UPDATE: Please post on the question ONLY. Do not use this to complain about styles of music.
Catholics, etc can go have a coffee. This is for evangelicals and others to whom it applies.
Here’s my question:
“Who wants 30-40+ minutes of music in worship? Who? Why? I mean…explain this to me. I seriously do not get it.”
The Internet Monk Archives 
I haven’t read all the entries, but I think we need lots of music to clear our minds of the world, then focus them to worship & then to actually worship! Sometimes it takes 40 minutes to accomplish that!
My church has great music & often I wish there were more!!
Sometimes my attention wanes, but it comes back. I love church & it’s about the only time all week, I rarely want to know what time it is. The rest of the week, I want to know the time periodically.
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I’m one that is happy to have a largish portion of music in the worship service. Like at least one of the other comments expresses, I listen to music *all day*, every day — music is an integral part of my life, and I find it indispensable in my worship experience. Whether that’s 40 minutes straight or 40 minutes divided before and after the sermon (as we do it) is immaterial to me; the “attention span” argument against 40 minutes straight of music doesn’t hold water, IMO. (If you have 40 minutes straight of music and are left thinking it’s all sounding the same [and your attention wandering], you [or your worship band/team/leader] might be doing something wrong.) Whether you want to stand or sit is also immaterial, just like the style of the music is immaterial. Can’t stand? Sit down. Or try kneeling — it’s not just for the Catholics…
I’m also discouraged that so many people are equating a long musical set with “Jesus-is-my-friend” style music. While that might be a problem in the evangelical church, that’s NOT what iM asked. He asked for a justification for long music sets, not whether or not “Yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord” is worship-y enough. Let me be clear:
A long music set does not *require* that the music be vapid or lacking spiritually. To suggest that is ignorant at best, and proud and divisive at worst.
I like the way EricW said it: “Liturgical worship can create decency and order in worship. But it can also prevent the full and free operation of the Spirit among its members and stifle the functioning of the body when its members come together in/as church. I’ve seen and experienced the best and the worst of both.” The fact is that long worship music sets can be good or bad, just as short ones can be, just as traditional ones can be, just as contemporary ones can be. This is, IMO, the reason the Bible contains so few rules on how exactly to worship, other than “in spirit and truth”. From that I see much, much freedom, including the long worship music sets I personally love.
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This is an interesting (and true, in my own anecdotal experience) point. Where I have trouble remembering last week’s sermon text, I can remember all sorts of biblical texts when set to music. So I guess music: +1.
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Me.
It’s what I grew up with. Conservative Amish/Mennonite services generally open with 15-20 minutes of singing, and have one song (5 minutes) between the first and the second message, and another one or two at the end.
But it’s a 3-hour service.
And then once a month we had singing service–45 minutes of singing, 15 minute devotions, another 45 minutes of singing. I think that was the most looked-forward-to service of the month.
But all this was congregational singing of hymns, with no accompaniment.
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Too much music?…I believe Bach heard that complaint quite a bit. Thankfully he ignored it.
And 30-40 minutes is too much? Just what do they think they’re going to do in heaven?
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As a former charismatic church worship leader I must confess… I suspect a lot of what I was doing for decades was hyping up a group of people with the known effects of music in order to generate an ephemeral, mass emotional sense of “the presence and anointing of God” in a soulish sense, for the benefit of a church meeting. I think the preacher knew this lengthy state of repetitive emotional and physical musical effort would put people in “the right spirit to receive The Word”. Hmmmm…
Corporate worship [and preaching and sermonizing] has a long and varied history throughout the different expressions of christianity. A hearty and commendable pursuit, I’m sure. But I still sense that the presence of the Spirit of God and wholehearted worship is more likely to be found outside of the walls of a church. If you want a Holy Spirit rush, serve some food to starving and poor people. If you want to really lift your hands and just worship Jesus, help build a house for the destitute. You’ll experience a real worship service if you work with lepers in Calcutta, or sing your songs in the cancer ward of your local children’s hospital. Visit those lonely people dying of AIDS. Dig a fresh water well in Africa and save some lives. One of my favorite worship tunes is to sit with the cranky, unlovable widow across the street and let her talk non-stop for hours about the most irritating subjects. I really sense the presence of angels all around me while she pours out her bitter disappointments with how life has treated her. No one else wants to listen to her. It’s not an emotional high for me… but it is worship. We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.
from Amos 5:
Don’t you realize the Lord’s day of judgment will bring darkness, not light –
gloomy blackness, not bright light?
“I absolutely despise your festivals!
I get no pleasure from your religious assemblies!
Even if you offer me burnt and grain offerings, I will not be satisfied;
I will not look with favor on your peace offerings of fattened calves.
Take away from me your noisy songs;
I don’t want to hear the music of your stringed instruments.
Justice must flow like torrents of water,
righteous actions like a stream that never dries up.
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In all fairness, there’s hardly more than 2 verses in most modern songs ;-)~
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WOW talk about adventures in missing the point
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^^^What he said.^^^
It’s not that I don’t like music or that I don’t like some modern worship music. But it seems like it’s out of balance now. Plus, there is more to worship than just singing and a sermon. So many contemporary style services give short shrift to other aspects of worship…the public reading of Scripture (other than the verse references in the sermon), common prayer, responsive readings from the Psalms, corporate and personal confession, reaffirming what we believe through the Creeds, Holy Communion (relegated to monthly or quarterly) and so on.
It’s gotten to the point where “worship” for many people doesn’t just include music, it has become a synonym for music. And that’s just not so.
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I would seem to me that given your natural bent toward being more engaged in worship that a liturgical type of service would be perfect for you. It engages most if not all of the five senses and it does so at various times throughout the service, not just crammed in at the front. There are times to sing out and times to quietly reflect, times to stand out of respect for the Word and times to kneel in prayer or repentance. We pray together and quietly and it culminates in receiving the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion.
It’s one of the things I love most about that particular manner of worship…I’m actively involved throughout the service, not just for 20-40 minutes at the start and then I more or less sit down and watch/listen to other people.
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Being a church musician (organist) I find that the issue, at least with me and a few others, is that spending an inordinate amount of time on the music part of worship can lead to folks preferring that over the over other aspects of the worship service and it also tends to contribute to the “I want to be entertained” mentality that seems so fixed in churches that have more contemporary worship. There’s also an emotional attachment to it because of the power to move (control?) people that can’t be matched, generally speaking, by the sermon or other parts of the worship service.
Key here is having a good balance of music, sermon, communion etc through-out the service time. Music balance during that time in the service is good as well with a good selection of hymns and contomporary music.
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Derek:
FWIW, sacramentum is the Latin translation of the Greek mysterion. Neither the Lord’s Table/communion nor baptism (which is what I assume your “2…sacraments” refers to) are explicitly called a mysterion in the NT. So on what basis do you argue that music is not a sacrament, but the ones you refer to as sacraments are?
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Music is not a sacrament. Music is a tool OF worship. It isn’t the ONLY tool of worship. 2 (or 7, Catholics!) sacraments. If music were a sacrament, there would have been reference to Jesus (our ultimate example) playing or singing it. There just isn’t.
