have a sort of community in the form of message boards and the like. (At least, as much of a community as regular church is.)
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Anna A and other who don’t see contempt in these comments,
I’d encourage you to go back and read the comments again. Do you think using terms like “boo hoo music” is meant to merely describe or to belittle and demean? As I read through the thread I see quite a bit of that type of rhetoric.
When your worship style drives you to demean and belittle those that are eternally bound to you through Christ there’s a much larger issue here than music, worship style, or theology, and it rhymes with shmidol.
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Tom,
What’s wrong with a few urban legends? Let’s just call it Lutheran Tradition.
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We have very modest bands in terms of volume. I know two staff members that have ear plugs for every service. It causes them real distress, even with acoustic guitars.
I’ve enjoyed this thread, but I may shut it down soon. Thanks to all who have participated.
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Interesting (I hope) anecdote –
I attend a church with 2 services, @50 adults in each service in a small sanctuary. Today we had a guest band for “worship.”
I stepped out for a moment during the performance and saw of our dear old saints, a frail woman of about 80 years, sitting in the foyer with a light aircraft pilot type headset (designed for small, loud prop planes) on to muffle the noise.
I cannot get that image out of my mind.
When I related this observation to my wife, and remarked that perhaps the music was too loud, she told me I was being an old fogey (I am 47.)
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The truth is we could do without all of it.
What is all this noise and activity about?
Does any of it seem like the Kingdom Jesus was establishing?
It’s all about the money and the power.
It’s all about the egos.
It’s all about numbers.
I’m perfectly satisfied to skip it.
If you want to belong to a social club and pay 10% of your income to belong then be my guest.
If you get some tiny sliver of The Christ out of it then more the better.
If you are fully having all God wants for you then who am I to judge?
I’m just sayin’……………….
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In the spirit of “Getting back to what once worked,” I followed David’s example and found myself promptly hauled out of church by two ushers and asked never to return again. And they kept my clothes. AND my shoes.
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Hey all,
wow interesting discussion – lots of great great points. One of the things I didn’t like so much as I read through the comments is the element of passing the buck. It’s the fault of the newbies, the musicians, the slack elders, the young etc.
My challenge to all of you observing things you don’t like going on is… WE are the church. The church is US – the body of believers. If you think there is something wrong in your church’s attitude to worship what are YOU doing about it? And I don’t want to hear “I’m not a leader, I’m not a musician”. Church is all of us, we’re all called to worship. How are you being a disciple who worships in spirit and in truth and what are you doing to help the rest of your church body do this?
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A quick note to Sue Kephart: the “Luther used drinking songs” story is something of an urban legend. See, for example,
http://archives.umc.org/interior_print.asp?mid=705&pagemode=print
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Music is certainly controversial. Churches split over its place in the service. Personally, if I can hear the music as I turn into the parking lot, it’s too loud. Yes, I’m crochety, but music should lead one to a more spiritual frame of mind and not reaching for ear plugs (it’s happened).
There was one church where I lived that was a perfectly respectable denominational church, but it had a small-ish size congregation. So, one day they got rid of the pastor, turned themselves into a ‘community’ church so the denomination wouldn’t scare off people, and hired a music director. It is now a mega-church.
My point is, I always thought that music in those situations was used as a way to attract people and bulk up the membership numbers. The sermons are seeker-sensitive and warm and fuzzy. You are correct, iMonk, we’re headed off a cliff.
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Mr. T:
“All these same points could (and likely were) have been made when churches shifted to organ based music. Expensive? Check. Requires new expertise? Check.”
They were, especially within the Churches of Christ / Disciples of Christ. Some objected to all instrumental music, but others had more narrow objections like these. Some were against organ music in particular, because it sounds like circus or carnival calliope music and is not spiritual enough.
Another controversy arose over the practice of having a “picked choir,” as opposed to everybody being the choir.
The Salvation Army raised eyebrows with their embrace of Big Band music a hundred years ago. (This was an era in which Sousa was a pop star, and militarism was considered unbelievably cool.) Their explanation was that they were “using the devil’s works against him.”
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I didn’t find any results when I searched for it in Google, so I would like to coin the word: “Liturgoclast”
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I also have a problem assuming that the worship leader is a music person. But I do know the power of music to change our hearts, whether calming them, exciting them, or bringing our focus on Jesus.
I personally like a good amount of music in church. Our minds are cluttered & it takes more than a song or 2 to get our minds in gear.
My large church plays a good variety of music, so we are blessed.
Personally, in my older age, I like a lot of the contemporary music as well as the clasical. One of my favorite songs is DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak!” (I’m 61!) I don’t/can’t keep up with all the changes in music as I’m a talk radio person. But I know that one of the greatest things about Heaven will be all that great music, of which we have only scratched the surface here on earth! I plan to enjoy it!
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Ed,
Thanks for the explaination. Don’t get me wrong just because a church is liturgical doesn’t mean it doesn’t have music and musicians.
Music is important in Lutheran Worship. After all Luther was the one who wrote A Mighty Fortress changing church music from ” four notes in a minor cord” to beer drinking melodies.
The ELCA worship book has a liturgy without music. In all the years of going to a Lutheran Church I have never done the one without music. It took going to RC Worship to finally experience liturgy without music and all spoken. I can’t say I liked it much.
I think it’s a question of not letting the musicians and their supporters gain control. My congregation needs a new organ. The organist wants a pipe organ. We have a great piano, sometime guitar, flute and other instruments. We can actually get by without an organ for a while at lest. We are experiencing finacial diffuclties.The building isn’t very big. The organist admits we would have to add a big wall for the pipes. The thing is gastly expensive. Still she wants a pipe organ. Crazy. Just say no. No No No.
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Phil and T,
In the published comments, I’m NOT seeing hate. I’m seeing frustration and concern about contemporary music being the only thing that is done in church. I’m seeing that expectations are very high that all SBC type churches use the same things. Even if it doesn’t fit.
I’m seeing not a blending of the two, or even separate services to allow for the differences, but Praise music dominating.
I think that it has its place in worship, and can be very good. (You don’t know how many times I’ve liked a Randy Travis song only to realize that it is a Praise song that I disliked in a group.)
Irony alert: I still find it very amusing that many evangelicals find repeating the Lord’s Prayer weekly in the worship service as rote prayer (and therefore to be disdained) and see no problem with repeating the same identical line 10 times in the same song as not.
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I second what “T” said at the end of his comment. I have been in discussions on other blogs and forums about worship music, and one thing I have noted is that those who use contemporary music do not express as much hatred and contempt for the old music and its adherents as the traditionalists seem to have for the new. There sure seems to be a shortage of “agape” from the “traditional” side–despite the fact the traditionalists are so certain of their theological correctness. As I’ve said in other places, Jesus did not say “By this will all men know you are my disciples, because you worship with my preferred music” (Or, “have the right view on the Atonement, End Times, Church Polity, Baptism, …insert your favorite here…”) He said, “…because you love one another.”
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So, so-called worship is faced with the same dilemma. When you believe that emotion=worship then you have to keep raising the stakes. “It is Well With my Soul†sung by a small off-key congregation with a flat upright piano must eventually make way for a higher level of experience. Videos flashing deeply moving scenes of red blood pouring over people with incredible moving music played loudly and on key by professionals, special lights, fog . . . .on and on it must go to get the same emotional response. And it’s a free market out there. — JMJ
Uhhh, isn’t that the rationale behind the Cenobites of the Hellraiser series of horror movies? Chasing greater and greater Sensation for that Pleasure Response until the only place they could top it (without bodies to set an upper limit) was HELL? Continuing forever into greater and greater levels of “Stimulation” to cut “the Utter Boredom of the Familiar”?
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A few observations on this topic, in no particular order:
1) When most of the elements of liturgy (responsive readings, creeds, praying the Lord’s Prayer, etc.) are removed from worship, singing is practically the only active thing left that the people actually DO. The “worship=singing” mentality thus owes something to the traditional non-liturgical service, where worshipers spend most of the service watching and listening to someone standing at the pulpit. The mistaken idea then arises that the singing needs to be “amped up” in order for people to be more able to worship.
2) PITA’s suggestion to “stay away” doesn’t work; I speak from experience here. The megachurch model is so established and (apparently) successful that even churches which do not have a praise band have a cadre of people who believe that it should, possibly including the pastor. Chances are, they’ll push until it happens. At any rate, that’s what happened at my previous church, which was utterly traditional when I first joined it.
3) In terms of format, I think there is value in bare-bones simplicity, and also in something more elaborate. The guiding principle, it seems to me, is “Let all things be done for edification.”
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Does anyone- I mean, really, seriously- have any idea what is actually happening within the worship culture of evangelicals?
We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what is a worship service.
You mean the *CELEBRITY* Rock Concert concept?
As Zach has pointed out the main problem with liturgy is it can become stale. — Sue Kephart
And NOTHING becomes as stale, as fast, as Over-Relevance. Except Pretentious Over-Relevance.
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Perhaps this has been said. Who can read 139 comments– which means– who will read this one! I comment nonetheless.
I don’t tend to see this in the standard categories of music v. everything else that happens in a worship service. I agree that it is lamentable that worship has come to be almost exclusively defined as musical singing by anyone under age 40. I just don’t think it is a profitable aim to try and convince them that worship is a bigger idea. This kind of debate is likely only to produce reactionary pendelum swings– which is evidenced repeatedly in the comments I did get to read. (i.e. worship should be this way or that way.)
I think it would be helpful to ask why or how have we gotten to this place we are in. I’d suggest this shift in worship expression has more to do with the preceding era of enlightenment/ rationalism/ modernity. Worship became highly rationale and wedded to a particular form of liturgy that emphasized this. The congregation’s participation was primarily vicariously exercised through the priests. The problem is it later became formal-ism. Could today’s expression (referred to here) be a pendelum swing back. (i.e. highly experiential participation by the people.)
It would be interesting to take a look at 18th century Methodism springing up in the midst of a dead Anglican formalism. Look at the explosion of Charles Wesley’s hymns sung in not so formal tunes.
In short, and at the risk of over-generalization, we have gotten to where we are today in response to where we were yesterday. There is a definite positive in that millions have been re-enfranchised into a participatory worship experience. We have shifted from a “get-it-right” vicarious participation to a “make it feel good” experiencing God approach. If we are not careful, we will begin to eschew the experiential and even emotional dynamics of worship and head right back toward a “get it right” rationalistic exercise in liturgical formalism. I think this post and ensuing debate evidences this.
The answers will come as we dig deeper and work toward reconnecting the motions of worship to the movement of the Gospel which should lead to The Memory becoming the heart of worship and The Mystery as the primary experience.
Thanks Michael for stirring and hosting this conversation.
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Ron says,
Spontaneous public declarations of thanksgiving and adoration toward God by the congregation is one possibility I highly recommend.
What do you mean by this? If you recommend it, by definition it can’t be spontaneous.
