Several years ago, I wrote a critique of some of the most often heard theology of contemporary praise and worship music. I love good contemporary worship. I don’t like what you hear in between some of the songs.
I haven’t put this essay over here in the current post format, so some of you may have never read this one. Remember, it’s an oldie, with quite a few references to things that aren’t true anymore (like me leading worship at a church on weekends.)
iMonk 101: Looney Tunes: “Praise and Worship Theology” is goofy
I defend myself from false accusations
Nothing stings the iMonk quite like the charge of hypocrisy. As a man of principle, I seek to avoid having the wagging finger of the disappointed public in my face, accusing me of phoniness.
So I must answer a recent charge made by a nameless autograph seeker who was briefly allowed inside the Internet Monk compound. With shock and not-a-little awe, this friend observed the Monk’s collection of contemporary Praise and Worship music. “Hey! I thought you were, like, really down on all this contemporary Christian music? How come you’re listening to it in the same office where you write all that stuff saying it’s bad for the church?”
It is, in fact, true that the Monk’s vast collection of music still contains a generous amount of CCM, and a considerable stack of Praise and Worship music. I must, however, say that my friend is sadly mistaken if he’s read my work and concluded that I have no place for contemporary Christian music in my life. Such is not the case, nor do I ever expect it to be the case in the future. Even though the vast majority of CCM is, in my opinion, boringly bad, I still find many artists worthy of my support.
Am I a rank hypocrite for listening to music at home that I do not use at my church? I’ll admit that I have a strange adherence to my own version of the regulative principle that excuses me from any sin accrued from listening to this music, some of which I would probably not use at church for reasons only crack-smoking Calvinists can understand. So unless you are willing to read the Puritans on worship, put that finger back where you got it.
Since you stopped in, however, I can tell you in a sentence why I enjoy contemporary Praise and Worship music a thousand times more on the stereo here at the Monk’s compound than in any church anywhere:
Here at home, I don’t have to listen to the drooling theological nonsense that comes along with Praise and Worship music use these days.
The iMonk said it.
Yes, the iMonk said: Evangelicals can’t stop turning methodology into theology. It’s astonishingly simple, and frighteningly common.
Do something. Roll over. Sit up and beg. Start using Powerpoint. Set up an idol of Baal in the parlor. Marry Larry King. Anything.
If it works, then an appropriate theology will be quickly supplied. Methodology, i.e. what we choose to do, if it works, becomes theology, i.e. what we believe about God, and what we believe God has endorsed.
Take the public invitation as an example (a subject I may have exhausted in three IM pieces this year.) Baptists started telling people to walk the aisle if they were responding to God. People walked. Within a year, theologians published the well known book, Everything God Has To Say About the Invitation. Here’s a quote.
“We now know that the Holy Spirit is pleading with you to walk the aisle. We know that if you hold on to that pew, you are resisting the Holy Spirit. We know that whatever goes on down front is the work of the Holy Spirit. We know that the Bible is talking about invitations in Southern Baptist Churches when it says “Take up your cross and follow me.” We didn’t know any of this stuff UNTIL we figured out what worked. Then God opened up our heads and poured that theology right in there.”
Understand this, and you may understand more than you want to know about evangelicals. Increasingly, the only theology that matters is the kind we cook up to justify whatever circus we are trying next. And THAT is why I can listen to P&W at home, because I can just listen to the music, and not to the worship leader explaining to me the following spectacularly looney theological revelations.
Gotta Love a List
WARNING: The following list contains a near-lethal dose of theological malarkey. There is so much raw blarney here the page is glowing. Take it easy, be careful, and don’t try this at home. In other words, please understand that this list is all wrong!
1. Contemporary Praise and Worship music is especially anointed of God. Advocates of P&W have lost the capacity to realize that Christian music companies will say anything to sell product. Once a couple of thousand units are moved, then “God is all over it,” and the artists, producers, musicians and girls working at the checkouts are all anointed by God with a special anointing.
This cynical use of a powerful Biblical concept to sell CDs is number one on my list of stupid things said by Christian worship leaders. I don’t want to be insulted by being told I have to like the next tune because God gave the lyrics in a dream or manipulated by testimonies of how this song has been anointed for the salvation of teenagers from broken homes.
God doesn’t anoint songs, bands or songwriters in any way differently than He anoints any other Christian. Worship leaders and Christian musicians need to call off the ego mania and read the Bible.
2. God has sent contemporary Praise and Worship music to…..
A. Revive the End Times Church before the Rapture. This is patently ridiculous.
B. Break down “religious strongholds” in the church. I think this means that God wants us to act strangely and say it’s the Holy Spirit. Losing a “religious spirit” seems to be Churchspeak for doing something that used to get the ushers on your case.
C. Minister to the special issues of “this generation.” “This generation” seems to be a movable term that most often applies to young people willing to fight you to turn the front of the church into a mosh pit. Apparently, this generation has special needs that preaching, teaching and prayer can’t reach. We’re supposed to believe that contemporary Praise and Worship music was sent by God to help young people from single parent families experience His love. God loves those kids, but this little bit of Hallmark card theology can get lost.
This type of spin gets lots of applause with people devoted to the idea that the Gospel isn’t nearly as exciting as what God is doing in the weekly dramas happening in these last days, end-times, free-in-the-Spirit churches. Churches that use lots of contemporary Praise and Worship music want you to know that God gave this tool to them, and you can see the results for yourself. How dare you say it’s marketing?
3. Praise and Worship Music evangelizes without preaching. I’m fairly used to hearing Christians “amening” their favorite music, and I’ve heard the occasional comment following a great song, “We don’t need a sermon. Let’s just have the invitation.” I’ve always figured this was about wanting to get on to the restaurants as early as possible.
But now, advocates of contemporary Praise and Worship music are saying that their music is anointed for evangelism, and preaching just gets in the way. After mesmerizing the crowd with 20 repetitions of their favorite anthem or ballad, these folks think the invitation ought to be next on the agenda, no preaching needed. Heck, a lot of these people would walk off a cliff if the cute worship leader said so, so why not have an invitation?