My family house-churches. We always do a lesson and prayer. Not always music.
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I’m in God’s presence in my house. I’m in His presence right now. He was with me in my truck on the way to the office. There is no such thing as a transition to get into the presence of one who is Omnipresent.
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The Corinthians, IMO, had no understanding of the body and how it was to function. It was each person for himself.
With our societal and family structure and non-acquaintance with Middle-Eastern hospitality customs, I think we have even less understanding than they do.
In Ephesians and 1 Corinthians, Paul is trying to make them see that they each need each other and each need to respect and love and serve each other, and that to disrespect one’s fellow Christian was to sin against Christ Himself, because they were all members of His body and members one of another.
I don’t think he was much more successful than we are.
Liturgical worship can create decency and order in worship. But it can also prevent the full and free operation of the Spirit among its members and stifle the functioning of the body when its members come together in/as church. I’ve seen and experienced the best and the worst of both.
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I thought maybe you had Corinthians in mind when you wrote of “charismatic/pneumatic/prophetic gathering[s].” And I guess what I would say to that is, Paul wrote the Corinthians to reign them in with regard to worship. To do so, he attempted to provide some order to the “charismatic/pneumatic/prophetic” chaos they were promulgating. He did not throw out all the elements of their worship, but sought to see that they gathered with decency, order, and love.
To me, that is exactly what iMonk is attempting to do in his posts on worship, and what so many of the best teachers on worship (e.g. Robert Webber) have sought to do as well.
“Corinthian worship,” IMHO, is one of the best phrases to describe what is going on in evangelicalism today—emphasis on spectacle, feelings, and the pursuit of a gnostic-kind of ecstasy, devoted attachment to celebrity “leaders,” ignorance of the moral dimensions of the faith in personal relationships, on the other hand a false kind of separation from real life into a cultish clique that is of the world but not in it, in short, a sell-out to culture rather than Christ.
If anyone wants to imitate Corinthian worship, I’d recommend thinking twice about that.
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People come on an join in start a love train,,,, a love train… raise you hands in the a-i-r
swing ’em like ya just don’t ca-re ! heh heh….}}}}}Shudder{{{{
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and Amen again!
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Of course God is already there. He is always there. I dislike the phrase “bringing people into God’s presence” because it is misleading. The goal is not to bring people anywhere, but help them see and feel that God is already there. Singing is *one* way to do this, when it is done well.
@Jonathan: I’m going to have to disagree with your assessment here. Although it is possible, it is not ideal to differentiate, and even less ideal to chose “bringing people into the presence of God” over being a good musician. To paraphrase CS Lewis, we don’t need more christian artists. We need more artists (and musicians) who are christian. I do not believe that mediocrity is pleasing to God. We are to strive to “do all things as unto the Lord.” The choice between God and art is a false choice. God is glorified by beauty and art and musicianship, even though we all know he is entirely able to use us even when we are not beautiful.
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Music is a sacrament. Not at the expense of any other sacrament, but it is in our bodies, in our brains, and ought to be in our church.
It doesn’t have to be exhausting. Singing “all out” is not necessary all of the time. But to decide that you don’t like singing all-out, therefore we should sing for 5 min at the beginning and the end, ignoring the inborn, hard-wired impact of music on our physical and spiritual bodies, is foolish.
People who have had strokes and can’t talk can often still communicate through singing. Music is the second strongest memory aid (scent is the first). It is hard-wired into our brains, and brings our past into our present. It turns passive church-sitters into participants in the service. Church is not a product for us to consume, it is a process in which we are participants. Communal music is one of the ways this happens.
Preaching is good too, of course. I go to a church where we sing for half an hour, and have hour-long sermons as well. There is no need to sacrifice one for the other. There is no need for it to overwhelm the service. If it is done well, there is no reason not to have 30-40 minutes of music.
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Debbie:
I agree. One thing we’ll always remember from our liturgical period is that the prayers and hymns and songs/chants were always in praise of God or of His work in the lives of the saints. There was nothing “me-centered” about it. That, plus the fact that one didn’t bring one’s preferences to the service, but took on the church’s tradition and conformed to that.
One’s worship should be other-focused – either on God or on the needs of the other members of the body. All should be done for the building up of the body in love, as each member provides and contributes what Christ gives it so that each and all may attain to the maturity of Christ and the full knowledge of Him.
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To clarify: I’m not contrasting a liturgical service with the 40-minute song, etc., worship + sermon service to argue that one is better or worse than the other, but would contrast them both with the same passages in Acts you note and with what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 11-14.
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Writing from an Anglican POV, we typically don’t have 30 + minutes of “worship sets” in our worship. However, music is an important element of our worship (not the only component of worship). We typically have four songs at our parish, one or two and the opening acclamation, another, and then one more for the recessional. We also have the service music such as the Alleluia, offertory song, and the Sanctus. I think that the duration of the musical component of worship is not as important as the content of the songs. The songs should point to God and not to the experience of the worshipper. But I do think that a too many songs can be distracting especially if your church follows the liturgy.
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Eric,
I read something totally different in Chaplain Mike’s comment: that his concern was that we put more emphasis on personal preference than we have any right to. I think it was pretty clear that he wasn’t saying a more traditional liturgical style was better than another worship style, only that worship is …(gosh I can’ think of the right adjective) well, it connotes more than this conversation is addressing. It includes a history (not necessarily of style, but of substance) that seems to be disregarded in this conversation.
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Sorry that this kind of jumps around. I’ve revisited this comment a few times as I can grab the moments. Hopefully you can follow my train of thought. Also, I have only read half the comments, so pls. forgive if this is repetitive.
Personally, I would like a long song service (I consider 30-40 minutes long). Why? I sing all day long. I love to sing. However, if I thought a long(er) song service was a problem or a distraction to others with whom I was worshiping, I’d have difficulty maintaining a worshipful attitude. In that case, I’d want a shorter song service and I would seek a solo worship time if I felt short-changed somehow, but more often than not, if my motivation is right a shorter time in singing to God is perfectly acceptable.
Yes, I want it, but I think my personal wishes and preferences are irrelevant in this context. I think the personality of the body involved should determine the length of the song service w/in reason. When I choose a church, I’m choosing based on many factors. One significant factor is the worship service, and how “well” it’s done based on my personal preferences. Once I choose a body w/ which to worship, my own personal preferences kind of go to the bottom of the list of priorities in worship.
Regarding the sub-discussion of emotional manipulation…
What is the purpose of the song service? I think we all agree that whether the motivations of the service planner was manipulative or not, the purpose is to set the tone for the entire service, and most agree it should be balanced w/ the Word and Sacraments.
Their (service planner/worship leader) motivations, though relevant for this particular discussion and something for which they should be held accountable by the overseers, shouldn’t be relevant to me as a worshiper. My motivation is to seek His presence in the place of worship and offer my adoration and devotion to Him through each portion of the service.
Emotion should not be the primary indicator of proper worship. As Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful in all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” I believe that emotion balanced with intellect is what we should strive for in our worship, just as in everything else.