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Unfortunately this subject has been around for generations. Worship is not I repeat not to be relegated to Church. It is a lifestyle and Sunday morning services are merely one portion. Scripture tells us that church is for….”The perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” Eph 4:12 (KJV.) Church is not for the unbeliever. True worship music comes from the heart regardless of style. Unfortunately modern Christians have been led to believe that they need to invite the unsaved to church to hear the gospel,wrong. It is the responsibility of each believer to be ready to give their testimony and through the power of the Holy Spirit introduce them to Christ. Then they may come to church and worship God in Spirit and in truth. We have group of musicians at our church ages ranging form 20s to 60s, pipe organ, harp,drums, flute,guitar keyboard and several other instruments. Being Anglican Catholic we are liturgical with all the bowing kneeling, standing, alter etc. We combine both comterporary with traditional music, usually no more than five songs matched to the reading that the Priest is going to use in his homily
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Just a quick mention of the fact that these issues have had a big effect on the seminaries, to the point that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is closing (merging) their school of music, and reducing the number of music faculty from 11 to four:
http://strangereverysunday.blogspot.com/2009/05/good-bye-pipe-organ-hello-praise-band.html
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All these same points could (and likely were) have been made when churches shifted to organ based music. Expensive? Check. Requires new expertise? Check.
Its a bit dramatic to proclaim the end result will be destruction. I think its far more likely that churches will simply evolve and change away from the current way of doing things… kind of like they did with organs and hymns. I kind of doubt things will go back to how they were, instead I expect to see a simpler, stripped down version. Perhaps acoustic sets, or even a single guitar being used.
BTW, there’s a lot of contempt being poured out in these comments that speaks to far graver issues than loud music in a style you don’t like.
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“Could someone explain to me why the musicians are leading the worship service? Don’t you have a pastor or minister that does that?” – Sue
I don’t know how it got to this state, but in my church, the guy that leads the music is titled “Worship Leader”. The pastor doesn’t even approach the stage until it’s time for the sermon. (Opening remarks and such prior to the music portion is delegated to some “lesser” staff member or lay person).
I think maybe that pastors in some churches have abdicated their leadership role in worship to the music heads with the natural result of an ever-increasing emphasis on what they believe matters most in worship.
I can just hear the conversation at the weekly staff meeting:
Pastor: “I’ll take care of the sermon, you take care of the rest of it. I’m preaching on “x” in case you want to match the music to the subject.”
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One factor that seems to be creeping just beneath the surface of many of the above posts is the tragic fact that music has become a power and control issue and even a point of contention and division in many churches.
Maybe we should engage in occasional “fasts” from music of any kind when we gather together — if for no other reason than to explore some other possibilities when it comes to worship. Spontaneous public declarations of thanksgiving and adoration toward God by the congregation is one possibility I highly recommend. Group recitation of praise oriented Scripture is another.
Honestly, I think we have fallen into a bit of a music-centered rut when it comes to corporate worship. And I doubt that we’ve gotten far below the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ways we might express worship to our Creator.
Looking at the universe He made, I get the feeling that God actually likes variety, and when it comes to worship, I suspect that the church is far more uptight, inhibited, and narrow minded than He ever intended for us to be.
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A couple of things…
Miguel–you asked Dan Allen what kind of church he went to where the congregation sang in four-part harmony. Most any church where the sign out front reads “Church of Christ” does this. Good stuff. I’d go acapella every week if I could slip it over on the Southern Baptist church where I lead the music. (The pianist will be gone for two weeks…now’s my chance! HAHA!)
Also, whatever style of music one uses, bear in mind that due to the mnemonic effect of music, your people’s theology will often be more informed by the songs than by the sermons. That’s quite a responsibility for the songleader to bear, and I make sure I insert one good, robust doctrinal song every week to back up our Bible teaching.
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Hey, if you guys missed it last year, there were a couple of insightful posts here on some of the practical technical difficulties of leading a traditional congregation in contemporary worship:
https://internetmonk.com/archive/tom-schwegler-why-contemporary-music-makes-congregational-singing-difficult
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Could someone explain to me why the musicians are leading the worship service? Don’t you have a pastor or minister that does that?
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Chaplain Mike
“Liturgy is not a style. It is the way the people of God approach God. We gather, we hear his Word, we feast at his table, we are sent into the world. Style is another issue, and secondary.”
Amen, again. I call it history, mystery, liturgy; for we hear what God has done, partake in the present presence of God, and are called to do the work God has called us to do as both a gathered and a sent people.
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Josh Nichols> “Did you ever see the movie Buck Rogers? He goes forward in time to the 25th century, where the people have all these lame classical dances that they do, with steps and synchronization and everything. …. And then there follows a classic disco scene, in which Buck teaches the future people how to REALLY dance, and what REAL music sounds like…. Bidibidibidi…praise Jesus!”
You’re in my head, man!
As for Orthodoxy, I did find over the many years I attended Orthodox churches that standing for long periods became easier and easier.
And I had come there in the first place for precisely the reasons articulated by iMonk. No mo’ surprises.
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A few observations, having grown up singing hymns, “leading the singing” as we called it when I was in high school, and having sung “contemporary” music since the mid-1970s:
(1) Church music (worship styles) change periodically. Before the 1700s the English-speaking church, Anglican and Reformed, sang Psalms–it was actually illegal to sing hymns “of human composition” in a church service. And if any of you remember how bad the singing of hymns got in some churches in the ’50s and early ’60s–the Psalms were at that point by 1700–which is why they were supplanted by what we now think of as “traditional hymns”
(2)Worship styles do “wear out” and become stale after too much time. Probably the biggest factor promoting the change to hymns was the Great Awakening/Wesley-Whitefield revivals of the mid-1700s, followed by the camp-meeting revivals of the early 1800s.
(3) Maybe this should be regarded as an aside: my personal opinion is that Fanny Crosby and a lot of other hymn authors would have been horrified that their songs stayed in use as long as they did; I think they would have considered that a sign of spiritual poverty in the American church of the mid-twentieth century. Most of the great revivals of church history have been accompanied by an outpouring of new music, often in new styles.
(4) There has always been a certain amount of musical “garbage” in our hymnals; it gets weeded out over time. Charles Wesley is credited with writing hundreds of hymns, of which the current hymnbooks might include 3 or 4. The rest have been forgotten because really, they were not that good–like a lot of other prolific writers, he was a bit of a hack, who turned out something great once in a while. The same thing is true of many others. (Isaac Watts and William Cowper put out a hymnal of just their own songs–how many of them do you know today?) I can’t see that some of the current stuff that people claim is vapid is really any worse than “O How I love Jesus” the way it was used in the ’50s.
(5) When I was growing up the typical hymnal contained around 500 songs–and in the churches I knew, 75-90% of the singing was the same dozen hymns and gospel songs over and over again. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Wesley, Crosby or Redman; if you overuse it, it is going to get stale and lifeless.
(6) When contemporary worship was beginning, in the late ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s, we seldom had bands or PA systems; if we had a couple of guitar players who would take turns leading the services, we were content. The music was fresh, sometimes locally written, and the congregational singing was heartfelt. When the corporate world figured out that money could be made selling tapes of this new “worship music” the change came–suddenly every church had to have a band, and the band had to sound like the tapes and CDs. From what I have read, John Wimber, leader of the Vineyard for years and a successful professional musician before he became a Christian, believed that worship music should be simple enough for the average guitar player to play in his small group. By the time Wimber died in 1997, a lot of worship music could not be done in a small group–you needed extra instruments and backup singers to pull it off. And every tape/CD that comes out has one or two fairly good songs, and a lot of “filler”–just like any other commercial music offering.
The really amazing thing about contemporary worship is how rapidly it is running its course. It isn’t over yet, but it is getting stale. Possibly our media-saturated culture is part of the reason for this. What will come next, I do not know. I think the best of this worship music will be remembered and last, just as a fraction of the old hymns lasted beyond the life of the authors.
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Worship = group karaoke followed by nametagged panhandlers followed by long talk about everything but Jesus and grace. At least on the worst days.
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you pose some great questions internet monk.
i’m feeling lots of it. but some of it feels like personal preference…
example, you ask who can stand for 40 minutes and I ask who can sit still for 40 minutes?! 🙂
as a worship leader in the style that you’re critiquing I feel that I struggle with which traditions to retain and what new forms of worship to adopt.
much like the methodist church that I went to as a child got comfortable and locked in to one way…many of the churches that I participate in are just as locked into another way. both have settled for something less in a sense. however both have unique ways of helping people connect with God.
thanks for the great thoughtfood.
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“Ky boy, ah – but are they dressed in leotards and floaty skirts?
Do they do the twirling and the posing with their arms stretched up and the pointy hand gestures?
Do they dance barefoot?”
Yes, Yes, Yes.
“Finally, is it anything like this?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this. Closest was watching the movie Rhinoceros with the the last 30 minutes except for the last few looped twice. And we thought we were going to see a comedy. Don’t ask.
I’m Ky Boy. I need to clean up my ID between these two different computers.
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Hmm. . .
i really don’t have a beef with lights or visuals in general, otherwise why build cathedrals, create sculpture, paint ceilings, or be in any way concerned with our gathering environment? In regard to expense i think the dollars spent should be dependent on all the uses of the facility and in appropriate scale with the church’s budget.
i suppose i missed where the New Covenant had a significant effect on whether or not we should sing when we gather. i guess i consider the specific activity at the Temple and the Law most closely tied to Old Covenant faith but i wouldn’t consider myself a scholar and that could be a misconception. i know that the Temple is not the only place recorded where people sang and/or danced in worship and from the studies i have done i know the word most commonly used in the OT which we translate to “worship” has a different connotation than the most common one in the NT (that is, “to do obiesance” versus “to kiss, as a dog licks it’s master’s hand”) so it seems there’s a difference in general.
For purposes of this discussion, let’s separate the concept of “music” from any particular stylistic expression or form.
i still will contend that there’s something almost universal about music, (in theory, regardless of style if we can get over ourselves) that makes it of value in encouraging the uniting of hearts and minds at a corporate level and that, i think, makes it valuable in Christian corporate worship. i don’t think that’s making too much of -music- itself. No more than “preaching” or “teaching” is made too much of.
Perhaps you are observing something different, but i have rareley seen music overemphasized unto its own end in the churches i have been a part of though i have been a part of several that might ostensibly have the “look” i think you have in mind, iMonk. i guess i’m not trying to counter your assertion in practice, i don’t know that i could argue either way on that. i suppose i’m saying we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater as long as the baby in question is the concept of “music” and not a particular stylistic interpretation.
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God was not in the earthquake, wind or fire but in the still small voice.
BE still and know that I am God. Physically still, emotionally still, mentally still.
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I come to another great discussion late. I think the crowd has moved on to the next great post of IM and maybe I’ll turn the lights on here when I’m done as I doubt anyone is left here to even read this comment.
I also know that what I will say has been said by others here. I guess, if anything, I’m not posting to add a new insight but to cast my vote in support of the perspective I and others have given.
The problem is simply the following. Ever since Christians have started confusing wonderful, God-given, human (function of the brain) emotions with “spirituality,†worship has been a problem. This predates John or was it Charles who was richly warmed by the spirit.
So when you think that emotion=spiritual or more precisely emotion=worship then you must do what you can to create such. But human emotion follows the laws of diminishing returns. Stand on a hill overlooking the sea and see a rainbow and you might feel it deeply. Do it once a week for a while and it will become boring. Then you must stand on top of a mountain and watch an eagle fly buy with two rainbows to have the same emotional experience.
Just look what has happened in the different venues of the entertainment businesses. Rock concerts had to go from stronger lyrics (maybe this is the path that rap continues today) to light shows, to fireworks, biting the heads off of bats . . . of course even that’s old school. In the future nudity will not be enough, there will be sex as part of the concert or cutting of human flesh but I think it will surely come to a climax (pun intended) before we get back to the Romans gore.