(I will confess bitterness here. I was once asked to speak for 10 minutes after an hour set by a local P & W band. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Dozens of girls and guys immediately ran out of the congregation and straight after the band, wanting- I suppose- advice on the Christian life. I’m not bitter. I spoke to the exhausted crowd, who really appreciated the chance to sit down and relax after an hour.)
With apologies to those who actually put a comprehensible Gospel in their music and presentation, it appears to me that the majority of Praise and Worship music falls somewhere between pretty good use of Bible texts to complete nonsense. (NOTE: This has greatly improved since I wrote this essay.) Preaching, when done right, proclaims Christ and how to be saved every time it opens its mouth. Any theology that says God can preach through whatever He chooses is good by me. Any theology that says leave out the preached Word is a loser, in my opinion.
4. Praise and Worship Music brings down the Holy Spirit. Among systematically goofy theology, this is one of the patriarchs. Starting innocently as the constant quotation of “the Lord inhabits the praises of His people,” (metaphor alert!) we are now told that if we really get into the music, and keep singing, “God will show up.”
I’ve heard this so often that I can’t believe I haven’t stood up and screamed yet. We are talking about telling people 1) That despite what scripture said, God isn’t with gathered Christians 2) until we make it happen by singing praise choruses. We bring God down into the room with music. (Gulp.)
Of course, what we are really doing here is identifying God with some good feeling generated by electronics and people singing together. (Idolatry alert!) “I just really felt like the Lord was in the worship today.” Well so what? When are any of our feelings the measurement of God’s reality? God PROMISES to be present with His people when they gather in His name. Music is completely irrelevant to the intention of God to keep his promises to His people.
5. Praise and Worship music brings a unique experience of God’s Glory. I’ve dealt with this in another essay, but it deserves a smack up sida the head here. Not only do these overconfident worship leaders claim special anointings and powers in P & W music, but they frequently assert that the music is mediating an encounter with the “glory” of God.
God’s glory is a major Biblical theme, and encountering the glory of God would qualify as the greatest trauma a sinful human could experience. The contemporary Praise and Worship crowd apparently believes that Christians are now invited to become like Moses, and experience the glory of God routinely.
In order to keep the encounter with the divine manageable, it turns into an event mediated by the church worship band. And seems to have a lot to do with getting “into” the songs. (Is this starting to sound vaguely familiar? Is anybody getting irritated yet?)
6. The overridingly important factor in deciding what church to attend is MUSIC. Sometime in the last 5 years, the majority of evangelical Church-hunting Christians I know have made the decision about where to go to church based almost solely on music (or “worship” as they perversely call it.) The deciding vote is usually, “We like the worship.” Which means we like CCM, and we like the band, and we like the fact that going to a church service is kind of like a concert, the kids like the music, and it’s the same songs I hear on the radio.
This is, of course, personal preference, and not theology, so have I broken stride? No, there is theology all over the place here, and it’s some of the most serious theological nonsense of the bunch.
Scripture hasn’t exactly left the church-shopper without a list to go by. Even with the divergent views on what scripture teaches about the church, it’s clear that church government, leadership, the sacraments, preaching, teaching, discipleship, doctrine and church support of the family are all areas where scripture gives some guidance of importance to any of us who are picking a church. Yet, I am not aware of any way to read the Bible that places music in such an important place in church life.
Music is part of Christian worship and Christian art. We’re interested- as we ought to be- in how music participates in the life and worship of the church. But there is simply no way- in normal circumstances- to justify music as the deciding factor in church selection. To do so is to betray a consumerist mentality rather than a Biblical worldview.
Theology? The implication is that the Holy Spirit is leading in such a choice. Even more importantly, the message is that music is the important factor in Christian growth and discipleship. My Christian consumerist friends are quite certain that it’s what happens during the 45 minutes of music at their church that will make the greatest different in the life they lead during the following week.
That’s outrageously wrong, and I can’t imagine why evangelicals are tolerating it. The demotion of preaching and the elevation of music is an invasion of the church by a culture that wants less content, less authority and more experience and feeling. Post-modern apologists may make the case that preaching is passe’ (and some forms of it always will be) but preaching as a divinely sanctioned methodology has Biblical theology on its side.
(By the way, a big iMonk salute to my friends who bucked this trend this year and joined churches where the Word was the main thing, and music had its appropriate, and secondary, place.)
7. People worship better with contemporary Praise and Worship music. Now….how can we put this nicely?…….We can’t. It’s arrogant and stupid to call a bunch of choruses played by a band “worship.” This little inanity has made it into mainstream Churchspeak and shows no signs of going away. (Even Rick Warren agrees. Ha!) Ever heard these lines?
“We had about 40 minutes of worship, and then the Pastor taught on giving.”
“I can’t worship at any church that doesn’t have the words on an overhead. I just can’t do it.”
“I think you’d like the worship better at our church. We’ve got three bands now.”
Are any comments necessary? How lame is it to say that a mini-concert with hand motions is “worship” and everything else is what we did before, after or instead of “worship”? Since when do we worship “better” based on whether we are singing “A Mighty Fortress” with piano or “Shout to the Lord” with a band? Do these people have any idea what worship is anyway? Maybe this will help:
Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
So am I saying that music can’t facilitate presenting myself to God in response to his mercy? Music can facilitate that response, but saying that we, therefore, should choose a church based upon music is saying that it isn’t the message, but the presentation that makes a spiritual difference, and that’s terribly wrong.
8. Contemporary Praise and Worship music is used by the Holy Spirit to bypass the mind and go directly into the human spirit where real change can occur. I feel dirty typing such an absurd sentence, but it’s the unfortunate claim of many people who ought to know better. Advocates of P & W get all bleery-eyed talking about how this music just goes right past all those mental objections and barriers and ministers directly to the spirit. This kind of kookicity seems to come from the spiritual warfare camp, where tales of doing an end run on the devil by slipping in through music are pretty common.