On the flip-side, those who plan our services do have to attend to nitty-gritty details in order that the worship service as a whole leads people to the throne. They do have to weigh the affectation of the songs they choose and I do believe they should prayerfully and deliberately choose the music. It makes perfect sense to me that they would choose songs that might be “leading.” I want them to do that. There isn’t much that is more distracting to me during a worship service than a hodge-podge of music, chosen w/ little-to-no thought about the intent or direction of the service.
Thanks for posting this, i-Monk.
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Yes, I was a worship leader in college in a pentecostal group and the worship time was to purify the room in the student center because it might have been some frat or other group using it before us leaving bad vibes in the room.
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“Modern worship songs are, for the most part, “designed†to create an emotional response.”
Yes, and this automatically makes me resist it.
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“Many people have learned that they can arrive late, and miss most of the concert…and they do.”
I thought I was the only one who did that!
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EricW…thanks for the background. I’m sure you have a greater understanding of where I’m coming from than many of the others who have commented.
You write, “Did Jesus intend for the celebratory and rededicatory New Covenant meal and charismatic/pneumatic/prophetic gathering by His followers to become a retread or reinstitution of Old Covenant worship…?” No, obviously not. (And your caricature of liturgical worship may describe its abuses well, but not its true intent and spirit.)
But who says the 40-minute song set, etc., is any truer to the “charismatic/pneumatic/prophetic” gathering, if that is indeed what Jesus intended? It often seems more like the pursuit of a sort of gnostic ecstasy to me.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (Jesus and kingdom-focused instruction from authorized leaders) and the common life (koinonia, tangible acts of love toward one another including offerings), to the breaking of bread (communion), and to the (liturgical) prayers” (Acts 2:42). I believe that we should strive to participate in worship that represents the simplicity, humility, and gladness described here.
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Chaplain Mike says:
November 9, 2009 at 4:37 pm
sigh…
Chaplain Mike:
FWIW, I wrote/write as one who is not totally ignorant of the history of the liturgy or of the liturgical forms in Scripture (as you rightfully note many Evangelical Protestants to be).
I’ve read the Apostolic Fathers and Justin Martyr, The Apostolic Constitutions, the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, as well as Dix, Bradshaw, Bouyer, many of the ancient liturgies (Addai and Mari, etc.), Schmemann, Romanides, Pelikan, Ferguson, etc.
I was raised Jewish, so I know synagogue worship. I was Eastern Orthodox for 3 years, so I know how the church adopted and adapted and Christianized the Temple worship. In fact, I read and recited and prayed the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, as well as those of St. Basil and St. Mark and St. James, in the Greek originals.
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Amen!
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You know, I’m kind of depressed reading all this. It seems assumed by most that any church with a worship set 20 minutes long is singing shallow Jesus-is-my-boyfriend-songs in order to fit in with culture and that those people must have no love for theology, good preaching, or good music.
I am one of those who love to worship for a longer period – but I also devour books on theology and go looking for extra sermons to listen to during the week. I’m not anti-sermon or anti-intellectual, I just LOVE worshiping God through song.
And for all of you who are skipping the music altogether – 107 verses, doing a quick biblegateway search, tell us to sing to God or each other.
Sometimes being part of community means knowing not everything in the service will be perfect for me – but maybe it’s ministering to someone else’s heart. Maybe singing doesn’t do alot for you. But it might for someone else.
Blessings to you all. Peace out.
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sigh…
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I think the real question is whether what you described that is referred to as “worship” (or sometimes “praise and worship”) is really that at all. But I think IM wanted to avoid going too far down that road and just talk about the time aspect—-although in truth, I think that what this “worship” is is directly connected with why it’s so long. Sorry if off topic.
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You stole my thunder — we have 30 minutes of the worship band playing so that I only have to be in church from 10 to 10:45 — if I actually get to church on time at 930, I spend the whole music time just wishing for it to be over.
On a slightly more serious note, at my last church I was on the board and I made the mistake of saying “You know, we are paying 4 band members $50 each every sunday and we are in debt. Why don’t we instead just sing hymns and save $1000 a month — wouldn’t be nice to make payroll for the staff on time?” The response: “We can’t get rid of worship!” Since when is singing Jesus is my boyfriend over and over again the ONLY way we worship God. So glad I am not there anymore…
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What’s that about?
It seems that lots of people are complaining about the length of
their services. As a worship leader my job is to be a “go-between”
god and his people. We probably please 95% of our worshipers and
god, too. Doesn’t sound like that’s happening in
some of these long services.
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*raises hand*
I do! Perhaps, though, I am in the minority. From the comments it seems that way. I am also very tactile and touch everything I see, including most strangers! Which also makes me odd. It’s how I interact with the Creator (singing, moving, touching things).
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Does he want to sound good or bring people into God’s presence?
After being in Evangelical churches for 20 years now(I’m 42), I still have no idea what that means. Bringing people into God’s presence? Isn’t God already there? Are we just talking about getting people to feel a certain way or what?
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I’m now convinced that Satan owns an organ, and has been lending it out to that church!
Well it can always get worse……could have been a tambourine, snare drum, or tin whistle;
And touche about our addng to the gaospel, and being the last to know about it. Maybe we assume that if we’re out of God’s will, HE will prevent us from being dim and clueless.
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The only reason that I like the 30+ minutes of singing at the start of the service is because I am not a morning person. If I am running late I know that I haven’t missed anything:)
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Excellent point. The Tradition is an excellent tool to connect with God, and with the Church through the ages, but it’s not the point, it’s the means. God cares what we do, not how we do it. If we’re using a church service to connect to and revere God, to fellowship with other beleivers, and to love our neighbor, then it’s all for the good.
If we’re more focused on the form of the service, than the content, then we’re doing it wrong, regardless of if it’s a traditional liturgy, the evangelical standard, or a completely unstructured gathering.
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I think it is an excellent point. Is there a “right way” to worship? I’ve lived in a lot of different places, and they each have a unique approch to worship music. The thing is the way we do it doesn’t matter in the least. The question is “are we truly worshipping and revering God?” Different people are going to do that different ways, and we can learn a lot from other cultures about what the core essence of worship is.
In a way, it’s sad that the standard formula of “20 min worship, 10 min announcements, 30 min sermon” is spreading so far. I’ve just moved to Africa, and that’s pretty much what it’s like here now. (although often a bit longer).
“is 30 min too long” is a white question, because largely, it’s only the predominantly white churches who have less than that. The equivalent “black question” would be “is 2 hours of worship too long?” I think it puts it into perspective. 30 mins isn’t all that long to devote to one task. THat’s a television sitcom. We find 30 mins long, because we’re not used to it, not because there’s something inherently wrong with singing for that long.
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Hmmmmm….tomatoh….tomahto….but I’ll go with Bill on this, tho it depends a little on which praise and worship song is being repeatedly offered up. In my neighborhood , the preaching is pretty good, but what should be ONE twenty minute sermon becomes THREE or more sermons , total time about an hour. This is too much, but I think the elder board and most of the congregation is cool with it……so looks like Greg R will NOT be getting his pony any day soon.