So, so-called worship is faced with the same dilemma. When you believe that emotion=worship then you have to keep raising the stakes. “It is Well With my Soul†sung by a small off-key congregation with a flat upright piano must eventually make way for a higher level of experience. Videos flashing deeply moving scenes of red blood pouring over people with incredible moving music played loudly and on key by professionals, special lights, fog . . . .on and on it must go to get the same emotional response. And it’s a free market out there. If your church can’t create the higher lever of emotion . . . I mean “worship†then they tithe-paying people will move to the bigger and better church across town.
But the answer, as I said in my last long comment a few postings ago, is that true worship is a quiet and simple attitude of living. This New Testament worship (in my humble opinion) is sooooooo different than the American Evangelical Church concept of worship. It has absolutely nothing to do with a program, a service, a building nor worship team.
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The issue with contemporary worship isn’t the music itself. If the people are still singing and not just spending the whole time as spectators; if the songs present the Gospel of our redemption and not just a saccharine account of how I feel about God or about some sort of immediate grace that has made this life better in some way; if the lyrics are more than an inane repetition of one or two vacuous phrases; if the instrumental performers play at a level that supports rather than drowning the people’s singing; if the lead singer leads the people in singing rather than just putting on a show for them; if the contemporary songs don’t eliminate the liturgy–then there is nothing fundamentally wrong with contemporary worship.
However, the churches with contemporary worship have more often than not fallen into all of the above traps; almost all of them have fallen into at least one of them. Most of these songs come from a Pentecostal provenance, meaning that “God’s grace” and “the operation of the Holy Spirit” means something in those songs that is very different from what a Lutheran, Anglican or traditional Presbyterian means with those words.
Your hymns are sermons. Do Lutheran, Anglican or Presbyterian churches want Pentecostal sermons in their services? Then they should be very, very wary of contemporary “praise” music.
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Sounds like you’re heading towards what the Council of Trent did regarding church music.
In between declaring that all Protestants are going to Hell (warning for the humour impaired: this is a joke), they also looked at one or two other little matters regarding church discipline:
http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/5124/Counter-Reformation.html
“The Council, in their Canon on Music to be used for the Mass, stated: All things should indeed be so ordered that the Masses, whether they be celebrated with or without singing, may reach tranquilly into the ears and hearts of those who hear them, when everything is executed clearly and at the correct speed. They shall also banish from church all music that contains whether in the singing or in the organ playing things that are lascivious or impure.”
Music had gotten so elaborate that:
“http://www.essortment.com/all/churchmusich_rksc.htm
As more and more composers added and altered the basic Gregorian melody, the music for Mass became more complex. It was hard to pick out the text or understand the meaning of the words. In some instances, the music itself was so difficult that singers baulked at performance. The organist then played the music or improvised on the theme, thus introducing liturgical organ music.
At the Council of Trent, church leaders met to address the problem of the difficult and extremely varied music before them. The first official catechism was formulated. It was decided that the music for worship must be within reasonable bounds as far as its difficulty so that members of the congregation could participate.”
This is why Palestrina wrote the “Missa Papae Marcelli”:
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_Papae_Marcelli
The third and closing sessions of the Council of Trent were held in 1562-63, at which the use of polyphonic music in the Catholic Church was discussed. Concerns were raised over two problems: first, the use of music that was objectionable, such as secular songs provided with religious lyrics (contrafacta) or Masses based on songs with lyrics about drinking or lovemaking; and second, whether imitation in polyphonic music obscured the words of the mass, interfering with the listener’s devotion. Some debate occurred over whether polyphony should be banned outright in worship, and some of the auxiliary publications by attendants of the Council caution against both of these problems. However, none of the official proclamations from the Council mentions polyphonic music, excepting one injunction against the use of music that is, in the words of the Council, “lascivious or impure”.
Starting in the late 16th century, a legend began that the second of these points, the threat that polyphony might have been banned by the Council because of the unintelligibility of the words, was the impetus behind Palestrina’s composition of this mass. It was believed that the simple, declamatory style of Missa Papae Marcelli convinced Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, on hearing, that polyphony could be intelligible, and that music such as Palestrina’s was all too beautiful to ban from the Church.”
So – the Internet Monk: Pope Marcellus de nos jours? 😉
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Ky boy, ah – but are they dressed in leotards and floaty skirts?
Do they do the twirling and the posing with their arms stretched up and the pointy hand gestures?
Do they dance barefoot?
Finally, is it anything like this?
(Granted, that is a Call To Action ‘liturgy’ and so extremely out there on the fringe, but the dancing is pretty much what I’ve been exposed to, whenever I’ve been exposed to it) 😉
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Nothing has helped me understand what’s happening today in evangelical “worship” better than seeing it as one example (and perhaps not even one of the most significant) of our society’s general surrender of high culture and traditional culture to popular/mass culture. The timeless and the enduring are being replaced by the transient, the dated, and the disposable. What is often difficult to understand, requires effort to appreciate, requires extended and concentrated attention, and stands above the individual saying, “You are below this until you meet its demands on you,” is being crushed by what is immediately usable, makes no demands, and requires little effort or attention. If given a choice between something that offers enduring satisfaction only for those who would pay the price of understanding and appreciation, and something that offers instant gratification, we’ve picked the latter. Just like the rest of society, we evangelicals have rejected the “true” and the “good,” and even what is simply “ours,” in favor of the “new.” We’ve rejected transcendence and initiation in favor of amusement and distraction. The hierarchical demands of high and traditional culture have been swamped by what appears egalitarian on the surface, but is in fact driven by an elite who exploit that egalitarian veneer for commercial gain.
In my view the only way back from the brink (if we haven’t already plunged over it) is for followers of Christ in this pop/mass culture-dominated world to pull away not only from what it has done to us on Sunday but from what it has done to us Monday through Saturday as well. Only a wholesale renaissance of the values and commitments that once drove high culture and traditional culture, along with a rejection of the toxic qualities underlying pop culture, will give us a chance at repairing the evangelical “worship” catastrophe.
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BTW, on the pipe organ issue mentioned from time to time in the comments – yes, they are monumentally expensive these days – $300,000 for smaller ones (talking all new here folks) up to and
over $1,000,000 for larger ones yet the company I represent and many of the other organ companies are doing bang up business these days. My company has a back log for new instruments of nearly 2 years – if you signed a contract for a new instrument today the soonest you would be able to take delivery is Fall 2010 or into 2011 if it’s a large instrument.
Sorry on all that – point is they’re selling them left and right (so are the electronic organ cos.)so there is a great number of churches, schools and otherwise buying and using these traditional instruments for their traditional services – there is a turn back towards the more traditional as I’ve mentioned before – slow turn, yes but a turn never the less.
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Chad Rushing,
Respectfully, the comment that your Christian friend made terrifies me. Do away with (or even radically shorten) the preaching time, in order to have more time to sing? This is an *overly* emotion-based argument (emotions are God-given and good, but as with everything else, discernment is required) that would make no sense whatsoever to Christians in almost any century other than ours.
Without the speaking of God to us, through accurate, faithful preaching in a worship service, singing can easily become more about us and our emotions than about God Himself and a right, emotional response *to* Him. I fear that this tendency may be at work in your friend’s comment. Obviously, I don’t *know* that this is the case, but it is my fear, not just for her, but for many Christians in many churches.
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Former evangelical here, who defected to the LCMS largely due to the issues IM is bringing up. I should point out that Lutherans are not immune to the kinds of problems this post is bringing up. Many LCMS congregations have contemporary worship services or “blended” services. My congregation (pop. about 250) has one of each on Sundays. (Therein is another issue we could discuss — the tendency for churches wanting to institute praise band-based worship to split into two churches, one with a traditional service at 8:30 and another with a rock service at 10:30. Can that possibly be healthy?)
As a corollary to the point that IM brings up about the expense of contemporary worship (technical and financial commitment), contemporary worship attempted at the megachurch scale almost always results in some kind of extremely distracting technical glitch during the service. The Powerpoint guy can’t keep the slides in synch; there’s unstoppable feedback; the microphone cables for the worship leader dies; etc. This is not even to mention potential musical problems when pop/rock music is performed by amateurs. I’ve pointed out to my pastor that this kind of thing doesn’t happen when you just sing hymns. There’s a real benefit to keeping things simple.
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Zach Nielsen (love you, fellow church member bro!), 🙂
I completely agree with you that churches which follow a more strict form of liturgy should explain (at least at times) to their people why they do what they do.
For example, one church service which I attended had three public prayers (each prayed by a different elder,) respectively, of praise and adoration to God, a general confession of sin, and supplication to God (asking for things, such as the world-wide spread of the Gospel through His Spirit and His people).
This “corporate prayer in three forms” model was a regular, weekly part of the worship service for this church. However, before each prayer, the Biblical meaning and purpose for it was briefly explained to the congregation. It was wonderfully edifying and not “formal” in a dead or stultifying sense.
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Miguel said “I think it should be our love for one another that draws unbelievers into fellowship with us, not cool sounding music.”
Absolutely! I recently left a church body that was highly liturgical and while the services were lovely and meditative, the people were cold, completely uncommunicative, and highly judgemental (at least the few I was actually able to get to open up a bit). So yes, any form of worship without love and human caring is an empty void.
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CORRECTION: I meant to site 1 Corinthians 12:28 in my response above rather than verse 18.
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shawn:
Much agreement.
#1 is an excellent support. Not for spending $100,000 and saying it points to Jesus (same problem with other styles and instruments….but lights? Lights?) but for music as a component in worship. The idea that earthly liturgy should reflect heavenly is Orthodox and RC, but I wouldn’t agree to the same extent. I think missional setting, culture, etc play much more into our setting. And other commanded components of NT worship aren’t in Rev.
#2 Yes it makes a huge difference if you are consciously trying to shape ministry and spirituality after Jesus. Evangelicalism these days believes that’s a non starter. I think it’s the Great Omission.
#3 Old Covenant examples used in the New Covenant era need to be used with great care. And again, go was sponsoring a physical nation, physical temple, etc. All that is fulfilled and whatever we do has to be in a New Covenant sense.
Expressions of worship= a way to look at everything. Specific Christian worship in any culture or setting = what I am suggesting we look at.
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I am going to have to respectfully disagree with K.W. Leslie’s earlier comments. Teaching/preaching and musical talent are not to be treated as competing equals within the context of church services.
The teaching of the Word is a spiritual gift, one springing from the indwelling Holy Spirit Himself, and is completely unique to believers. In contrast, artistic ability (including music) is a general talent/skill that is available to various believers and unbelievers alike. In that sense, it is like athletic ability, comedic ability, or business acumen.
Contrary to popular belief, “music minister” or “praise leader” is not an ordained role in the church mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:18 or in Paul’s other letters to the best of my knowledge (contrary to SBC traditions). Even if such positions are to officially exist, one has to wonder if they warrant being on the church payroll proper.
Obviously, a believer with artistic talents (music, sculpture, painting, acting, etc.) would do well to use those talents to glorify God and to spread the Gospel. However, there are plenty of opportunities to do so individually (rather than with the congregation as a whole) outside of the service proper. If nothing else, musical performances in services by individuals or musicians should not be followed by loud applause (much less standing ovations) as if the performance was being offered to the congregation for its approval rather than to God Himself. What’s next, backstage passes?