What’s bad about this piece of theology is its rejection of the mind and its promise of getting people into the Kingdom without a fully aware decision to embrace Christ. Some might say this seems to be honoring the sovereignty of God and ought to be good news for Calvinists, but Reformed Christians are not looking for mindless Christians. We want to follow Paul in appealing to the mind and heart, persuading with a message and a ministry. Paul who, by the way, repeatedly rejected any kind of manipulation.
9. Contemporary Praise and Worship Music is taking music away from the devil and using it for God. Theology at work here: giving the devil credit for the appeal of the larger culture, especially music, and then sending the church on a mission to raid the pantry.
This reads like some nitwit prophecy that the Beatles were supposed to make music for God but Satan took them over and it wasn’t until CCM that God got the music back. Maybe evangelicals can’t find a positive way to do ministry, so they need to loudly proclaim just how close they are to the world in order to draw a crowd?
In other words, if the culture likes it, make a Christian version of it. That’s our appeal? Come down to church where the band is better than the group at the bar? “Taking back what the devil stole” sounds like a t-shirt at a TBN telethon.
Whatever music we make and however we make it, let’s do it for the glory of God and our joy in Him!
10. Using contemporary Praise and Worship Music is necessary for a church growth breakthrough. Little theology is evident in this, my last observation. It’s pure pragmatism. I hope you have caught on by now that we can expect the theology to follow. And, of course, it has. Read the above nine points. Articulated by the church growth gurus and evidenced by 23,000 people and nine services at Saddleback Valley’s Easter services, who can argue? It’s a God thing. Right? Perhaps. Or better, let’s hope and pray so.
I don’t believe that a “church growth breakthrough” in suburban America is going to need everything that is contemporary Praise and Worship music. Many good churches utilize such music in services that include strong Biblical preaching and other elements of Biblical worship. But then my argument isn’t against using the music per se, and it’s certainly not a quarrel with churches that seek to do worship Biblically with as much music as leadership believes is appropriate.
What I want to say is that if such growth occurs, the extent to which music is responsible for that growth is the extent to which we ought to be suspicious of that growth, and ask if the Gospel is being openly proclaimed? If growth occurs, we ought to be able to say with Luther, “The Word did it all!” However that Word came into the life of the church and bore fruit in the lives of Christians matters little, because God is great. But the same Word says that God is pleased to honor scripture, preaching and His sacraments as proclamations of the Word. Music is an echo, a teacher, an underliner. And in that role it is to be commended.
I commend those churches whose use of Praise and Worship music has avoided the theological numbskullery in this essay. May they grow and grow and grow some more. I commend every worship leader and musician who can see the proper place of music and works to keep music as the constant servant and encourager of the Word. I intend to keep enjoying praise and worship music, and encouraging it to have a God-centered, Biblical and God-glorifying purpose. Let’s pray that churches who are foolishly building an empty theology based on methods that work will humbly seek the truth that brings the power of freedom and life in Christ.
The Internet Monk Archives 
Hey guys, I think the whole traditional/contemporary issue, on my part, is just that – my part. I’ve thought long and hard about this issue and have begun to realize the issue has been me all along…. a big thing for a musician to admit and especially so for a traditional musician such as myself. Admittedly there is nothing necessarily wrong with certain aspects of contemporary worship music yet some of it just has no place in worship and the same can be said for traditional as well. It would do us good though to realize that music, like most things, has a foundation and that which we are so quick to throw out so many times these days is a big part if not the major part of the foundation of worship music in the church (speaking universal church from its beginning to now).
Bottom line is you can’t throw out the foundation without the entire thing collapsing into chaos and it’s somewhat easy to spot this if you look at some of the congregations that have gone wholesale contemporary in all its forms having tossed out all the sacred music and hymnody that makes up the greater body of church music.
I definately choose to stay with my traditional approach but keeping in mind, more so than in the past, that contemporary worship music has its place and some of the good ones will be in the hymnals and song books in the future…. I mean who thought, back in the 1970s, that Gaither would be in hymnals? Some of their music was/is good and made it into our hymnals today so anything is possible.
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I confess I was guilty of the presentation mentality for most of my Christian walk. And God took the desire to play and lead away from me. Wasn’t asked to step down – in fact, I left a small gap when I did.
However… excellence for Him is important. I think that, by allowing inaccurate notes, words on the slide show, or words sung, we’re communicating to those around us (on the odd chance that there were some seekers in the congregation) that our God isn’t worth our best. He is, was, and always will be.
I didn’t care for the mindset of one of the musicians I was leading where she’d not come to rehearsals but then expect to play on Sunday morning. Often rushing and missing some chords and notes.
I like 13ths and 9ths. dim7ths are so yesterday.
Now, we enjoy a home/family experience that is a bit freer, letting the kids pick some music that might be in the “book” or on the iPod. We include hymns and CCM stuff.
I see that the other worship / music thread doesn’t allow comments. Maybe because there are 200 of them already?
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There’s nothing “bad” about traditional worship, and I’m sorry if it seemed that I was suggesting that there was. I was just expressing my own experiences through the subjective lens of my own tastes and preferences. I like energy. I like to rock’n roll. I love variety and the unexpected. It gets under my skin if the radio plays the same song twice in the same day — so you can probably guess how I feel about doing and observing pretty much the same thing, Sunday after Sunday.
But that’s just me. My ideal worship service would probably give most people a nervous breakdown.
And you’re right, church shouldn’t be a rock concert, nor should it be a mere venue for good preaching or hymn singing. My tastes aside, I think the church should be more of a collective expression of the spiritual activity going on in the lives of every single member — rather than just a spotlight for the most spiritual or most talented few.
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I have to ask this and at the risk of getting absolutely blasted into next year but, sometimes you just gotta. Folks (and Ron) what is it about traditional worship and music that you so dislike -why is it so bad??!! Quiet honestly I’m quite tired of being drummed and blasted out of these “so called” worship servies. I just about can’t handle “church worship” anymore – I can’t get away from it…. it’s everywhere and it’s to the point that I’ve just about given up on ever finding a church that has any decent service of worship period. Church is not a rock concert people!
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Sufjan makes me want to drive nails through my ears. The butterfly wings concert completely loses me.
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“Sufjan Stevens is quite good, though he stays completely disconnected with the CCM industry, which is quite understandable.”