I think a major problem is that some pastors see preaching at this length as their duty, as fulfilling their responsibility. We are miles away from teaching others to feed themselves as the major priority….better to have mama bird chew up the food, etc…..
a little snarky, sorry folks
Greg R
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HUG…..you are KILLING me.
Greg R (my face hurts)…
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And not get turned into a pile of rocks.
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Now take off your socks and Spin them Round Round Spin Me Round Round Jesus Round Round…
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A question:
Did Jesus intend for the celebratory and rededicatory New Covenant meal and charismatic/pneumatic/prophetic gathering by His followers to become a retread or reinstitution of Old Covenant worship, complete with “set apart” clergy and fixed or set liturgical chanting or recitation of hymns and culminating in a rite in which His sacrificial death is re-offered or re-presented by a priest (or person who acts as a priest in all but name only) with the tribal koinônia/fellowship/covenant meal reduced to a sip from a silver or gold chalice and a bite of consecrated wafer presented by men in fancy robes acting alter Christus or something close to it?
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And music isn’t self-stimulating? Please. I’ve seen men and women nearly orgasmic in a “worship” service.
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I remember when I was in college, I naively suggested in an organizational meeting of our campus ministry that we cut down the amount of time we do praise and worship. You could have heard a pin drop, then some nervous laughter and “Okay, moving on…”.
We have finally decided to shed our megachurch and are currently visiting churches in our area. We have yet to find one that doesn’t feel it necessary to spend at least 30 minutes singing. Surveying the faces and the participation level in each of the church I venture that about 75 percent of each church’s population would be more than happy to cut that number down tremendously. But I think anyone who has ever voiced that opinion has been summarily shot down by the vocal minority and has elected not to broach the subject again for fear of ridicule.
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This entire conversation has me feeling pretty depressed. So few of the comments reflect any understanding of the historic tradition of liturgy. It’s all about my preferences and what pulls my chain. No sense of living within an objective tradition of worship, just how I can best express my subjective feelings at any given moment. No sense of living within a family that has been worshiping for 2000 years and, for most of those years, did so in an entirely different fashion than evangelicals do in their relatively recent pietistic, revivalist way. No sense of Biblical understanding of the liturgical forms evident all throughout Scripture that call us away from ourselves and our own subjectivism into conformity with God’s story.
Of course emotions are an important part of our response to God. Of course music is a significant part of worship–I might be tempted even to call it a means of grace. And if one reads Eph 5 in a certain way, it indicates that worshiping together through “songs, hymns, and spiritual songs” is one way we experience the fullness of the Spirit in our congregations. And, yes, the answer to this question will vary somewhat from culture to culture.
Nonetheless, iMonk, your question has certainly uncovered the sorry state of evangelical understanding with regard to worship. The over-emphasis on music today shows me that we are bound more to our culture than to Christ.
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Most people, unless they take notes, are not going to remember what was said in any sermon that’s over 12 minutes long. Scientific fact. If the pastor says something really amusing or offensive, they’ll remember that, but anything else is mostly gone by the next week.
It’s unclear what long sermons hope to accomplish. They fail to educate in precisely the same way that the lecture does in the school system.
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We did that once. It got a lot of complaints, and our attendance dropped for a while afterward. Even the worship leader got really uncomfortable.
I thought it was pretty cool though.
We don’t all worship the same way. Communal Worship may be culturally inaccurate at this point, unless we’re willing to work at creating our own culture.
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What he said.
So many of these worship bands we get are really intensively musical people, and they get their expression with God through the worship service.
So some portion of the time, they’re on a musical high, and they expect that the audience is going to come with them. And then they get angry when the audience doesn’t, and blame them for being rebellious or against the spirit of God.
But you can’t follow a rock band that is making up their own musical rules into worship. They’ve just blazed their own path.
I tend to pray a lot during worship services, unless I’m emotionally in the right place to connect with the songs, and even then, when they start to repeat things, I’m done. “If we change keys enough, and put enough emotional intensity behind it, maybe God will show up and do something incredible!”
Bushwah. God’s already there, waiting for us to show up in reverence and accept His Love.
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It is quite telling that many churches’ “sanctuaries” are built like auditoriums or college lecture halls, with a stage up front and with the people in aisles of chairs or seats, and that many such churches’ “services” consist of a musical “performance” (aka “worship”) followed by a monologue or one-man dramatic presentation (aka “the sermon”), or a college-type lecture.
One can replicate most of this by staying at home and putting on a worship CD and then listening to an audio or video of a sermon.
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I agree with the concept of having a separate “praise & worship” time for those who want to participate. I realize this is very meaningful to *some* people. Just don’t force everybody into it.
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I’ll cop to sneaking out right after the sermon because our church allows question & answer time after the sermon. It is excrutiating. People will ask questions about things that were clearly addressed in the teaching, like the annoying kid in class who raises his hand to have the teacher repeat the same thing that he/she just said.
I understand the criticisms about short attention spans, and I might even deserve that criticism. But there are just certain things I find disrespectful, such as worship leaders who don’t know when to call it quits (our church does a pretty good job of limiting this time to two songs), pastors who drone on and on with no care for the nursery or the children’s program workers, and people who can’t be bothered to listen to begin with.
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Music is part of worship. I also find the music does help me set my mind, heart and even body in a right place to receive the word and sacrament.
However, the music can go on a bit long (40 mins is too long) but so can most sermons. I like the 20 minute sermons. Trouble is some music leaders like hearing themselves sing, some pastors like hearing themselves talk. Long-windedness in either case is just plain rude and impolite.
But if push came to shove, I’ll take longer music. Listening to some hot-shot drone on for 45 minutes and tell me how the Greek and Hebrew is parsed so s/he can wow me with their seminary prowess is just plain boring, and in large part irrelevant and often time just self-stimulating behavior. Yep…that’s what I said.
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Since many studies have shown the average adult attention span to be about 15-20 minutes, why 30-40 minutes of music OR a 40-60 minute sermon?
It would seem that the ancient liturgies, which are divided into numerous different participatory elements–prayers, creeds, singing, scripture, kneeling, standing, visual symbolism, a nice brief homily, etc. actually fit better what modern science now knows about both attention span and multiple learning styles. I don’t find this too shocking, as the liturgy is based upon the “Old Testament” worship instituted by God himself. Who would understand human psychology better than the creator 🙂 ?
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Don’t you know that one’s tolerance for tedium is a measure of one’s dedication to Christ :).
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There was some list of mistakes churches make and such and the point i was baffled by was that a church should hire a music minister before a youth minister because our culture loves music and the medium to deliver was rock and roll. as pooh would say, oh bother.
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So if I were African-American and I were asking “Why do some people only have 20 minutes of music?” you’d say that’s a pretty “Black” question and it wouldn’t be a problem? 🙂
If we went to Africa, they would have “drumming and singing” for 2, 3 and 4 hours. Is that right because it’s a manifestation of culture?