A Christian friend of mine, who attends a church that has these emotional praise and worship services, once suggested to me that the musical part of the service was so meaningful to her, typically moving her to tears, that she would not have a problem with the sermon being dropped altogether to make more time for the music and singing. I am sure she meant no harm by that statement, but it made me wonder if modern worship services are horribly undermining the equipping of the saints through the presentation of the Word and slowly killing our churches from the inside.
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Admittedly, music is not the beat-all-end-all. As i see it, music is not even an end but a means to an end as it relates to worship (corporate worship, specifically.)
Humbly, in openness and interested in perspective, here are some questions/observations regarding how much music matters as well as your observations regarding following Christ’s example. i’m interested in your thoughts:
1. It seems significant in Heaven (scripturally.)
2. Jesus seemed to try to relate to people in the context of their customs and culture. If everyone had a radio on their donkey would things have looked different? Does the fact that as far as we know neither Jesus nor the Apostles are represented as musicians make any difference?
3. David (a man after God’s own heart), Asaph, the Sons of Korah, etc.
By the way, i would consider mercy ministry, teaching (or receiving teaching), prayer, community, and the sacraments all potentially expressions of worship depending on one’s view of what worship actually is.
(And i didn’t peg you as a music hater. . . in fact, i think here’s an electric bass behind you in a photo on this site :j )
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I’m aware of the songs at passover and I assume Jesus sang in other settings in Judaism. I’m just making the point that to get to music in worship you have to first admit that Jesus, in building his movement, didn’t give it the place we do. Our use of it comes from the ancient church and it’s use of hymns- as Paul says- for teaching and confessional purposes. All New Testament scholars agree that this is obvious in the letters.
But if that is the line- Jesus, no music, Pauline communities, hymns- then we have to put the whole picture together. And when we do, we come out with music in a seconday, teaching, supportive role and not with the responsibility to “create a worship experience.” That’s old covenant and it’s a big part of the goof-up.
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iMonk: “But Jesus NEVER used [music] that we know of.”
Except in Matthew 26:30/Mark 14:26, of course.
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If you saw my music shelf or observed my ministry, you’d know I have a big appreciation for music. I taught our school most of the worship music they’ve used for my 17 years here.
But face it: Jesus didn’t talk about music. Paul does, but it’s in a context of teaching and encouraging one another about Jesus. It is part of human creativity and it has great usefulness as scripture testifies. But Jesus NEVER used it that we know of. Therefore an honestly Jesus shaped spirituality MUST take it down a notch (or two or more) to a place where we aren’t saying we know better than Jesus did.
It seems to me that Jesus ministry has to leave all of us saying that mercy ministry, teaching, prayer, community, the sacraments, etc all excel music ALONE in Jesus’ approach. If and when we use it, it needs to have a place commensurate with how Jesus did ministry.
My book will have quite a bit to say about this aspect of the “Jesus Disconnect” in evangelical spirituality.
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“We need Jesus shaped worship, and we need worship that promotes a simple, direct, uncompromising Jesus shaped spirituality.”
So this is the closing of the original article we’re supposedly discussing. Who thinks they can universally say what shape that should take?
Why do we gather in the first place if we individually live out that worship/life? The worship/life of the individual does not negate or minimalize the congregational worship of the local faith community, in fact just walking in the doors for the purpose of “gathering together” is obedience to scripture which is a form of worship. Among other things we also gather to unify, to reconnect as a community, to be strengthened in a corporate purpose, to move hearts and minds toward God together. What form should our expression take? Each body needs to decide based on that sort of criteria.
If i read the original article correctly, one of the main problems iMonk has is the idea that there is any specific expression which is universally applicable and if i see that correctly i agree. The particular example being used is distracting, in my opinion, from the actual point.
Music is overemphasized? Frankly, i see music (singing in particular) used in our churches today and throughout church history for one simple reason: something about it helps us connect with each other to enable us to turn toward God together.
For many of us, perhaps most of us, the most simple, direct, authentic expression of worship is musical, especially in a corporate setting (which explains why music seems to be so important.) Reality is that in current American cultures the most universal understanding of music is a drum/bass/guitar paradigm. And frankly, i think bemoaning a high set of “production values” (excellence?) is weak. i doubt Bach would fail to strive for excellence in his endeavors.
Have we turned our back on the past? Really? How about this question: do we really even understand why traditions were instituted in the first place? What is the symbolism, the purpose, the intended effect? When we, at some point fail to teach the body why we do anything the value of whatever that thing is becomes marginal. If we don’t remind ourselves why we do what we do when we gather together and teach the new believers and next generation why we do what we do the value will be lost. We will find value in some other expression just as generations before us have.
All of that leads me to reiterate that the form of what we do is not as important as the function and why we do it to begin with. It seems the Monk and i agree on that. The “uncompromising Jesus shaped spirituality” should be the impetus for anything we do. I’m not sure we agree about the war on “the past,” i think it depends on how far into “the past” you look and if you are observing form or purpose. We shouldn’t change just to make things different but we should change anything that fails to achieve its purpose or appears to have no particular aim.
Oops, i’ve just realized i probably just wrote my own blog. . . sorry.
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I’ve been to mass a few times. I know how it works.
Our problem here is that the premise of more than a few commenters is the usual “defense against the old people” posture, saying that any notation of the mad train ride we’re on is an attempt to throw us back to the worst of the past. For instance, I just erased a comment that told me about the millions spent on organs. Yeah, that was my major point, right there.
Worship is one of the few activities I know of where any discussion of the evidence that what we’re doing may be a mistake is taken as an immediate endorsement of the worst possible alternatives.
“You want to do away with the Designated hitter? Well I won’t stand for you threatening to replace all baseball games everywhere with soccer.”
I got your point.
peace
ms
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Also, I would love to see you discuss something a little less controversial, like murder or abortion or stem cell research.
Sheesh, this thread has provoked a response!
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iMonk, I don’t think people have to stand, I was just saying that standing has changed a whole lot through antiquity.
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M Peak
That combination with Celtic music brings good tears to my eyes just thinking about it.
As for myself, I find it hard to worship with praise music, either in groups large or small or alone.
Alone, you can do what you can’t and shouldn’t do on Sunday mornings. (Like dance) GRIN
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When someone wants to make an issue of standing for extended periods of time, I automatically know that you are either:
1) Incredibly unaware of what age and physical declension do to the body. (My lower back would paralyze me in 30 minutes with no support. I wouldn’t think about God for 20 of those 30 minutes.)
2) A twenty something who has managed to avoid all older adults in church so far.
3) Just bizarrely unaware of how dumbly unnecessary it is to stand and make a show like a concert audience when you are no longer a high school or college student.
ms
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Mike, you make some valid points about contemporary, technology driven worship, but I do want to avoid being too critical.
Regardless of the style of worship, if the heart of the congregation is not reaching out to God, be it through choirs or praise bands or liturgy, it is just for show.
I have met people from Baptist, Charismatic, Presbyterian and Emerging traditions who all seriously want to worship God in their respected congregations. They are the ones that inspire me.
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BTW, from what I understand about worship in the Bible, it was common to stand for hours and the Bible says about volume that they could be heard for miles. I don’t mean to be contrary, but I think these ideas needed clarifying.
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I think that worship in today’s Western culture hasn’t strayed far from several eras. In the old testament, Asaph was the leader of worship and it was much more of a production than it is today. There were proscribed things to where, instruments to play, etc. The church from up until about the 1700’s was the biggest patron of the arts including music. From Bach to Tchesnekov, the church and music have been tied together in very elaborate productions that I wonder how tied to God they were. Nonetheless, I do think you have a great point about how it is centered mostly around music and not other art forms.
Did I miss the point?
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Recently, my Presbyterian church had three musicians playing during Communion. There was an accoustic guitar, a harp and an accordian, all playing parts to a Celtic tune.
That was probably the best moment of worship I have experiened in quite a long time.
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[Mod edit]
Greg: Other than breaking every rule I set up for this thread, it was a fine comment.
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I am a professional musician and i have to say that i only really enjoy prayer and worship in as music silence and simplicity as possible. Music is something i lose myself in while engaging my emotions and intellect on peaks and valleys of feeling. Worship to me is much, much more than that. Worship lifts me above that to a place of Serenity.
I think too much loud, pop music (which i do make so i’m not insulting it in general) feeds an emotional gluttony, and i look for prayer and worship to raise me up. I enjoy listening to my ipod in the evening, on my terrace, jamming out to a band in concert. I love this, it’s a great time for me. It is not church, and while i think i’m still with Gd and He with me, i’m not seeking to elevate myself to Christ’s level.
Subtle. Tasteful. These are concepts i wish were utilized more. Are you REALLY bringing people closer to Gd? Because if the feeling i get at church i can get from (insert big band here) playing down at the arena, i think you’re merely imitating something profane when you should be offering something sacred.
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Too much music distracts me from worship. I am not sure why we need music at all. I’d rather have total silence for 3 minutes. About the only type of music I find enjoyable is Taize – simple melodies, prayerful lyrics, repeated.
And I say that as a guy who started two different praise bands. I got out of the music ministry because I found it totally impossible to worship and ‘perform’ at the same time. When you’re thinking about the guitar solo you’ve got coming out of the chorus, you’re not thinking about God.
On the other hand, it’s a blessing to see the music that you play touch people’s hearts.
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All I’m going to say is “I don’t want the spirit, I want the kick drum”
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Mega-churches often periodically offer a different service in which more traditional diversity of worship (such as the Lord’s Supper, but not necessarily music though) is presented. These may be offered on days other than Sunday, and sometimes referred to as a “believer’s service”.
By the way, congrats to the Pitt. Penguins. Oops.
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I attend church services and chapel in a college town and have seen a range of praise teams.
My favorite song leader is maybe a 30-something woman who leads choruses and hymns. She smiles, makes eye contact, leans forward, addresses the congregation as she sings, and I feel as though she is inviting us to sing with her to this God whom she is really excited about.
My least favorite is the 20-some young adult praise team. They really do look like they’re having a great time worshipping, eyes closed, arms in the air, and generally blissing out while ignoring the congregation. I feel as though I am expected to admire them. It is hard to join in because none of the congregation can actually sing the songs; odd timing, instrumental bridges, new words and music- even if I have heard the song before I don’t know when to come in and I consider myself pretty musical.
This is an unjust and curmudgeonly generalization, I admit up front. I wonder if the (classically-trained) church musicians know many in the congregation aren’t as musical as they are and try to draw the congregation in. The self-taught guitarists are trying to prove that they are musicians and are setting themselves apart from the congregation.
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IMHO How to stop the “machine”. Unplug it. Seriously consider it.
Can your church hold a service if the power is out? How about if a tornado blows down the building? If you can maybe you’re on the right track.
You don’t have to get rid of the electronics, its just if you’re too dependent on them to define worship.
We had the lights out one Sunday morning, opened the doors and windows to let the light in (traditional architecture has the windows to let light in you know because they didn’t always have electricity) organist went down to the piano and played the liturgy and hymns.
Hope I never have to deal with a tornado or hurricane scenario, but we could still worship, even without the hymnals we could, even acapella if needed.
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And prayer-I almost forgot.
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As Zach has pointed out the main problem with liturgy is it can become stale. The new ELCA (sorry LCMS didn’t sign on with this one) worship book has eleven liturgies. Hynms and songs from old
classics to praise and worship and international songs are also included. Daily prayer practices for families are in there along with lots of other stuff that help lay people every day not just Sunday. Take a look to get some ideas.