I’d hardly consider Sufjan Stevens “Christian” (though he does have a lot of good stuff for Christians to listen to). His music seems to defy any conventional attempts at classifying. (Is it Folk? Alternative?…)
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I find this very encouraging:
http://www.modernpsalter.com/
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Joel, I hate to sound ugly here but it appears from the outside that churches will gobble up anything that is labeled as “Christian.†Christian Films? Christian Fiction? Contemporary Christian Music? No matter how low the quality (musically or theologically), it seems like many Christians feel like they have to consume it. — Scott Ferguson
Tell me about it. I belong to the Lost Genre Guild, and that guild was formed SPECIFICALLY to give genre writers an end run around the Conventionally Christian (TM) market.
Because the Christian (TM) market reminds me of nothing so much as Furry Fandom. Drooling fanboys who don’t care how crappy it is, just so long as it floats their boat. Whether that boat to float is “Everyone has to have FUR! And TAILS!” or “Subjects limited to ‘Just like the latest fad, except CHRISTIAN (TM)!’, Uber-Squeeky-Clean G-rated (not even the word ‘breast’), a Bible quote every X pages and the required Altar Call Ending Where We Present The Plan Of Salvation to the Reader.” I mean, a lot of the CHRISTIAN (TM) genre stuff — from Left Behind to bonnet romances — is as checklist-formulaic as porn, complete to the “money scene” every X pages — Slacktivist’s blog coined the term (for Left Behind and its sub-genre) “Pre-Trib Porn” and “Porn for Christians” to describe such writing.
There is better stuff out there, but so far limited to small presses. It’s an uphill struggle against a Christian (TM) establishment dedicated to the Christian (TM) equivalents of Eragon, Twilight, and JIMBee bubblegum.
WHEN ARE WE GOING TO SET THE TREND — MUSIC, LITERATURE, ART, WHATEVER — INSTEAD OF DENOUNCING IT THEN COMING OUT (USUALLY WHEN IT’S JUMPED THE SHARK) WITH OUR SANITIZED CHRISTIAN (TM) KNOCKOFFS?
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The Reformed Presbyterian synod is producing a new metrical psalter. MP3 samples are available on the site.
http://www.crownandcovenant.com/Articles.asp?ID=139
I’m not a proponent of regular worship standards; I think Isaac Watts was wrongly criticized for the changes he brought to worship, which lead to the departure from exclusively using the psalter in worship. I do believe a metrical psalter could be used with music other than 200+ year old hymn tunes. New music could be written for the psalter which could compliment contemporary style and instruments. Contemporary worship music isn’t wrong, but simply one of the biggest blown opportunities. Rather than being used to put on a show, it could be used to reach a new generation.
I do agree that a theological paradigm has been place on contemporary worship, which is man-centered rather than incarnational; inspirational but scripture-weak; Christian without mentioning Christ. It is not new, but was introduced through nineteenth century revivalism. The challenge will be how to reform that paradigm without throwing out contemporary worship with the bath water.
I use the term, “man-centered” lightly, because it can be used to dehumanize worship.
We can be a little positive; there are some very good worship song writers out there who are bringing needed change; but no matter how good Chris Tomlin is, his music can never carry the service. Seminaries need to rediscover the lost art of hermeneutics. Communion, regardless of your view, needs to be treated a needed blessing, rather than a quarterly interruption to the worship schedule. Visual aids are helpful, but they, too, can’t be the meat of the service. A good thing can become nauseating through over-use or misuse.
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路过，顺便顶以下
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I think there is something to be said for energy and passion and variety when it comes to corporate worship in the church. And as ridiculously exteme as worship music has become in some churches, I think that CCM and CWM have injected some much needed energy, passion, and variety into mainstream Christian culture.
Growing up in a very traditional First Baptist Church, I can remember being thankful when the song director assigned only the first, second, and last stanzas of a hymn, freeing us from the drudgery of singing (or pretending to sing) the other two. And I can remember wishing the place would catch on fire or get hit by a tornado — just to break the mind-numbing monotony of it all.
I became a fan of Christian rock back when it was still a vile instrument of the devil, according to most preachers and televangelists at the time. And, through the years, artists like Kerry Livgren, Randy Stonehill, Phil Keaggy, and Glenn Kaiser have had a much more significant impact on my spiritual life and growth than any preacher or televangelist. Not that I idolize these artists by any means. The biggest human influences on my spiritual life have been close friends and family (as it should be). But if there were a soundtrack to the spiritual journey of my life, Christian rock music would definitely make up the biggest part of it.
Sure, some moderation probably needs to be brought into some situations in some churches, but, truth be told, I’ll take a little loud and extreme over unbearably boring and stuffy any day of the week.
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The church I go to has intentionaly focused on being cross-generational and has so far, in my mind, maintained a balanced blend of hymns and CCM; not just any old CCM nor just any old hymns. This is most probably due to a gentle yet firm leadership that has gained the consicence of the congregation in regard to these issues.
My own perspective is that if the world is still around in another 100 years, the high quality (in both words and congregatinal singability) CCM will remain and the trash will have fallen by the wayside. How many hymns have been written over the last 3 to 4 hundred years have been relegated to the dust bin and rightly so? How did the early 1st century church make it without amped up guitars and pounding drums, or an overwhelming organ drowning out all hearing of the words?
Peace…
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Just a few quick thoughts on the various points in the comments:
1) It’s possible to merely “go through the motions” in any worship style. The motions in contemporary worship may be more exuberant, but that doesn’t automatically make them more genuine.
2) Relevance is easiest to achieve in a relatively homogenous group (like a youth group or campus fellowship), where everyone’s life follows a similar pattern. In a multigenerational community (like a local church), it’s difficult to be relevant to everyone’s life at once, because the lives people lead are so different. Transcendence is a worthier and, in some ways, a more attainable goal.
3) I did not truly develop my own affection for hymns until I personally surrendered to the grace of God; in other words, I learned to love the hymns of the church by learning to love the Lord of the church. Lots of people seem to be trying to reverse that process and coax people into loving Jesus by making the worship service appealing. My guess is that this strategy will fail much more often than it succeeds.