If every question I ask about evangelicalism is “white,” then the answer to all these questions is to imitate other cultures?
I appreciate your point, Jonathan, but I never get this observation. Cultural relativity is a universal solvent.
peace
ms
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I tried turning up 25 minutes late to a service, but they hadn’t even started by the time I’d got there!
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I know I’m going to be the voice crying in the wilderness about this again, since white evangelicalism refuses to see how white it is…
But that’s a pretty white question.
Let’s face it folks, most white churches have less than 20 minutes of music, and to a lot of white folks that’s what feels right, without realizing that what’s ‘right’ is simply what’s white. [There was a good post on Out of Ur about small groups being a white thing…]
Once my black pastor and I were talking about this, and he said that we worship so long because that’s how long it takes to remind the people that God loves them, and to unlearn all the nonsense they’ve heard during the week about them being worthless and unimportant.
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The current church building at my home parish (St Boniface, Anaheim, CA) was built in the early 1960s. The choir (and all music) is in a choir loft over the narthex, above and behind the congregation, out of line-of-sight. I understand in the chaos after Vatican II the choir & music was moved down in front for a while, but about 10 years ago it was moved back to the choir loft where it remains to this day. Above & behind, you don’t see them, only hear them. No onstage antics to act as a distraction; your attention remains in front on the altar and ambo.
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Forty minutes of music prepares the congregation for the two hour long sermon. 😉
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I think it’s not so much that people are upset about worshipping God for 30-40 minutes, it’s the manner of the worship. There are other ways of praising God and spending time in his presense than just singing/listening to music. And I don’t mean to sound critical of anyone who wants to worship God with music for 40 minutes. If that’s the way you get closer to God then more power to you! However I also don’t think anyone should be criticized just because they don’t care for lengthy musical selections and made to feel as if they are being a lazy worshipper. One reason why I started attending a liturgical church was because there is such a wide variety of ways to worship God during liturgical church services: quiet contemplation, prayers, the eucharist, music and singing, public reading and contemplation of Holy Scripture, etc. There are so many ways to worship and praise our Lord, and music is only one of these ways.
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I’m so glad to see this brought up. I have to say, I was recently at a local congregation (looking for a new church home – I’m new to the area) and without naming names, I thought I was caught up in a bad musical. I’m now convinced that Satan owns an organ, and has been lending it out to that church!
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like music. I actually enjoy almost any kind of music, at least to an extent, but this went way beyond my threshold. I kid you not, I found myself wishing, hoping, longing that the sermon would go forever, just so I didn’t have to hear that infernal organ pounding away in my ears. The kicker is, it was really being played quite well, I don’t think they missed a note, but it didn’t matter. It was that same, same, same, sound over and over again that began to drive me insane. It was just way too much of a good thing, as far as I’m concerned.
The sad part about this is I wonder how many people would really enjoy the gospel-centered preaching of this congregation, but just would not be able to submit themselves to organ-torture (meant both ways) and would end up finding another place of worship (maybe where the gospel was not as clearly proclaimed). It made me wonder what other types of things we’ve added to the gospel, without even realizing it.
“And they sang a hymn” seems like a far cry from where most of our churches are at these days.
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My wife and I love worship. If it really is worship, then we simply can’t get enough of it. On the other hand, many churches just have music, and I tire of that after about 15 minutes. The difference is whether the focus is on God or the singing, and whether the worship leader is listening to the Holy Spirit or watching his set list or the clock. Does he want to sound good or bring people into God’s presence?
I used to be in a worship band with a guy who worshipped like none other. We didn’t spend a lot of time practicing, because during our worship we would simply go with what the Holy Spirit wanted us to do. Sometimes that didn’t even involve us.
But when I am am truly worshipping…I never want to stop.
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I think this is pretty common. The 30 minutes of music is the opening act to the service. Comparing the traditional and contemporary services at my church, I see very distinct differences in how many people are late.
I’d like to try a service with 30 minutes of silence. What a great deal of discipline it would involve!!
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Hi Spike
What do you mean by “I sense there are a lot of worship leaders out there who couldn’t care less about a large chunk on the congregation. What’s that all about????” What do you mean by that?
Also, I would like to add to what I said before. I realize that many people find that 30-40 minutes is too long. I would like to see a Christian Praise and Worship Night added to Church services so that those who love to spend time in God’s presence praising and worshipping can have this time set aside to do that without feeling that they are burdening the other church goers. If this could be arranged say, once a month I think that would be great. There are some wonderful things that can happen during a special time of praise and worship there people can feel free to spend time in God’s presence either, singing or up at the altar etc.
As far as people wanting to be in the worship team so that they can be superstars (this was mentioned in someone else’s comment) The way around that is to be sure that those who are on the worship team are pillars of the church. They should be known for their prayer life and grounded in the word. How can someone lead a song service if they don’t know their doctrine? Some of the contemporary songs just don’t make it doctrinally wise, which is why a lot of people prefer hymns, but there are many good Christian Praise songs which are sound in doctrine and the worship leaders should be well enough read in their Bibles to know the difference.
Sharron from Christian Praise Blog
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Music is not worship. Calling music “worship” is a church tradition not supported by biblical theology.
That said, I do NOT want 30-40 minutes of music in a service. I believe those who want 30-40 minutes of music likely cannot tolerate – for a variety of resons – a lengthy sermon.
In my experience – not a scientific poll, just an observation – when the percentage of music raises in proportion to the length of a biblical sermon (i.e., when a tradeoff is made) the congregation becomes increasingly shallow. But then, maybe that’s exactly what people are looking for.
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I regularly show up 20 minutes late to church just to miss most of the music.
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I think I’m glad our church holds it to 20+ minutes. The first song is a warm-up to get everyone woke up and involved. Another to actually praise him. Then any “normal” person has to slow down. A time of worship songs to really worship, naturally flowing into a time of prayer. The music is always a blend of contemporary and not so contemporary. (There’s a lot of good hymns that will never go out of style). This may be an “old-fashioned” format, but it works. We all sing LOUD and worship LOUD at our church. After 20 minutes, we’re ready to sit down and pray. And by the way, After reading the above comments, I sense there are a lot of worship leaders out there who couldn’t care less about a large chunk on the congregation. What’s that all about????
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“But seriously, put me in a service with music like Arvo Part’s, and you can go all day as far as I’m concerned.”
Ah, I see — you’re a maximal minimalist!
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53. And I have a high tolerance for anything but rap.
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I personally have come to resent it. In a season of longing for more reverence, symbol, and quiet presence. I believe the “average” evangelical church believes that in order to experience the presence of God we must achieve a state of high emotion, usually generated by singing longer, louder, and with greater and greater enthusiasm. I can experience that at any secular Rock & Roll concert. But to be present to him in stillness, quiet, passing the plate, hearing announcements, and hopefully during the sermon/homily, is what fuels me now.