Spiritual is not emotionalism. Reading these posts I can understand why folks are having a hard time finding Jesus if it is about getting emotionally worked up. What about the still small voice.
Corporate worship is about a people gathered for Word (Scripture, Gospel) and Sacarment (Eucharist, Lord Supper, Baptism).
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“I’ve heard young pastors literally ORDER older members to hit the road if they didn’t like the coming music revolution.” -iMonk.
There is no way to over-emphasize this. When the elderly go, they take with them children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, neighbor kids, and the friends and associates of these next generations, which is what the church is supposed to be reaching with the kickin’ praise bands. You can’t reach the youth without reaching the elderly.
This happened to my parents. It’s real. It’s spiritual genocide. It’s evangelicalism cutting its own throat.
Face it. We’re all edging our way toward old age. Are we ready to be set out on the curbside like this? We need to speak up for the elderly now, in hopes that someone will speak for us when we are in their shoes. We’re supposed to be all about the sanctity of human life, right? What a crock.
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oooppppsss. MAKE THAT GRACE NOT GRAVE. Don’t kill me Jeff if you are reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Lords-Service-Covenant-Renewal-Worship/dp/1591280087
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Agree fully, brother.
As an excellent resource, I recommend Jeff Meyer’s The Grave of Covenant Renewal Worship.
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The occasional new poster at this blog might want to read the commenting guidelines under the FAQ tabs.
I’m not going to take a discussion on music and allow you to turn it into a discussion of what a pretentious blog name I have. Not that that isn’t an interesting subject, but I moderate to keep us on topic. So my blog name, my deodorant, the Stanley Cup, etc, aren’t on the menu.
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Ok Dan. Where do you go to church. I am moving there immediately. Your CONGREGATION sings in four parts? Incredible! I am bending over backwards to attempt to get my vocal ensembles in four parts. It is truly a lost art. I thought the idea of congregations reading four parts out of a hymnal was simply a myth…
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@ Dan Smith: Right there with ya.
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[Mod edit]
But, as I see it, evangelicalism is a truly multivalent phenomenon with many forms. There is really no way to pin down a workable stereotype. Everyone seems to through around the term based on their own somewhat limited experiences.
One of these is worship style. You are referring to what I consider to be a disturbing trend in many churches. But let’s not over generalize here. My little evangelical church, for example, never gave up the classic hymns that we know and love. Our “liturgies” are full of songs by those such as the Wesleys and Isaac Watts, the Evangelicals who fought against the evils of the slave trade, and other social evils.
One more observation. For all of the “post evangelicals” I have met who have claimed to go to a more “liturgical” church (in my experience, most of these are middle class and quite priveleged), I have met several more who have left the high and mainline churches because they found the personal God in evangelicalism who showed them the simple life of faith and discipleship. This is the evangelicalism that I know, and I (as a 25 year old) am still proud to call myself an evangelical, even though I know that we are a people who have our own share of faults.
Blessings on the journey.
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“God is deaf.” — Nietzsche
Did I get that quotation right? 🙂
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Being born into and remaining today in the acappella Campbellites, loud bands are not a problem. Our music is congregations singing in four parts both traditional hymns/psalms/spiritual songs as well as “new” (post 1960) “praise” (7-11) songs. Some of our congregations sound like MTC and others not. While some have embraced the “praise team” to enhance the congregational sound, we seldom utilize “special” presentations (solos, quartets).
While singing is very important to us as is our weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. Sadly, these have given way (time wise) to preaching.
My infrequent exposure to “bands” is like many above — too loud as their use destroys (generally) the congregation’s beautiful four-part harmony.
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As I recall, in the early church, catechumens (people who believed, but were not yet baptized) were required to leave the service before the beginning of the Eucharistic service (which, by the way, includes the creed and the Lord’s Prayer). To me, that seems to imply that the church service itself is not for unbelievers, but is part of our service to God. Obviously, that is not practiced anymore, but it serves as a reminder that something mystical is happening at church that will not be understood by everyone present. And that’s ok.
I have turned into a bit of a curmudgeon myself I guess (I’m only 35) and am concerned about emotion-driven “worship.” Is it worship only if you feel something? If you don’t feel anything, was it bad worship? Is that what God thinks?
Personally, I don’t think the musical style is as important (there are some awfully sentimental and sappy hymns, after all) as what we’re really trying to do at church. And when you have churches that are non-sacramental, then I think it’s really hard to figure out what church is for.
And I agree that it’s really hard to stand for a two-hour service. Why do you think Orthodox do all that bowing and kneeling and prostrating? I’m kidding, but it does break up the standing. 🙂
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“On the other hand, I don’t think you have dancers.”
Sporadically but we do. 🙂
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Spot on. And your later comments too, iMonk.
My two cents: Please listen, everyone. Liturgy is not a style. It is the way the people of God approach God. We gather, we hear his Word, we feast at his table, we are sent into the world. Style is another issue, and secondary.
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“And who can stand for 20, 30 or 40 minutes?”
The Orthodox? 🙂
Seriously, though, as an Irish Catholic, I’m baffled by terms like “worship leader”, “worship team” and “the band”.
Sounds to me like “worship team” is your equivalent of “liturgists” (as in the joke, “When God saw the modern church was no longer being persecuted, He sent liturgists.”)
These are the trained experts who come in and decide to rip out altar rails, dump the statues, do away with the devotions, move the tabernacle about as far away as can be physically done while still remaining somewhere in the general body of the church, introduce ‘inclusive’ language, shill for ‘greater involvement of the laity’ which somehow always turns out to mean ‘the laity is us trained experts with diplomas and none of you pew sitters’, liturgical dance, etc. etc. etc.
We don’t, thank God, have rock bands. On the other hand, I don’t think you have dancers. So we’re about even on that escape 🙂
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Great post, and I really agree with what you’re saying. I wonder, though, if it’s totally correct to say that the reformed are leading the way on this. Caught up in it? Sure. No different from most others in many ways? Yeah, I guess. But leading the way? I don’t know. I think that the church has been heading this direction for some time, long before the reformed movement picked up steam among younger people and attached itself to this form of worship. But perhaps the young reformed are becoming leaders in this now?
Either way, excellent post, and thank you for articulating this well.
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“Is the band leading or performing.”
I have that reversed. I guess folks know the meaning.
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Sometimes I pretent I am Bono or Johnny Cash when singing songs during our worship. I was in a rock band for a while and it is really hard for me to praise god when I see the guitar player make the rockstar face as he is bending his strings. It is a struggle.
Grace and Peace, Mark
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>…but white churches with loud guitars are routinely thrashed?
First, the racial element in that comment isn’t going to be repeated. You’re on moderation for that one.
Second, as to whether I “know people’s thoughts”…are you going for the ironic non sequitor of all time award? If you didn’t know my thoughts because I told them to you, you wouldn’t be commenting….”as if you knew (my) thoughts.” They TOLD me what they thought.
Third, if you don’t like it, go elsewhere….is that being said to me in a church I’ve attended for 20 years or as a seeker/consumer? It’s protestant evangelicalism in a single sentence. “Either buy it or move on to something you can buy.” Christian unity and the Christian communuty, done contemporary evangelical style.
ms
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I look at the issue as this. Is the band leading or performing. Is the congregation acting as an audience or a participant. If either is the first choice it’s not worship. It’s a concert.
“Why are churches of other cultures, such as African-American churches, considered as diverse culture to be respected but white churches with loud guitars are routinely thrashed?”
In the case of every such service I’ve been to it was worship with the congregation participating (very much) and the worship team leading.
And I’ve found out that good preaching and music as worship are hard to find. And even harder to find in the same place on Sunday morning.
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Heath:
I assume you didn’t read this comment earlier in the thread. Since you’re a nice guy, I’ll repeat it:
I have no issue with contemporary elements in worship, contemporary music or contemporary compositions. I am not trying to lobby for a liturgy frozen in time. My main issues are:
1) We’re in a system that won’t stop, and we aren’t critical. I cannot believe the people who are unaware of how their worship is not tied to an industry.
2) We have declared war on the past.
3) It is a megachurch model. It’s too complex, too expensive and too much of a resource investment for most churches.
4) It puts too much emphasis on music.
5) It is uncritical involved with entertainment values.
When younger evangelicals call me a curmudgeon, I’m honored. We need a lot more curmudgeons in this movement.
Every chuch’s approach will be different. I have NO ISSUE with large churches using their resources to do what they want, but I’ve heard young pastors literally ORDER older members to hit the road if they didn’t like the coming music revolution.
What we have is a desertion of elders monitoring and moderating a diverse worship culture for the entiure church. Instead, we have a missional approach to worship that heads for one demographic with a vengence, then justifies its success with numbers.
The logic currently used in American evangelicalism would make third world/Chinese/Indian pastors either laugh or cry. I’m not sure which.
Curmudgeon? Sure. When Rick Warren said in PDC, your music is the most important factor in whom you reach, I disagreed then and I disagree now. It’s an audience satisfaction factor. It’s an outreach factor. But what it does to the gathered church is potentially destructive.
We need simple worship, a focus on Jesus, all the sacraments, Christ centered preaching and elders doing their job. I don’t care what musical style of instruments.
ms
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I was at the same conference you were at last week (Advance 09) and I was in the same room with you when the comment about band over choirs comment was made. I didn’t agree with that comment either.
I think there is some validity to what you are saying, but for the most part you sound a little like an old curmudgeon who isn’t getting his way and so he wines and complains about it.
You are also making some broad generalizations that make every church who uses contemporary musical elements in their worship sound bad. I have seen some of what you are talking about, but I have also seen some that could classified the same musically that are much more glorifying and honoring to God.
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I can’t speak for them, I can only read I Cor 14 and conclude that when Christians gather and the Gospel is central, that’s all the missional ammo the HS needs.
My experience is that the lost identify with the music, but not clearly with Christ. Worship becomes the focus of faith. I deal with this CONSTANTLY. People who say they have trusted Christ, but when removed from the big show they like, have no desire to follow him at all.
That’s the GOOF. And it’s a huge one. We attract to our version of attraction. The HS attracts to Jesus. We’ve made Jesus into Jesus Christ Superstar.
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More and more do bands take over the singing vs choirs. The sound gets louder and louder. sometimes it does get ridiculous. Maybe the church of christ is right, just sing acapella?
I am not a fan of choirs personally. Just never liked them. Bands- whatever. I am just a stuck in the mud.
I hate it if I am seeing some singer on tv and the next thing you know a choir comes out and starts singing and doing they wave dance. I turn the channel. It is a turn off like dancers doing their thing behind some singing. Come one. don’t run the song lol
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Michael,
I’m interested in one theme that seems to keep coming up, that the point of the service is not to evangelize the lost.
I guess my concern/question is, how can a lost person experience the community of faith praising God together apart from a “service”.
I am NOT arguing for a seeker sensitive model, I’m just curious why everyone is reacting so negatively to the idea that the worship service is evangelistic.
I would argue that doxalogical evangelism is directly tied to the “missional” conversation going on.
I’d love to hear your thoughts
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Dear Monk,
I am a Catholic, but I have gone to Megachurches for services. At first I felt like our church was really missing out, by not having the whole band experience, but as I continued to attend the mega church, I missed my old choir, with the out of tune voices, or just the old man in the back who sang out of his heart. The mega church model lost it’s appeal to me, because I felt like it was performance.