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Even though I’m critical of a lot of CCM, I will point out some of the good ones. Jars of Clay recently got a lot better with Good Monsters (they were never bad, but I wasn’t a huge fan before besides a few songs), though I haven’t heard their newest album but Good Monsters is definitely worthwhile. Kevin Max is a great solo artist, Stereotype Be and The Imposter are better than any of DC Talk’s albums (and Raven Songs 101 is pretty cool too). Derek Webb is good. Sufjan Stevens is quite good, though he stays completely disconnected with the CCM industry, which is quite understandable.
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“The Psalms include praise and lament. Is there such a genre as Contemporary Lament music?”
Try Jars of Clay’s album “Good Monsters.” It’s really quite good, both musically and lyrically. Oh My God in a particular is a spectacular song that sounds like something out of the book of Lamentations or some of the Psalms.
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Thanks for the excellent post.
The longer I go on in music ministry, the more I’m a Col 3:16 guy. And the more I realize that that can’t be done with a screamin’ guitar lead. *sniff*
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1) Can we ban unexplained acronyms? What are COC and AMiA??
2) At our conservative Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation (almost typed the acronym!) many folks want to expand the “contemporary” worship. This includes the songs and types of songs critiqued here. I enjoy the meaty ones, but get zilch out of the really redundant ones.
One thing I noticed: why not more “blended” worship, rather than the scorched-earth approach, trashing everything remotely traditional? After all, last time I checked young people were still singing “Silent Night” at Christmas time, and it’s >200 years old. I’m 45, and I feel like Churchosaurus rex.
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I’ve been reading your posts and listening to your podcasts for a few months now. I really enjoy your stuff and appreciate your insights. Thanks for being a “voice of sanity in the evangelical wasteland.”
Regarding your take on CCM and P&W I couldn’t agree more. I think most of it is very poor musically and lyrically, and I usually find myself irritated in contemporary services for that reason. The dogmatic devotion so many people seem to have towards it… I just can’t understand it.
That being said, I think it’s also important for us to avoid the knee-jerk, pendulum swing reaction that some responses to this post seem to advocate: toss it and go back to doing it the way we’ve always done it. (An oversimplification I know) Though I enjoy singing traditional hymns, I must concede that they are, in several ways, irrelevant today. While the message, theology, etc. may be sound, the “thee’s” and “thou’s”, grammatical structures, and the musical styles just don’t translate into our vocabulary. How many bored kids (and bored adults!) do you typically see going thru the motions during “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”? I think we could safely say that the music in that situation is not opening any doors. I agree that it is wrong for us to ascribe supernatual powers to CCM and P&W music, but we can’t ascribe those powers to traditional hymns either. Maybe we have to concede that the power those old songs have to us has a strong cultural and nostalgic component, and that is idolatry as well.
A thought that I had while writing this is that our historic devotion to these traditions is largely to blame for the evangelical collapse you have forecast. I think many people, especially from my generation and those following, grew up in church learning only that it was a place you had to sit still and be quiet, and that it had no real relevance to your life. Now the cultural authority that compelled people to stay and endure it has eroded, and the exodus is underway. As I think you’re pointing out in many of your posts, a great problem arises from those people leaving the traditional churches that they saw as irrelevant and overbearing, joining contemporary churches that have the same misguided devotion to a worship style (albeit an updated one), and ultimately finding no more substance there.
As I see it, the challenge for us is to continue in the tradition of writing high quality, relevant, sacred music based on sound theology. We just have to use our present lyrical and musical vocabulary to do it. IMHO, music is a dialogue between man and God, and we need to keep up our end of that conversation. I believe God still inspires us to write songs today, and we would be disobedient not to do it. We also have to release our commitment to what is comfortable to us, be it traditional or contemporary, and seek the movement of the Holy Spirit. I think that’s what true worship is.
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I heard a very prominent Pastor and founder of a movement teach #4 from the pulpit, complete with commentary on how when they sang the wrong song or their attitude wasn’t right the Holy Spirit would “Lift off” from the congregation and they would have to repent and invite Him back.
How is this not the conjuring of spirits?
So God is now a tribal deity or fetish that we must conjure Him with the right incantation?
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Sue,
What you are hearing on this blog are the frustrated and/or seekers. The satisfied are probably not here. Unless they are seeking to defend their position.
Just as “the dose makes the poison” Parcelsus, I think that it is the same about music and worship styles.
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@ProdigalSarah: The Psalms include praise and lament. Is there such a genre as Contemporary Lament music?
You might want to check out Arvo Pärt’s Orient and Occident, on the fabulous ECM New Series label. The best label I can imagine for it is “neo-Classical” but it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. The first track is a powerful men’s choral melody using Psalm 121 as the lyrics, and after a hard driving instrumental the last song is a women’s choral piece using Psalm 42-43 but sung in Spanish. You can check it out on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Orient-Occident-Part/dp/B00006I61F
There’s also one of my all-time favorite albums, “Lamentations and Praises”, a series of vocal pieces written and composed by Sir John Tavener and performed by the choral group Chanticleer. Taverner’s idea was to take the symbolism of Eastern Orthodox church iconography depicting the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ and translate them into musical pieces. It’s worth reading some of the comments on its Amazon page here: http://www.amazon.com/Tavener-Lamentations-Praises-Chanticleer/dp/B00005UMP5
But I recommend reading this review about it which describes how Chanticleer performed it live: http://www.metanoia.org/martha/writing/lamentations.htm
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imonk,
My bad. Since I haven’t been to every EV church on the planet. I am sure many are right on task. What I am hearing from many on this blog is that their House of Worship needs a new conductor!
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“the bands are strongly encouraged to write their own music – something we need a lot more of”
That sounds like it could get really, uh, interesting.