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I don’ t see why people would be upset with a 30-40 minute worship/singing service. God inhabits the praises of Israel. Psalm 22:3 What about Zephania 3:17 that says that God rejoices over us with singing. What about the fact that the Levites were commissioned to praise God on musical instruments…Do you think they did this for 5 minutes and then gave up? Do you think that the worship in the temple lasted only 1 hour so that people could get home to make their roasts for Sunday dinner? God says to keep the Sabbath and that it is Holy unto Him…We work for 8 hours every day, do we complain about spending time in God’s presence for 30-40 minutes? I really don’t understand how people are complaining about praising God. Maybe I’m missing something here but I think we need more people like David who wished he could spend more and more time in God’s presence. Read Psalm 84.
My 2 cents
Sharron from Christian Praise Blog
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During those long musical worship sets I like to sit down and just focus on God and what’s currently going down between me and Him.
Other times, I get really bored and nearly fall asleep to the acoustic guitar that has been plucking along for the last 20 minutes.
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30 minutes of music and I am so exhausted emotionally and physically that nothing else in the service is going to matter much.
I love the attention span guy. Why do I know you aren’t 50? 🙂
Music is intense. Singing is all out labor. I don’t want to have to bring a water bottle and a towel.
Plus, I am absolutely convinced- and this discussion underlines it- that we have thousands and thousands of people who consider music a sacrament and preaching a boring bother.
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Which denominations still allow clergy who can’t sing to be ordained? Serious question. I think a lot of seminaries require musical training, at least.
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An analogy just occurred to me. Right now, Western Buddhists are probably having the same discussion about seated meditation. How long “should” one meditate for? Some of them aim for about the same length, 30 or 40 minutes, and that is similar to what happens in group meditation sessions that are open to the public. Wouldn’t you rather listen to music? 🙂
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I hope you don’t mind my commenting even though I’m not an evangelical, but this discussion reminds me of an interesting book I read last year, “Musicophilia.” It was essentially a book-length response by Oliver Sacks to scientists such as Steven Pinker who think that humanity’s love of music serves no practical purpose. “Practical” in that context means serving a Darwinian survival/reproduction purpose, which of course is not the subject here. But after reading Sacks’ description of how deeply music is entwined with all sorts of functions of the human mind — memory, work, emotion, social cohesion, etc. — it seemed entirely appropriate that old churches like the Orthodox sing their way through the entire service. You might as well ask, why stop the music halfway through?
The book does point out, though, that in the modern communications era we’re so inundated with music all the time that even people who love it can get sick of it. The way music has been taken over by the recording industry has encouraged the formation of musical niches, so it’s probably harder than ever to find church music that everyone likes. And it also means people aren’t used to making their own music anymore, so, as another commenter said, singing together in church seems “odd.” Me, I haven’t been to church in eight months, and one thing I really miss is the singing. I confess that sometimes I listen to the local CCM station, despite its many irritations, just because it reminds me of it.
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When the preaching that follows the music is utterly inane, then one way to salvage the situation (sort of) is to extend the music part of the service like an all consuming fire, eating up that “man-talk” nobody can stand.
Hey, another round of Chris Tomlin is a lot closer to the Book of Common Prayer than listening to brother Billy Bob. Sure, sometimes the music marathon is just some sort of a rock concert with other motivations, but I think sometimes the older folks go along with it because they’re in the evangelical wilderness too and there is a way to see this as actually taking a step back toward liturgical worship, as odd as that sounds! Just an idea.
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Our services run for an hour and a half, with the pastor’s sermon typically 40 minutes. So why not 30 minutes of praise music? Do we have such short attention spans? I mean, if we like to sing, why not? We also have one or two traditional hymns, usually before the sermon and one in closing.
I will say, however (and I’m not supposed to in this thread) that some of the praise music tries to pack too much “theology” into too little time, causing the melody or the rythm to suffer. Other praise music is just plain drivel: “Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes yes Lord; Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes yes Lord; Yes Lord, yes, Lord, yes yes Lord, amen.”
There. Got that one off my chest.
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It must be a “more is better” kind of approach. I can speak for myself as a former worship leader… I think I was looking for the presence of God, a.k.a. just the right feeling. I believe I associated certain feelings of peace or happiness with God’s presence. Music has the ability to conjure up certain feelings and maybe that’s where that crowd is living. Sure, I was misguided, but I think that’s what I was doing. Maybe evangelicals should “worship smarter, not harder.”
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In my opinion, I think the 30-40 minutes is because those providing such music or those who enjoy that length of time are looking for a “workout”. There’s no time to use up all of one’s energy or run through the whole gamut of emotions in just a few minutes. I don’t mean to pick on contemporary worship style here (as per IM), but I think the 30-40 minute segments, by and large, are associated with contemporary “praise and worship” music. And in that context, I’ve observed many who approach such a “worship” time almost as if they’re working out at a gym—-unless it’s a constant, intense, whole body experience that will last 30-40 minutes and literally tire one out physically and emotionally, it’s not a successful time of praise. I couldn’t disagree more with that approach, but my point here is really just to say that I think many people want the “worship” to go on that long for the “workout” that I’ve described.
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Amen,,,,,,,I like aswell. The more, the better!
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Maybe the rest of the service could be taken up with readings from the Bible? I would also add communion but some evangelical churches might have difficulty doing that every week. Surely there’s more to worship than just sermons and music.
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I tried to skim all the comments to see if this has been said and could not find this point, but if I am being repetitive I apologize.
You ask who wants to sing for 30-40 minutes. In a qualified way, I do.
I want to participate in worship. I want to express myself. Music is not my favorite way to do this. I would rather participate in prayer, and corporate readings, kneeling, etc. However I do love to sing, and more importantly, in the church I attend the only consistent part in which the congregation is able to do anything but sit and listen are during songs, and during communion. So more songs means more participation and fewer songs means less participation so for now I favor more songs and as I am able I will support other types of participation in worship.
In large part I am convinced that this is the origin of this practice. WE instinctively know that people have gathered to do more than listen. However as our liturgy has evaporated we are left doing more and more of less and less.
I am sympathetic with the non-standers. I also get tired of standing quickly. However I have cleverly solved this. I just sit whenever I feel like it.
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30-40+ minutes might be appropriate…perhaps only if the service is over two hours long! And certainly, nobody is insane enough to put all of that in one chunk…right? (cringes)
I’m 24, and my primary job on my ship is to stand on the bridge and run things without sitting down for 3-5 hours straight daily. The older folks complain all the time about how that’s too long to stand up. I don’t really know the gravity (no pun intended) of how that feels physically, but said complainants are people in their late thirties or early forties still physically fit enough to be in the Navy complaining about it. I can’t imagine being 65 and down with joint problems, for example, and having to stand more than 15 minutes. And at least we get to walk around; people in pews don’t.
Okay, so stop standing up. Forty minutes is still too long of a set for my taste, but at that point it becomes cultural rather than physical. Still, if that culture, tradition, or individual church says worship = music and no other form, the sets become large.
Even without standing up for way too long or having an historical liturgy, at what point are we making the church inaccessible for people in an effort to grow the number of members?
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In order to gain a bit of perspective, in the Amish church the songs are incredibly long; it is not uncommon for a single song to last 15-20 minutes. And they would sing about 3 of these whoppers all before the sermons, and finish up with a few more.