Today, my catholic church has tried to bring some of the contemporary type of music to our church, but we have different time masses, and they take turns doing different times. This allows our congregation, to have a little of each, instead of having just one type of music. I now feel very content where I am worshipping. Reading these blogs makes me realize I wasn’t as off in my thinking as I thought.
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Quick response to PITA – the culture issue mentioned such as the African American churches and others…. they have, for the most part, stayed true to their worship heritages where the SBC and others have chased after every trendy worship style that’s been pumped out of the industry the last 30+ years. You have to look trendy, wear the trendy clothes and shoes, have the latest hair style, be skinny as a pole, have a Starbuck’s in one hand and a bottle of water in the other and listen to the latest Hillsong,
Tomlin, Redman and so forth to be included in anything music/worship related in these churches. It’s entirely market driven and agencies such as Lifeway, Word and others pump out drivel and these folks buy up and force it down the throats of their congreations as worship and dare them to say one thing about it’s validity as it relates to scriptural worship! The AA churches and others, while having a more “lively” service many times is at least staying true to their heritage – the rest of us (SBC/others) have trashed ours and bought the lie. There’s nothing wrong with our worship heritage other than us and we need to embace it and appreciate it and use it and we’re not and some never will again – the loss is their’s…. I’m not going down that road again – tried it and have the shirt which I’ve took off and thown away.
Well… that’s enough for now….
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Sorry—”the newbies think it’s normal.” Wish WordPress allowed corrections.
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“Man, you could really feel the Holy Spirit in that worship!” I remind people regularly that it’s important to not confuse the bass with the Holy Spirit.
It appears we’re all agreed that music isn’t the only form of worship out there, but the problem, really, stems from newbies and musicians.
All of us primarily worship God through the talent He’s dropped into us. For some, that’s preaching the word. For some, that’s prayer. Me, I write. Musicians make music. Of course they’re gonna argue that it’s “worship,” because to them it is; and of course preachers are gonna argue that music is not the only form of worship, because it’s not, and because to them preaching is a more valid form of worship, and they wish the music would preach more. But no one form is more valid than another. What makes any worship valid is whether the heart seeks to honor God.
If you’re the preaching type, you will of course not be as capable of worship through music as a musician. And if you find God easier through theology, you’ll naturally gripe that the musicians lack theological depth. And if you really don’t care for music, you’ll complain that the musicians seem to have taken over… and, well, we’ve sorta let them.
What this all comes down to is that we’re really not collectively worshiping God. We’re all doing our own thing, and complaining about the musicians because they get to do their own thing on stage, and they’re not doing enough of our thing. Since we don’t point this out, the newbies thing it’s normal and propagate it, and consequently here’s our mess.
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I meant to say “more about excellence” in that last paragraph.
z
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Michael, what do you think would be some solutions to the issues you raise here?
I think this whole issue has much to do with pragmatism rather than some desire to alienate “the old folks”. 25 years ago, having a band was what “worked” and so people just naturally copy it.
Having a band in church was a welcome change for me when I was 18 years old. I was raised in a Lutheran church that ran through the usual script every week. All this communicated to me was that pastors could read the script well, but were not really emotionally invested in what was being presented. Just show up and check the box was how perceived it.
Now I am not against more strict forms in church (we all have forms anyway) but for those of you advocating for a more Lutheran or PCA type of liturgy in your church please do the people a huge favor(young people especially) and tell them why you are doing what you are doing! Why should I care? What is happening in the service? What does it mean? Reading the script week after week just communicates to me (or did when I was a kid) a sort of dead formalism that made having a more informal service with a band all the more attractive. This is just the evolution of my experience.
Today I am a music minister and our services are preaching, singing, prayer and interaction. That is about it. I lead a band in various forms. Sometimes is rockin’ and sometimes it’s just me at the piano with a singer and a cello. We do all that and everything in between. I am more concerned about excellence than I am about forms. This certainly needs to be qualified, but I think if most pastors thought less about excellence in all aspects of the service and less about forms, I think we would all be better off.
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“We’ve adopted an approach that demands ridiculous levels of musical, technical and financial commitment and resources.”
I took part in a church plant and I was asked to be in the worship band. It did strike me how complicated and time consuming and expensive it was to have a full worship band when there were only like 10 people in the congregation. We had to tear down the p.a. for each service and store it at a self storage place. I eventually quit because it was too much commitment.
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My first post struck me as snarky after sending, and I asked myself, don’t Catholics as well “chase after culture” by recognizing it and using it, liturgically, etc.? Perhaps the issue is more one of using culture wisely, and ‘conservatively’ in choosing those elements that will conserve the worshipful versus purely sensory aspects of our group experience. Fascinating to think about and worthy of more conversation. I laugh every time I pass a Church with a sign for its ‘Contemporary Worship,’ since it was the very same game and attempt at relevance I knew grwoing up 30 years ago.
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Been busy and haven’t read much lately but this post, as you would expect, caught my eye (ear?) anyway… yes,yes,yes a thousand times yes! This very thing was one of the deciding factors in resiging a recent organist position – one among other considerations but, never the less, a big
one. I might add Michael, that the term Praise and Worship, for the most part, equates to contemporary music/worship styles while the words traditional worship have become equal to four letter words in these churches. BTW, I love 10th
Pres in Philly – one of the shining stars of what church worship should look like and be like.
Something worth noting is that in my part-time work as a pipe organ company representative – I see, as do others in the business, a slow but definate turning back towards prefering a more
traditional approach to worship which includes
all facets of it not just the music though that’s a big part of it. I have also noted that baptist churches are the absolute worst regarding the contemporary vs. traditional issues – they have
pretty much trashed the worship and music heritage that they once had with few exceptions and quite honestly I don’t know if it can ever be recovered in most of those churches – primarily speaking of SBC churches – it’s all but gone but that’s not necessarilly so in other denominations thankfully though my wife and I have found a baptist church here locally that we’ve been visiting that still has a traditional service that we find very enjoyable and our 1st BC here is doing right well but these are exceptions among SBC churches here.
One last thing (post is getting too long) is that in the baptist church the big resurgance of traditional worship and music is taking place in the CBF churches for the most part and a big example is The Fellowship of Baptist Pastoral Musicians – one of their stated goals is to bring back the great, rich and storied music and worship heritage to their churches. Music directors in SBC churches that attend the FBPM conferences usually do so at risk of being fired from their churches if found out – this was stated by several at the first conference in 2008 – no the ultimate end at least in SBC churches and a few others won’t be good.
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OK. This discussion is in some danger of going to moderation because we’re going to debate whether everything is worship, therefore what we do as a gathered people is really irrelevant.
When I post a topic, I am not opening up a discussion on all fronts. And I am definitely not taking up or criticizing every possible position on all related subjects.
“All of life is worship” is a typical Protestant approach to this subject. It’s true, and it deconstructs the gathered life of the church down to nothing.
The gathered worship of the church is how we enter into all of life as worship. That’s why it’s important we don’t allow one form of musical worship to co-op the entire concept.
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Mark Driscoll’s talk about Ministry Idolatry at Advance 09 (Thanks Michael for pointing me to that site) nails this. I don’t recall him ACTUALLY talking about bands, but his thesis was that all sin problems are worship problems. We are worshiping the wrong things. Sometimes we are even worshiping “good” things. But when “good things become god things, they are bad things.”
When we look at the way worship is being done in any church, we can see clues to what is REALLY being worshiped. Is it tradition (“wisdom without reflection” – matt chandler) or is it the NEW? The challenge is that humans are so bent in the direction of idolatry that even when we are worshiping the One True and Living God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, our little idols can creep in. Of course Grace bridges the gap between our true worship and our idolatry, but we are called to give our best to the LORD.
I have been moving more and more toward a intentional, ancient-future model of worship – using new applications of ancient worship forms. I am very suspicious of the worship-as-concert movement and get a little pissy about the assumption that worship=music and worship leader=musician. I fear that it shows us what the idols of our age look like when they come into our churches. On the other hand, I get the whole desire to contextualize worship, and use common cultural forms. There are churches that are utilizing cultural forms but bringing them under the authority of a more Christ directed rubric so the music becomes PART of worship, not the whole.
Scripture makes it clear that our corporate worship consists of reading scripture, breaking bread (communion/eucharist), and prayer. Music is a useful and positive decoration, but it must not push those three things out. If it does, we are allowing idols into our sanctuary.
I’m ranting. I’ll stop now.
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Before the Lutherans pile on here, I have no issue with contemporary elements in worship, contemporary music or contemporary compositions. I am not trying to lobby for a liturgy frozen in time. My main issues are:
1) We’re in a system that won’t stop, and we aren’t critical. I cannot believe the people who are unaware of how their worship is not tied to an industry.
2) We have declared war on the past.
3) It is a megachurch model. It’s too complex, too expensive and too much of a resource investment for most churches.
4) It puts too much emphasis on music.
5) It is uncritical involved with entertainment values.
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“They credit their favorite songs as major spiritual events.”
OUCH!
As for Ed’s comments, they reflect a larger problem:
Evangelicals chase after culture. It is what they do.To expect them to look at it suspiciously, versus as a tool for relevance, is futile. It is all about accommodation as a means to an end.
Hence PowerPoints can seen as inducing Worship and Awe. Forget the fact that to anyone sane person, any PowerPoint presentation at all ought to induce nausea.
Terrific original post. Evangelicalism is the now the religion of choice of American Idol.
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Really? Life is worship according to the Word, plain and simple. Posture, music, verbalization, meditation, service, etc.- these are all just modes of expression. If any congregational, communal expression originates from this precept i believe God finds it acceptable.
It’s not wise to judge any form based on its description alone. The most liturgical expression can be either as wholehearted or as vacuous as any punk band. The key, i believe, is understanding and teaching that life is worship. Any attempt in this culture to promote a particular form as universally desirable is simply marketing and has little to do with worship. This fits into the questionable Evangelical tradition of dressing our “worship times” in a way so as to draw unbelievers into our buildings so our preacher can lead them to Christ. Maintaining that precedent is the real danger as i see it.
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I might suggest reading the book “Grace Upon Grace” by Rev. Dr. John Kleinig, Concordia Publishing House. It is a book about spirituality that flies in the face of modern evangelicalism. The theme of the book in a nutshell is “receptive spirituality”; that everything we do as Christians (especially worship) centers around receiving gifts from our Lord. Definitely worth the read.
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Much of what I am reading here is tying style with the intent of the heart. Remember that what is considered contemporary worship arose out of a group of Christians that desperately wanted to participate in worship. “Participate” meaning that they put to words the cries of their heart toward our God. It actually came from Christians who desired to no longer be the audience–and at that time this meant to them that we too can write hymns, just in our style and for our culture. Not to replace the hymns written by prior generations, but to add to the repertoire the songs of their generation.
These small beginnings caught on and, yes, it is obvious that abuses have arisen. In many cases, worship then has become a show for an audience again. But, not merely because it is contempory. It’s up to the church (us) to discern where worship is glorifying our God and where is it entertaining an audience.
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I visited a local church start who had the kicking worship band. They sang sounds very loud and that were hard to sing along to. The pastor there is a great guy I have a bunch of respect for and I asked him if this was intentional. The basic response I got was that the band was for non believers they were trying to attract and not people who had been brought up in church probably would not like it and they were not the target anyway. I appreciate his passion for the lost but think they miss out on something by catering their services this way.