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Joel, I hate to sound ugly here but it appears from the outside that churches will gobble up anything that is labeled as “Christian.” Christian Films? Christian Fiction? Contemporary Christian Music? No matter how low the quality (musically or theologically), it seems like many Christians feel like the have to consume it. I remember the church I attend showing that FireProof movie. My research uncovered a poorly written, poorly acted, theologically suspect film but we just had to show it because it was a Christian film (with that cuuute Kirk Cameron in it). Anyone remember The Passion of Christ tee shirts? Is this out of a sense of loyalty? Insecurity? I don’t know. The unfortunate effect of this is that there is no functioning – forgive the term – market to weed out the bad stuff and drive a general improvement in the content.
My favorite comment on the topic of CCM came from someone who said that praise music is to hymns what hallmark cards are to great literature.
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My Catholic roommate always points out that its hard for my Church to be hard on Catholics for ‘vain repitition’ when we repeat the chorus of ‘how great is our God’ about 3000 times each time we sing that song
(thankfully, we have a new worship director, and we now probably sing hymns more than any other type of music, and the bands are strongly encouraged to write their own music – something we need a lot more of)
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>… It seems to me that somewhere you all got the train off the track.
Please consider reigning in the sweeping generalizations.
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One thing on the marriage issue – it is a compromise of sorts just about anywhere you attend as a couple. I come from and SBC background and my wife COC and when we married 13 years ago we initially attended one or the other each weekend – my SBC one Sunday and her COC the next and so forth however, we quickly learned that wasn’t goning to work and after much discussion we ended up at the SBC church from 96-2001 when I took an organst position at my childhood SBC church which we left at the end of April this year for many of the reasons discussed in this post.
Where we end up next will be a compromise as well as there is the tendency to consider the familiar (SBC) but the COC looms in the background as well and those familiar with COC know very well the differences that exist there aside from the music
issue. I find myself wanting to stay with a traditional SBC or an AMiA yet my wife wants to visit her COC which, quite honestly, strikes a bit of fear in me and discussing it together isn’t always the most comfortable of things to do though very necessary from time to time. But, how does one tell one’s spouse that you don’t care for (at all) the particular church of interest not to mention the theology/doctrine issues that exist and yet not have some, shall we say, difficult feelings to deal with? It’s just not an easy thing to consider.
Being an organst without a church brings offers from other churches that still have and use the organ yet I find myself not wanting a repeat of the last two church music/worship situations that I
was a part of and I very much enjoy actually getting to sit with my wife in a service since we’ve been visiting around lately. In our previous church she had the pre-school program and me at the organ which was a paid position requiring my presence at just about everything music related at the church and towards the end of our time there we were, for the most part, never in a service together. During the sermon part of the service I just sat on the steps beside the organ console until time for the invitation and postlude.
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graceshaker, John Piper makes reference to the prosperity “gospel” reaching to “the poorest of the poor” in Asia and Africa in this video. So, apparently, no — bad theology isn’t necessarily a product of good fortune. But it does help.
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graceshaker, lots of third-world churches have bad theology. In militia-torn South America, for instance, lots of priests have become radicalized by some pretty suspect liberation theology, leading to a lot of bloodshed and weirdness. There’s also a lot of prosperity Gospel and magical thinking and even weirder stuff among the poor third-world churches, just like we have in the US.
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I listen to a lot of rock music, both old and new, mostly “secular” but a few Christian bands too (I wish we didn’t have to make that distinction but that’s another topic). Here’s a problem I have with a lot of contemporary praise and worship: it’s BAD.
The average Hillsong tune sounds like a rejected U2 song, and while there are exceptions contemporary worship lyrics tend to be pretty poor. A lot of church worship bands, no matter how well-meaning they are, aren’t that good. One thing that especially bothers me is when a guitarist lets his ego – oops, I mean the Holy Spirit! – run wild and plays an outrageous solo that not only doesn’t fit with a worship setting, but from a musical standpoint doesn’t even sound like it fits with the song!
And I can’t even hear myself sing sometimes because it’s so loud. Unfortunately, modern worship music is not exactly participatory in nature. Compared to more simple music where there are no real stars, more attention is drawn to the quality of the performers and of the music. When the band is bad or when a song sounds particularly generic, it’s hard for me not to notice that because I listen to a lot of music.
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ProdigalSarah, seeing the tenor of the responses on here, it looks like Contemporary music does indeed cause many to Lament 🙂
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I agree with you that worship music is being given an importance verging on idolatry in many church circles and that a lot of theological nonsense is being thrown out to justify it. But when you lament about the music being elevated and valued over the sermon, then I say that we may be just trading one form of idolatry for another. I can remember the day when the main criteria of the church-shopper was how well they liked or disliked the preaching (or the preacher). Is that a better or more biblically-based criteria than one’s musical preferences?
I know I’m going to get some stones thrown at me here, but I believe that the Protestant world has elevated the traditional sermon (solo oratory in the style of the ancient Greek sophists) to a level of dominance and centrality that just can’t be justified in light of New Testament scripture. And, excepting the invention of the church pew, I think the supremacy of preaching over all other spiritual gifts is one of the leading causes of inactivity and apathy among Christians.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to preaching. What I’m opposed to is what happens when one thing, be it preaching or worship music, is awarded pervasive importance within the church. And what happens is the reduction of the church from an active and fully-functioning body to a mere audience to religious performances by trained professionals.
Luther, the great reformer himself, once wrote: “It is a wonderful thing that the mouth of every pastor is the mouth of Christ, therefore you ought to listen to the pastor not as a man, but as God.” Luther also said: “The ears are the only organs of a Christian.” As much as I respect Luther and what he did for Christianity, I have to say that’s some major theological nonsense — and a sure way to create congregations of muted, passive, disempowered, spiritually comatose pew-warmers.
From what I read in the New Testament, a church body should be the collective product of what every joint supplies and contributes — not a collection of groupies for some smokin’ worship band or iconic preacher.
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One of the reasons this blog interested me is in the past several years I have known several EVs leave their tradition for more traditional churches mostly the RC.
Trying to figure out why, it seemed like such a drastic difference, I realized I really didn’t know much about this tradtion. So I have been reading this and learning. It seems to me that somewhere you all got the train off the track. I still can’t trace it back to it’s beginning. I know Baptist (SBC and American) but this other EV thing I can’t grasp. I think it started out as a seeker thing. Someones good intentions to help the lost find Christ.