Now that is a long song service, and yet many find the singing meaningful and worshipful.
They would find 30 minutes unbearably short; it would hinder their worship.
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Also wanted to add that “song” in my description above could be an old hymn, a contemporary worship song, or simething from the sixties Jesus movement. We rarely repeat anything more than once, i. e. no endless repetition.
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Kenny Johnson commenting above could probably sympathize with the brother I observed at the first Bible Church I attended (in College station, TX, in 1984): held his hymnal upside down and just mouthed along without making a sound 🙂
At the International Baptist Church of Vienna, Austria, with a congregation made up of about 35% each Philipinos and Africans, with a liberal dose of other non-Westerners and less than 10% Europeans/Americans, we do not do one continuous music set. We usually have a song as a call to worship, Welome by the pastor or a church council member, a set of two or three songs, announcements and pastoral prayer, sometimes a Scripture reading. another set of two or three songs, the collection often with some music or another song, the sermon followed by a song of response, closing words and prayer, and then our “fellowship song” which is just the chorus “Love in any language”. It probably comes to 20-30 minutes all together, but it is broken up, and there is coordination between the preacher (usually the pastor) and the worship team (of which we have three, one mostly African, one European/American, one young people of every color and origin).
I find it fairly balanced, although it clearly reflects the role that music plays in the cultures our congregation is made up from.
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I do. I like talking to God, I like music, and I like even more talking to God through music. Just like some people like to spend a whole day praying in their room with their eyes closed, I love singing to God. But that’s personal preference. I agree with people that say worship leaders think they need to have an extended time of worship to feel that something spiritual happening. Also, music makes people respond emotionally, and for some reason they think that kind of manifestation should happen at church.
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I wouldn’t expect you to understand if you didn’t grow up Pentecostal. If the music is just that to you (‘music’), a service – either to you or even to God, then 15 minutes would be plenty, eh? But for the growing Pentecostal/charismatic phenomenon, now encompassing 1 out of 2 Christians across the globe by some estimates, music is a means to an altered state of consciousness, a palpable merger between heaven & earth. You sing and dance your way to whole-body ecstasy, and the rest of the service (preaching or whatever) is mere afterglow.
Now here’s what I don’t get, after having grown up in that scene during my late childhood and teen years (where musical worship could last hours), and then visiting the ‘seeker sensitive’s scene: I don’t get why anyone would want to sing for even 30 or 40 minutes on that lower level of intensity and expectation. It seems to me that seeker-sensitive, adult contemporary, and megachurches (and many Baptist-run college ministries) wished to duplicate the success of the Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Third Wave explosions by bringing guitars and keyboards into worship; it ain’t happenin’. Unless the worship leader(s) and congregation are united in their belief that what happens in the musical portion of the gathering is the most important element, and that God Himself could come bursting out of the back doors in procession up to the front, in full Old Testament glory, you’re not going to get the same effect that P&Cs get – not by simply adding some instruments and a backbeat in your singing.
I’m not placing a value judgment on any of this, by the way. These days, I prefer more contemplative worship. I’m just saying: When you’re into tamborine-bouncing, shouting, dancing, glossalalia-speakin’ worship services, you never want them to end. Unless you happen to get burned out. Ah, where can a sustainable faith be found..?
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only 30-40 minutes? That’s what it is now in the vineyard church here. I remember being a kind ging to the pentecostel church. If you were lucky then it was roughly an hour for music (and communion), and an hour for the sermon, if that one wasn’t even longer…;
So 30-40 minutes is a relief for me from what I know from my pentecostel days…
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I do. 30 years old, female, musician, married. Love music, and singing is one of the primary ways that I connect with God. Why? God wired me that way. There is a segment of the population who is wired that way. I could worship for hours. I used to spend 2 hrs/day privately worshipping God through song, both from music and improvisational singing of prayers, or singing scripture back to God, making up a melody as I went along. I also tend to remember more of the truth that I learn through song then the things that are simply spoken.
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Okay, yeah, Catholics keep out, but again I can’t resist passing this along, particularly in light of the discussion about manipulating emotions through the ‘worship set’ music.
From the Shrine of the Holy Whapping, why we should all be glad Verdi only wrote one Requiem:
“Thinking about the Verdi Requiem got me thinking: What if Verdi had written a Mass? I’m assuming it would have the following plot:
The Priest is a hunchback who mentors the subdeacon, a seminarian, with a shady past and unknown origins. We discover all this by the Kyrie. The graduale is the hit chant “La Nonna Immobile” [in honor of a particularly ferociously stolid Italian churchlady, no doubt. –MGA] By the time we get to the Credo we learn that the subdeacon is actually the schola director in disguise, as the two happen to be identical twins. Confusion ensues, but is merrily resolved. At the Sanctus we discover that the priest and the deacon were switched at ordination (Two hunchbacks–Take that, Rigoletto!), and a fight breaks out at the first step (see Fortescue, p. 47 for the staging of said fight). By the Agnus Dei the deacon has killed the priest (thurible fight!), and repeats the prayer of consecration to make the Mass valid. While he says the prayers, the subdeacon and schola director join in in perfect counterpoint. The people receive communion and the Mass concludes with “Ah! Ah! La Benedictio-oh-ne!” The sacred ministers recess.
And it’s all staged by Zeffirelli, with costumes by Wippel. Like the Mass will be in heaven.”
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Or Taizé. Music services or semi-concerts of Taizé music are often put on in Irish churches, particularly during Advent, and somehow the simplicity of the music transcends repetition and becomes worshipful.
Again, as a Catholic, I have (as Michael observed) no opinion on this, but I merely pass on a link (courtesy of the Crescat) about worship:
So.. that’s what you guys do on Sundays, huh? 😉
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I’ve never been a big fan of the music portion of Sunday service. I’m still not. I’d probably be happy with cutting it altogether. 🙂
With that said, I like the way my current church does music. Usually we do 1-2 songs, then announcements and sermon. Then music during communion at the end.
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I have not read all the comments so forgive me if this has been mentioned. I think 30-40 minutes of singing is ridiculous. I attend a church with many elderly seniors and you can tell they are barely making it through but because of their upbringing they do not want to sit down while others are standing. We have about 25 minutes of continual singing standing up!
But at least we sing some of the old majestic doctrinally deep hymns which I love.
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I think time is a matter of perception. If you are singing songs, hymns, choruses that you enjoy the time will go quickly, otherwise it can drag.
The direct predecessor of the Worship Leader is the Song Leader. Song Leaders usually developed in larger churches or in churches where the Pastor couldn’t sing to save his life. The major difference that I see between the two is that a Worship Leader doesn’t necessarily have the skill of leading the congregation in singing. That is a skill that goes way beyond basic performance.
To me, when done properly, singing is one of the most worshipful acts that can happen during a service. It is one of the few acts of worship that a congregation performs together.
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Since I don’t always live in the “God reality” like some must. My theology and my experience do not always coincide.