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Myrddin,
“Awe” is a word often heard when someone describes walking into a great cathedral or participating in a particularly “spirit led” worship service. That’s why I used the word.
Warning: What follows is the unsolicited opinion of an untrained lay person (me).
When Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman as recorded in John 4, he responded to her statement that “…you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” by saying “…a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”
Since Temple worship represented a specific place and very specific set of practices, I take this exchange to indicate that Jesus was releasing us from location specific, method specific worship.
I don’t know exactly what worshiping in Spirit means, but I do think it can be accomplished without outward practices, be they music, reading of scripture aloud, public prayer, etc.
I believe that over the centuries, we have progressively, brick by brick, rebuilt physical temples and added back specific practices that have taken us away from the simple idea of worship that Jesus alludes to, and that the early Christians exemplified.
Having said all of that, I would be wrong to dismiss outright the practices of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I hope to avoid a debate of “this vs. that”. It is precisely our freedom in Christ that allows such diversity, and I have to try hard to remember and respect that.
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For the record, I don’t think it’s wrong to say that evangelicals are actively pursuing a non-liturgical route, even though they technically have a liturgy. Liturgy has historically implied some responsibility to the past and its insights into God, scripture, etc. Even my own denom’s “liturgy” had that characteristic for many years. But we now have a self-conscious, judgmental, pragmatic, ruthless war on the liturgy of the church carried out under the “goofy” assumption that all kinds of theological/spiritual significance can be attached to audience reaction and quality of production. Even Mark Driscoll has imposed a preaching, Lord’s Supper, Music liturgy on his congregation and appeals to other evangelicals to do the LS as well. Even Driscoll knows that the current situation will eliminate the LS if not challenged.
We’re in a mess. We’re on a huge machine we’ve built and had a lot of fun riding, but we’re discovering we can’t find the “stop” button.
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P.S. Here’s Buck Rogers on You-Tube.
The “traditonal” dance / music of the future:
And now…Buck teaches them a thing or two about liturg…uh, gettin’ DOWN !!!
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Amen 1000 times over.
This topic confound me more as a pastor than many do. I’m just not sure how we recover. I would love to hear your ideas Imonk on how this will end, when it will end, and what the end will look like?
I’ve got a small liturgical fellowship meeting now in addition to the church I pastor. It is tough going. There is very little interest in liturgical worship amongst the baptist around here, and those that do show an interest need a great deal of teaching and education.
For example. We recited the Apostle’s Creed at our first meeting. A gentleman who came with his wife, he is an ordained deacon, did not know what it meant by “holy catholic church.” This is an educated man working in finance. A Christian for years. He thought it was RC not small catholic. After I explained it to him he understood and liked the meaning, but then asked that in order to keep down confusion why didn’t I just change the creed to say something else?
Sure, it’s only hundreds of years old, I’ll just change it.
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We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what is a worship service.
We’ve adopted an approach…
We have tied ourselves…
Who is this “we” ? I’m an evangelical and can go to a majority of local churches and find none of the worship styles of what you keep saying is happening.
We know you and your readers don’t like this type of culture.
Why are churches of other cultures, such as African-American churches, considered as diverse culture to be respected but white churches with loud guitars are routinely thrashed?
Is it possible good things come out of this style of worship?
Do these evangelicals deride your style of worship?
“They have no idea what Biblical worship is outside of the context of their favorite songs… “
That is an awful statement about people as if you knew their thoughts.
I’m glad you are blessed by your church.
If you don’t like the other style, stay away, and mind your own business.
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On another note, if the content and understanding of worship are right (in preaching and in practice)(and this is a BIG if), then style is a non-issue.
But this seriously begs the question of whether or not style is important to one’s understanding of worship. And I think it just about has to be.
Style should be a product of the culture in which one lives
OK, to a certain point, but we live in a consumer culture. Worship is not consumption. Therefore our “style” has to, in fact, be at odds with our culture. The gospel must be culturally transformative. Integrated and appropriate, yes. Adaptable, yes. But always transformative.
I fear that one piece of this is how much some of us tend to think of US culture as not needing any fundamental transformation.
Therefore we adopt the consumerist viewpoint and simply clean it up at bit.
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Them Orthodox ain’t so tough. They cheat. They’ve got these wooden box things that prop them up. Even have a little seat, though they don’t call it that.
And the service is the same blessed thing every week. Men in black walk in and out of the backstage area waving incense, while the choir sings stuff that nobody can figure out, even if we knew what language it was.
Did you ever see the movie Buck Rogers? He goes forward in time to the 25th century, where the people have all these lame classical dances that they do, with steps and synchronization and everything. So instead of relaxing and listening to future music, which a more geeky type of person might find interesting, he walks over to the DJ / synthesizer guy and asks him to play something older. The DJ plays Bach. No, how about something with more of a beat to it? And then there follows a classic disco scene, in which Buck teaches the future people how to REALLY dance, and what REAL music sounds like.
I don’t know what made me think of that.
Bidibidibidi…praise Jesus!
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The objective of worship in our church seems to be to hit a spiritual high.
Music is played to hit that emotional pitch-fork so that everybody hits that point where they truly feel “connected with the spirit”. The Leader will play the same line of the song over and over for increasing impact.
It is, in fact, manipulation. Willing, but still.
Extremely disturbing. But good luck convincing them that, perhaps, it’s not the correct way of going about it. Otherwise, how are you going to get warm bodies at the altar? It’s not as if the Spirit moves outside of worship, is it?
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I think Ed has a good point, if I understand him correctly. There is a sense among a lot of proponents and partakers of “contemporary” style music in worship that the music actually ushers us into the presence of God, that without certain kinds of music we would not experience the nearness of God in the same way. In this sense we have made a particular musical style into a temple, a cultus: we must go there, do that to experience God’s presence. We have removed Jesus as mediator and replaced him with cheap emotional manipulation.
On another note, if the content and understanding of worship are right (in preaching and in practice)(and this is a BIG if), then style is a non-issue. Of course, one can argue the appropriateness or usefulness of one style over another, but the truth is that style should be a product of the culture in which one lives: Christians in Mali will not sing the same kinds of songs that Christians in 1600s Europe did, and we may very well not sing the same kinds of songs either one of those groups did or do. Style is a matter in which we should gladly lay down our personal preferences for the good of others.
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I can not possibly tell you how much I agree with this post. The chief aim and purpose of the Sunday morning worship service is not evangelizing non-Christians. To view it as such is entirely to change the purpose and meaning of worship and to shift its focus from God to man.
We Lutherans have a word for the chief Sunday service: “Gottesdienst” which means “God’s service.” It has an intriguing two-fold meaning:
God’s service to us with His grace and mercy, delivered through what we call the “means of grace” which are the Gospel and the Gospel sacraments (Baptism, Absolution, Lord’s Supper).
It also can mean, “Service to God” by which we gather and in receiving His gifts respond with prayer, praise and thanksgiving.
Turning the Sunday worship service into a “show” by which we attract [lure?] people into the church, is, to me something that has absolutely no foundation in Scripture, which never describes Christian worship as anything other than the saints of God, gathered by God, to receive His gifts and to declare His praises.
Great post, Michael. Thanks.
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“Contemporary practices, including expensive lighting, PowerPoint presentations, emotion-ridden videos, fog machines, bands, etc, etc, are to me merely modern examples of attempts to instill awe in those present.”
I don’t think “awe” is quite the word you’re looking for.
But this raises an interesting question that may be beneath this whole discussion.
Should a certain emotional or spiritual disposition be cultivated in a church service? If so, which one(s) and why?
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As a trained classical musician and music educator, I actually have several concerns about this, one of which is addressed and the other of which I don’t hear much about. First, the emphasis on a professional sounding “band” can and often does lead away from congregational singing; thank you so much iMonk for bringing this out! The second issue I have is more of a personal one. God gave me a voice with a baritone/bass range…like many men. Current praise worship is simply not written in a manner compatable with singing in this vocal range. Notice how many pop singers are tenors as opposed to basses…part of this has to do with the use of the guitar as the primary instrument in worship, which naturally tends to play better in key signatures such as D or E major (sharp keps); a larger part has to do with the preference of the ‘sound’ of the tenor voice in key demographics for marketing popular culture (yes, I am talking teenage girls). How does this effect worship? It makes it physically difficult (if not impossible) for men such as myself to participate in singing these songs without lurching into a warbly falsetto…and it makes me sad as I do want to participate in this aspect of the worship service but it’s simply…uncomfortable. Much easier to just stand and listen to the tenors in the band.
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From my point of view, it would be more interesting (and maybe uncomfortable) to discuss the transition from worshiping God “in Spirit and in Truth†back to “The Templeâ€.
Could you expand on your distinction, Ed? Are you proposing that a permanent location or ‘sacred place’ is at odds with the New Covenant faith?
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“who can stand for 20, 30 or 40 minutes”
The Orthodox, shins of IRON 😉
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I agree with Ron’s assessment; we didn’t start down this road 50 years ago, but time has a way of establishing virtually any practices as acceptable and new and different will always have detractors.
Music is an expressive art that reflects the individual writing it. It is therefore not unusual that modern writers tend to lean to the styles they know. Do you expect a gifted 20 something musician to write like Fanny Crosby?
Contemporary practices, including expensive lighting, PowerPoint presentations, emotion-ridden videos, fog machines, bands, etc, etc, are to me merely modern examples of attempts to instill awe in those present. OK, so you might prefer stained glass, thundering organs, robed processions, gilded iconography, and angelic boys choirs, but I don’t think we can assume that the underlying intentions of one is any different than the other.
We could (and probably will) spend much of this thread debating current contemporary service practices we don’t like (too loud, too repetitive, too whatever) to older practices we find better (more liturgical, more time-tested, more reverent, more whatever). From my point of view, it would be more interesting (and maybe uncomfortable) to discuss the transition from worshiping God “in Spirit and in Truth” back to “The Temple”.
Yes, I know. When YOU go to worship at “First Saint whatever Free Will Community Hill Church” it’s different; you DO worship in Spirit and in Truth.” Good for you.
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Liturgy is more than form. It is the ‘work of the people(of God)’. The peoples’ work is worshiping God.
In my opinion the Sunday service regardless of denom needs to be about worship and be worshipful and not performanced based.
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Scriptural worship should have as it’s starting point what God does for us, other than what we are ‘doing’ for God.
Otherwise we really end up more like the prophets of Baal than Elijah.
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Most of the church music I am exposed to on Sunday (and on the radio) sounds like a poor derivative of the grunge genre. Uggh.
Sometimes it is annoying. What disturbs me though, is how world-conformed it is and how it seems to be aimed at creating emotional experiences for the individual in the pew rather than a focus on The One above.
We also have our share of visiting musicians which is great, but most, okay all,tend to be of the Christian Country Music genre. Again, a world-conformed sound (better lyrics though).
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I don’t think the use of contemporary music or instruments in worship is the goof, but the lack of any connection to the timeless and eternal rather than mere temporal entertainment. I know this could be confused with the soli gloria deo discussion, which can dehumanize worship. I mean that music as with any form of art can symbolically connect us with the eternal. Bach understood this. A rare few contemporary Christian musicians got it, such as Mark Heard or Rich Mullins.
Liturgy and “traditional” worship can also fail to have eternal significance, if it becomes mere sentimentality.