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Having said all that, I know that some of us will have to sit through a lot of this, to which I say that if it is in my church, I’d be having lunch with as many elders as possible and talking about the impact this was having on me and my family.
Interesting timing here: my wife and I were at dinner just last night with an associate pastor (about the same age as me) and his wife. Ocaissionally I can broach this kind of subject with him, but in bits and pieces. It’s good to have any kind of audience for the kind of points you are making. I guess I’ll try and “grow” what I’ve got with Fred, my associate pastor friend.
You don’t deserve a long threadjack about my marriage, let’s just say that our decision making and communication is somewhat hap hazard and tyranny of the urgent driven. If there’s a bad guy in here, it’s probably me. The current church thing is not intolerable, but I’d say at times uncomfortable. I guess I have to decide how bad is bad enough on the uncomfortable scale.
IT’s late and I think I’m rambling. You’ve been kind to read my posts.
Greg R
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The key is leadership. Who is in the power base of your church. In my tradtion we have a strong pastor system. We call our pastors but after getting there they tend to stay along time.
We found out after working very hard at what you would call church planting that the pastor may lose a battle but will eventually win the war. In other traditions it certain congregational members. Usually long time but not always. A new charismatic hard worker can take the lead.
We left our church planted church because the pastor kept pushing for all this contemporary stuff. The band and so on as some on here have discribed. The same reasons. Attract the young people. Follow the trends. We were told we were to be the worker bees. I don’t mind that but I need to be feed and I am a ferocious feeder. That wasn’t happening.
We found an all liturgical growing church(four services a weekend) with two pastors who were surperior presider/preachers and blended music to die for. We were there ten years.
Due to family situations and ‘knowing’ God was calling us to move on we are now in a struggling all liturgical church with financial problems. Blended music and a very RC feel. Every time my husband sees a drum he gets nervous!!
Once the train starts rolling you are in trouble. Ask who’s driving the engine.
Also don’t expect your church or church tradition to provide everything. Get involved with other religious institutions. Fear not!!!You can only learn. If you don’t like it. You learned you don’t like that. Ask yourself why.
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Most of these statements you came up with I have unfortunately heard before, and most of it I will attribute to ignorance rather than being malicious. Number four, however, does not sound very new or exclusive to P & W to me. I wonder how far “bringing in the Holy Spirit” from the tradition of acolytes and how God only shows up with the preacher following? I know that this is not supposed to be the complete implication of this ritual, but I’m also sure P & W was created to bring the Spirit into the service.
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Until very recently, I simply haven’t seen many churches that could even begin to discuss this subject rationally. It’s elder preferences vs keeping the young people happy. Having a Biblical balance and a worship approach regulated by leadership, not led by musicians, is very rare.
I know some of you have this at your church, but what I’d like to know is how churches have adjusted to blended worship with unity, Biblical priority and good leadership.
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Man I’m with you on this, I really am, but where are the senior pastors in these churches? If there is imbalance or outright theological trash getting foisted on the congregation through music, where is the guidance of the person that is typically the senior staff member, and in my experience nearly always the direct supervisor of the “worship leader”?
If I got up one day and stated to the congregation that Jesus and Buddha were both equally God’s sons, you can bet that the pastor would provide some significant correction both publicly and privately. But apparently this “musical methodology to theology” has gotten such a foothold that we don’t even question it anymore.
Church pastors may not be willing to address these issues with their music staff because they feel they aren’t musically qualified to do so. I hope this is the reason, because otherwise, I can only assume they are in collusion with whole thing.
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Not to get into marriage counseling here, but I have heard this same thing over and over for so many years, I have to ask some questions. With all compassion and respect:
1) Why is your wife determining where you go to church?
2) If she knows your heart, why is some level of compromise not possible? (Even I drive to an AMiA once a month. It’s two hours, but worth it to me.)
3) So much is at stake here that affects marriage. Do you talk about it?
Having said all that, I know that some of us will have to sit through a lot of this, to which I say that if it is in my church, I’d be having lunch with as many elders as possible and talking about the impact this was having on me and my family.
peace
ms
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hey, make that 13yrs this Nov.30….good thing I caught that 🙂
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“compelled” might not have been the best word, but a church change would be very problematic, and to explain that, I’d be getting into my marriage (12 yrs this Nov.30, a miracle in itself) so , yeah, I COULD in theory, change churches, and who knows, this could happen, but I don’t see it that way soon. Does this help ?? As a single guy, I’d be checking into x,y,and z (churches, not …oh,never mind..), but my current church home will probably not change.
thanks for reading this
GREG R
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Why are you compelled to thousands more of these events?
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I-Monk: thanks for the Bill Kinnon post and your follow up. I only have one comment, a problem really. I thoroughly agree with the assessment but the truth is, I’m very probably headed toward thousands more “happy slappy” bring down the Holy Spirit fests , if God tarries. MY QUESTION:
NOW WHAT ??
I’m just one thin boy in a room of hundreds,trying to work this out. If this is going to stay “worship”, at least for that service, then what ?? Actually, the same problem exists for the service being “sermon heavy”. And in our church it’s good to very good teaching, but it sure isn’t “every one has a word” either. These things are not likely to change. How can I sit thru all this without laptopping I-MONK/Bill Kinnon and going to Praise and Worship jail….
thanks
GREG R
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Please read Psalm 137 until the realness of faith makes sense to you.
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i wonder if bad theology is a product of good fortune – or are the third world underground churches having this same conversation…?
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….its sad…..we’re getting older….and we are reacting just as our parents did about us…”change” does’nt set well with me anymore…maybe im “set in my was” as they say….i want things to be like they were….this younger generation can go to !*#^&%%$#@%#@!…..
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The difficulty with much of the really good CCM is that it is difficult to sing congregationally. Much of the good stuff almost has to be done by a soloist or small group. I don’t mind some of that, but the service is not a spectator sport, we want everyone involved.
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“8. Contemporary Praise and Worship music is used by the Holy Spirit to bypass the mind and go directly into the human spirit where real change can occur.”
So much for “..be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” (Romans 12:2). Red flags and sirens all over that statement!
I appreciate the better CCM and P&W that has substance and content that IS directed to the renewal of my mind, and that can be sang in a worship setting without screaming, deafening guitars and overwhelming pounding drums along with “vain repetition”. (Sigh…)
A good post! Thank you…
Peace…
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P.P.S. If we have made “Worship (TM)” mean nothing more than a kicking band belting out lightweight CCM bubblegum and “The Holy Spirit” the emotional reaction to such a kicking band, what happens when some cult/other religion/false teacher/false prophet/wannabe Fuehrer/Antichrist fires up an even more kicking band and triggers an even stronger emotional reaction?
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The Psalms include praise and lament. Is there such a genre as Contemporary Lament music? — ProdigalSarah
Not in the land of Happy Clappy Joy Joy Christians Who Smiiiile Like Blinky Osteen. I think IMonk had an essay on that very subject a few months ago.
Years ago, a writer contact of mine (now in Louisville) related a tale of a guest speaker at his church who asked “Maybe depression is your spiritual gift?” The speaker went on to say that the strong and “dark” emotions (such as you find in Lamentations) are often what empowers the strong and deep storytelling and art; that the emphasis on Happy Clappy Joy Joy (and Smiiile) have resulted in a cotton-candy froth that drives away the more serious/somber creative types. “Where are today’s C.S.Lewises? We drove them away.”
P.S. I like Kinnon’s term “JIMBee” (“Jesus is My Boyfriend”) to describe CCM bubblegum.
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Interesting stuff. I’ve been thinking about it a good bit myself lately—mainly because of the Peter Masters and Doug Wilson back-and-forth. I got a little involved in the discussion going on concerning it over at the My Two Cents blog.
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man, this is one of your articles that just never gets old – it’s good for laughs and thought each time I read it
I think you can still shock hundreds of Christians with this paragraph –
Of course, what we are really doing here is identifying God with some good feeling generated by electronics and people singing together. (Idolatry alert!) “I just really felt like the Lord was in the worship today.†Well so what? When are any of our feelings the measurement of God’s reality? God PROMISES to be present with His people when they gather in His name. Music is completely irrelevant to the intention of God to keep his promises to His people.
But it’s a truth that I usually never hear anywhere else.
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A couple of women visit my mother’s nursing home and sing to the patients. I have no idea which church or denomination they are from, or even if they are associated with a church. Anyway, Mama told them her favorites were the old hymns, so that’s what they sing to her. They asked if she wanted to hear a particular song and she gave them a title which they had never heard. I can’t recall which, other than it was a Fanny Crosby song—-like that narrows it down.
Anyway, the next time the ladies came to visit they had learned the song.
I found this so touching that they would go to such effort for an audience of one. This meant so much to my mother. I am grateful that the size of the audience isn’t the most important factor to these good ladies.
Ok, you youngens with your praise bands, I guess that was a bit off topic.
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I am not saying mine is better. It is just different. I have found some people don’t know there is anything else but this P&W venue. Or they have been told Liturgy is an abomination to the Lord. So won’t go near a liturgical church.
I used to go to an Emmaus gathering once a month. They had a praise band and I enjoyed singing the praise music. Then they moved to another church with big speakers and electric guitars. It was so loud I had to stop going as it literally hurt my ears. Many others stopped going as well.
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The Psalms include praise and lament. Is there such a genre as Contemporary Lament music?
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As a music minister, I have been a big fan of this essay since I found it in the archives. I’m considering making it required reading for all musicians on our teams. Fortunately, I haven’t heard any of these lines from people at my church. But I have heard it from many people. So much of contemporary worship practice is determined by narrow perspectives on emotional experiences. While I agree with the preacher that said that none of the forms of worship we have were arrived at 100% exegetically, I do wish more people would actively consider the Weslyan quadrilateral, and put their intellect as well as understanding of scripture and tradition to use more often in planning “worship.”
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Just one note here: I’m going to remove any posts that respond with “our church/worship is better than yours because we don’t do this.” Being grateful for your tradition is good, but I’m not looking for jumping up and down.
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“Never did more I, IV, V chord patterns empower so many bad songs”
Oh, by the living God, yes! With the capo on the neck of the guitar because they couldn’t do the fingering (bad memories of folk Masses here, can you tell?) 😉
At least the excuse was that for school Masses (and parish Masses where they didn’t have the choir), you had to take what you could get, and anyone able to strum a guitar and hold a note when singing was roped in to do the music.
‘Tis far from “worship directors” we were reared 🙂
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lex orandi lex credendi – let the reader understand what the Spirit is saying to the Churches!
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The first Praise music is the Psalms. How about using them in worship?
My eighty six year old mother-in-law started going to the “contemporay service” at her church (Methodist)in Flordia in the winter. She liked it but told me she stopped going. Her reason. “They never said the Lord’s Prayer or the Creed or sang ‘the doxology’. I didn’t think that was right.”
Why is all this focused on music and not on worship? I like some P&W songs. Most are inapporperate in my tradition during worship because they are written “I”, “me” and we have corporate worship ie “we”.
Altar calls.Yes, every Sunday. It’s called communion. We receive Jesus in the bread and wine. Not in the buzzing of a loud speaker!!!
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4. Praise and Worship Music brings down the Holy Spirit.
Yeah… my PASTOR told me this. This is only one of many things we disagree about. 🙂
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it breaks my heart to read this post because it’s true. it’s sad. as a youth pastor, when i was interviewing at churches, several of them made comments such as, “Don’t worry, we have an awesome praise band!” or my favorite, “All the young people go to our contemporary service, so you will make a lot of contacts there.”
i love the fact that some of the young people at our church prefer our traditional service. there’s something about “Great is thy faithfulness,” that just won’t go away.
why do we bow to the points you’ve made above: IT’S EASIER. this style of music and worship service asks less of us. we don’t have to memorize anything. we don’t have to participate in anything if we don’t want to. we don’t have to interact, engage, etc. we can be passive and take what we want. after all, it’s all about us anyway. if we don’t “get” anything out of the service, we should find a new church…
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