I agree with Matthew N. Petersen’s comment about orthodox worship, but orthodox do more than stand. Our orthodox brothers and sisters stand, move, bow, prostrate, venerate, light candles, burn incense, cross themselves. It incorporates all human senses, including sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. The focus of worship moves throughout the sanctuary, rather than just directed to a stage or screen. Worship is not constrained to pews; they don’t have them! Modern church auditoriums with their multiple level seating make such movement and mingling difficult. The lack of sacredness in such spaces leaves very little to notice: no icons, stained glass, statues, crucifixes, candles, etc. I think even the sparseness of quaker worship has more sense of the holy than the typical practice of contemporary worship. Adding these physical elements back into worship will become mere distraction and clutter if they do not draw us into communion with God and our fellow worshipers.
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When it comes to increasingly showy and high-production worship services, I think we’re just seeing the extreme fruits of a mistake that was planted in the church long before the last few decades. I’m talking about the concept of the worship service as a public spectacle — an event, whether big or small, in which a chosen few perform and the majority observe this performance. Whether this performance takes the form of solo oratory (preaching as we now call it), music, or liturgical ritual, performance-based worship has almost entirely replaced the original New Testament concept of interactive body ministry in which everyone has something from the Spirit to bring to the communal table.
Even 1,700 years later, we still live in the shadow of Constantine’s fourth-century replacement of participatory worship in homes with a Christianized version of high Roman court ceremony in monolithic temples.
As a musician, I love music and I love worshipping my King through that means, but I can no longer endorse the “Sunday Morning Show” as it has come to evolve in mainstream Christianity. I’ll take simple, honest, and spontaneous worship around a campfire any day of the week.
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Our little church is so out of the discussion on this that I had forgotten how relevant your posts were on this topic until a couple of months ago. We went to an evangelism conference for our state convention and the “worship band” nearly blew us out of the room on both nights. I left the room for a while the first night and tried coming back and standing in the back, but I literally couldn’t hear my own voice over their performance. It was pretty disheartening and called to mind all of the posts like this I had read here before, but I was encouraged that it was also considered a failed experiment in this case(this was a band that was highly recommended). Frankly, the band’s music was good and so was their performance; it was just totally unsuited for worship, which is what we had really wanted them to do. Most of the attendees didn’t care for it much either and we are definitely not going to go that route for the next conference. It isn’t the music style so much as the attitude of the leader (and the congregation as well) that determines if people are able to worship in song as a body of believers.
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I remember in the late 90s mentioning that I thought that modern worship was becoming something of a strange mixture of performance and commodity — and getting the response than the “old ways” of worship were like bad sex. I knew we were in for a ride after that.
The increasing number of people in my church who suggest that they are going to start showing up 5-20 minutes late to avoid the high number songs unrelated to the theme of the message or church calendar (Hello? Pentecost just went by with no mention!) are growing….and our main worship leader is a pretty astute guy in his 40s. I’m guessing other churches more beholden to whims are having a worse time.
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My impression is that when David was dancing and worshipping God that it was accepted as him truly worshipping God. I don’t get that sense about the entertainment that I see in churches today. This is of course just what I think, I could be wrong.
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sad but true. will we repent. do we even care about repentance? do we know how to stop the beast that is “contemporary” worship?
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If folk are saying what I think they’re saying, I’m heartened by this positive talk of “liturgy.” But let’s keep this straight: EVERYONE has a “liturgy”; the term merely denotes the public form or pattern for a gathering. Hence, the liturgy of your typical evangelical church is: music (“worship”)/prayer (“Lord, we just…”)/talking for 45 minutes/more music. But if what I’m hearing is a desire for evangelicals to warm to, say, the Latin mass as it has been passed down to the Western church (practiced, BTW, by the vast majority of Christians worldwide)…Hallelujah!
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Dan, while I never quite saw the parallels between David dancing in his underwear and modern “innovation” in worship, I must say this:
I think it should be our love for one another that draws unbelievers into fellowship with us, not cool sounding music. Not that I want to be a stick in the mud when it comes to style (I’m 24 for pete’s sake), but where’s the focus here?
Are we changing style and forms our of our passionate love for and pursuit of God, or are we simply chameleons?
And I’m not too entirely sure the “changes” David introduced were really that radical, compared to the rampant iconoclasm of the last century. But then again, it may have seemed like it to a Jew living in his time. Interesting analogy though.
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The last time I set foot in a church was Easter Sunday a couple years ago at my mother’s Southern Baptist Church. The service consisted of a band, three jumbotron TV screens, a powerpoint presentation, and a paper mache tomb complete with strobe lights and a smoke machine that billowed fog when the “stone” was rolled away. The Resurrection, shrink-wrapped in attractive packaging and cut into bite-size pieces for your convenience. I can’t speak for all churches, or even all Baptist churches with this anecdote, but I doubt it’s something particular to her church.
I think the combination of the protestant ethic Max Weber analyzed and American capitalism has produced a Christianity in America more in tune with showmanship, commodity, profit (be it souls or cash), and nationalism/politics than the message conveyed in the New Testament. It’s why Joel Osteen will forever have more American fans than St. Francis of Assisi.
That, and most of us are extremely uncomfortable with silence – no distractions means we might actually have to go deeper than the next morsel of entertainment.
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My tiny little church (but growing!) met last Sunday night to talk about the future of worship. They just hired a new worship pastor (me) and we were discussing where the future lies for us together.
What was incredibly encouraging to me was the excitement in the room about liturgy, especially from the younger folks in the crowd. Not because liturgy is the end-all-be-all, but because it’s a lot different than what we have been doing. And because it’s not music, but it certainly qualifies as worship.
I was asked to talk for a few minutes on my first day leading music about “worship,” and I told the church three things:
1. worship is not (only) music.
2. worship is a posture (that should exist outside of the time we spend together on Sunday).
3. worship is not my responsibility (it’s the responsibility of the church).
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Scripture records one worship leader who really went radical in the traditional church. He went so far as to set religious words to secular music, he even brought non temple instruments into the temple to be used in worship. He hired some of the most popular lyricist of the day to write when he could not. He introduced new avenues and places of worship. He introduced dance into common and high worship. Once his dancing got so out of hand that he stripped off his outer garment. He was rebuked by his wife, he cursed her to never bard children.
Now our cannon contains a whole book of his songs, about 150 of them and lists certain instruments to be used with certain songs.
The thing I worry about is, are we going to be barren(no new members) for our judgments on worship?
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wow, u are completely right…
As one contemporary christian song goes, “when the music fades…I’m coming back to the heart of worship…”
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One of my Bible Professors once said that in ancient times people learned theology through their worship, and the music in particular was very theologically deep and nourishing. Today it’s not so much, and it shows.
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I was always deeply suspicious that most ‘Contemporary’ worship is shaped exactly like one of this culture’s premier entertainment venues, the rock concert. View video footage of a contemporary service a la Vineyard, and rock concert(minus any pyrotechnic effects) with the volume turned off. Then view video of a liturgical church service with the sound turned off. There is no mistake about what the latter is.
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Once again, Imonk proves that I am NOT taking crazy pills! I couldn’t agree more. Why is there a downright refusal in our culture to be cerebral about our spiritual practices?
However I am not certain that a highly developed music ministry within the church is itself a bad thing (especially because it’s currently my bread and butter). Even Luther had a tendency to surround himself with quality musicians. J.S. Bach wrote so much of his excellent music for church. I believe that if music is to be done in churches, it should be done with excellence as an offering to God.
That being said, I do feel that the theology behind the practice should be given equal if not greater attention. We base what we do so often on the imitation of forms, instead of scripture or God’s leading. This big church does it this way, so we HAVE to. Hence the plethora of originality.
Bleh. I could rant endlessly here. We’re so trendy it’s ridiculous. If I got a penny for every time somebody in church said, “Let’s do that song by ____ or try to sound more like ____”…
How about sounding like ourselves? How bout creating an environment where youth and seniors can actually worship together?
Is that even still possible in our culture?
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I’m a music guy, and most of my music tends to be pop-ish. But I love all worship music and styles. I really do.
I’m always disturbed by any culture that says it is “optimal” for worship…old or new. The minute you set up that thought you’re off the plantation.
It’s also amazing to me that the “newer” cultures have very quickly set themselves up to be far more narrow than the more traditional cultures. It’s like we’re selling out to the drum/bass/guitar style just as the secular world runs out of ideas. It’s gonna get old quick, and some of these young guitar guys are going to be the old fuddy-duddy’s of the next generation.
And don’t get me wrong, I love the drum/bass/guitar style. But I’m not sold out to it. I love choirs too. And orchestras. And organs and pianos and electric guitar and gospel and quartets and classical and a cappella and 200 people and 10 people….
It’s all good and I love music sung for, to, and about God. I just don’t understand this inherent need for lockdown.
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How do you worship without sacrifice? How do you have an altar call without an altar?
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Amen. Great picture.
Did you mention the darkened room with stage lighting? I’ve even seen folks waving their cell phones like a lighter.
I didn’t mind standing all the time when I was younger, now that I’m older, I have to put those childish things behind me. The cartilage in the knees is gone.
I have become my parents who never thought standing for 30 minutes straight should have been called worship.
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And who can stand for 20, 30 or 40 minutes?
Maybe we’re just becoming Orthodox.
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Gary,
Very true. I quit my evangelical church after 15 years because I couldn’t stand the Volume 11 pop music and… did you mention… the worship songs that featured saccharin sentiments and one verse repeated over and over and over again… like mind control. My church was real big on the emotional effects of music. One loud rock concert song, followed by three boo hoo songs, followed by one singer with a bring-down-the-house megahit medley for the offering.
Give me back the old fashioned hymn book. I liked it better. The loud music has got to go.
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Praise the Lord I am in a
Gospel reading, Liturgical, Eucharistic Church! Music by congregation. Not always perfect. My husband says that’s refreshing!
(Who can stand for 20 to 40 minutes? Orthodox!!! or longer. I like my pew seat.)
How about Trinity Shaped? How about worship that is Christo-centric? How about preaching on the Gospel lesson? How about intergenerational worship and church activities?
How about learning daily prayer and Bible meditation? Family prayer and worship?
That’s why I picked where I am. Any congregation can use it. Just fear not.
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Amen!! Preach it brother!! I’m in full agreement with you on this one.
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I definitely think that worship is broader than just with music. But I think that worship with music definitely has its place. And it really doesn’t matter which style it is.
Consider Paul and Silus in the inner-prison. They sang at midnight and the building that contained the jail was knocked off of its foundation.
In the Old Testament, consider King Johoshaphat who went out to meet the armies from the 3 neighboring countries that were coming against Isreal. God told the king to put the musicians and singers in front of the army itself.
They went out to the battlefield worshipping God in song, as God had instructed the king. Aa they arrived at the battlefield, they saw that the armies of the 3 neighboring countries had already killed each other.
These are powerful examples of how important worship with song is. I agree that todays “christian” music industry is nothing more than a money making endeavor. However, there are people out there writing new worship music that has every bit of the amount of scripture in it that hymns have. I am not speaking against hymns. There are many hymns that I like.
It’s really not a matter of musical style. It is about worshipping God from the heart in spirit and in truth. And that can be done with music, how you perform your job, how you treat others, spending time in prayer and scripture reading.
Worship is about a lifestyle, not an event.
Blessings,
Gary
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