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I think we borrowed it from the club/concert scene. Some of the first churches that put together a very talented band and entertaining singers with some slick graphics started growing very quickly and every pastor in the evangelical world started looking for how they could repeat that in their own church. It gets reinforced when our participants began to get confused as to what is an interaction with God and what was a emotional ballad. The “staff” gets judged based on how everyone “felt” throughout the service. If you really rock the house one morning and everyone comes up afterward and tells you how much the “felt God’s presence”, guess what you’ll do next week?
I think a lot of evangelicals are afraid of being too “formal” or “boring”, or becoming “ritualistic”. The pendulum swings the opposite way…
Its also easy. Give the music guy half the service, give the pastor the other half. 30 minutes of music, 30 minutes of preaching, a 10 minute invitation and you’re done. Very little planning needed. Sometimes I think we do it in self defense for fear that we would have a 50 minute sermon if the music was only 10 – and we ALL know that no one wants that. (except maybe the preacher) 😉
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I find it noteworthy how it seems that many people are defining worship in strictly musical terms.
Even though we know they had major choirs and stuff, In the OT, worship is primarily described in therms of formal sacrifice. Then we have passages like Romans 12:1 which says “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” (emphasis mine).
Granted, even in the NT, worship has a musical element. But if you do a search for “worship” music is not the primary context in the vast majority of NT passages.
Where’d this almost exclusive equation of music and worship come from? My suspicion is that it was in the marketing department of CCM distribution companies. But that might be just a bit cynical.
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the Vineyard I go to does about 25 minutes (40 seems excessive to my personal preference) in a variety of styles, then one song at the end. Out of a 90-minute service, that seems a reasonable proportion of music, equivalent to 20 minutes out of a traditional 60-minute service. Hard to deny the value that God seems to put on worship in Scrupture.
And yes, we evangelcials sometimes sing songs over and over, but at least we don’t regularly skip the 2nd and 4th verses!
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Oh, they should. Worship shouldn’t be a concert nor should it be a lecture. Worship should be a corporate expression of God’s people that includes both praise and hearing from his word. In both extremes, the congregation is merely an audience. Participation in worship needs to be active, not passive. And while there can be parts of the service where we just listen, if a worship service is something that I could just as easily watch on TV or listen to on the radio, I think something’s seriously missing.
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I think, in part, these musical worship times are appealing as a contrast to individualism and propositionalism in the church. In the corporate act of musical worship, we experience that rare sense of a unity that surpasses the sum total of its parts, with harmonies reflect the beauty of diversity in unity. That musical worship uses poetry and music in ways that engage truth in was other than just propositions (i.e. emotionally engaging) is also appealing for many. This isn’t a defense of long musical worship sessions, just some patterns I have observed.
Peace,
Jamie
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As far as being deliberate goes, this wasn’t just a problem I had with the way the music went. At other times in those same circles, it would be highly liturgical as the mood of the leadership changed. However, since it wasn’t primarily a liturgical church, the exact service from the prayer book used wasn’t the guide. Rather, the leadership would pick-and-choose certain prayers. While that’s not a problem in of itself, the basis for what prayers would be chosen was totally arbitrary. The criteria was whether the leadership “liked” a certain prayer.
By contrast, Webber’s writings Worship is a Verb and Blended Worship advocated planning the entire service with specific intent. The parts of the service (music, prayers, liturgy, sermon, etc) are a cohesive unit that go through a worship progression. E.g. Entering into God’s Presense -> Hearing from God’s Word -> Responding to God’s Word -> Dismissal to Love and Serve God in the World. In putting that into practice, I’ve found that worship is much deeper than before. I’m not taken on an emotional/spiritual roller coaster that is emotionally and spiritually fatiguing and numbing.
The issue isn’t music vs. liturgy. It’s not even long music vs. short music. The issue for me is intent and direction. Or rather having intent and direction vs. sheer arbitrariness when in corporate worship.
I’d say that the Psalms are deliberate. They run the gambit of human experience. Many have specific musical and liturgical directions. And while David’s mostly-naked dancing was totally spontaneous, that wasn’t a corporate worship service. That was a parade/party.
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Modern worship songs are, for the most part, “designed” to create an emotional response. And the constant romantic references and mix-up of the roles in the Trinity (i.e.ascribing everything to Jesus) adds to that intent. Which is funny, because most people, especially young people, in the congregation are supposedly ADD and would lose attention after that 5th repetition.
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The reason I use the word “manipulation” is that within the circles I was in at the time, there was an equation of a certain emotional state with worship. If you didn’t feel a certain way, if the songs didn’t do a certain thing, it wasn’t really worship. So, the direction of the “spontaneous” parts of the music always went the same way to the extent that the pastor once asked if we could practice the “spontaneous” music. Since worship was equated with a particular emotional state as prompted by particular music, the music was the means to manipulate people’s emotions to get to that state. Was it insideous? No. The intent of the pastor and band leaders was good. But it was based on wrong assumptions about what worship is. No one ever thought about the theological problems of what the implied message about God is from that perspective on worship. I.e. that our emotions are the basis for how we relate to God. If I didn’t feel right, God didn’t meet me. God’s presence or lack thereof was based on music.
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I went to conference recently which was full of people under thirty. On the speakers asked them to sing the theme song for a TV show which was out of production before any of them were born. The crowd sang happily, recalling every word of the silly song. It took them back to a time and feeling long past. I can recall the words to hymns that we have not sung in decades. Recalling the words gives me access to the content of the hymn and to the feelings of the experience.
Too much preaching does not pas the Tuesday test ( do you have any idea of what he talked about by Tuesday).
We may trivialize the singing of our services or make it miserable. We should not overlook its power to speak to our hearts and to remain in our memory.
Forty minutes of singing is a lot to pass the “so what” test. Some will, many won’t.
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This is consistent with the Baptist churches I grew up in. The E. Free church I now attend has about 25 minutes of music plus a song at the end. I like the “more than two songs” part of the service, because it takes longer than that to pull my mind away from all the other concerns of life, and bring it to the place where my heart is. Hope that makes sense.
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Danielle, you just described why many churches have the pulpit/lectern off-center.
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The second point cannot be repeated often enough! After several experiences, I am convinced that it is a huge mistake to place a praise and worship band directly in front of an audience so that the singing congregation is looking directly at the band. Often the role of the lead vocalist (or vocalists), on top of their visiblity at “center stage”, causes serious problems. Without intending to, the band begins to perform and the congregation begins to pay attention to their public demonstration of vocal talent and heartfelt spirituality. Everyone means well, but the dynamic is troubling.
Simply hiding the band seems to help immensely.
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bob,
Yes. Some more easily see/experience God in the teaching of God’s word; others in the Eucharist; others “in the praises of his people.” All are legit, but not equally appreciated by people. C’est la vie.
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John, tell me how these exact arguments wouldn’t also limit the preaching time (in fact, how do they not apply even more strongly).
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I originally came from a setting that opened the service with two songs, and then I went away to school where I experienced approx. 30 minutes of worship that opened the service which was interspersed with singing and readings (Scriptures, poems, written prayers).
In thinking about the question, I found that I like the 30 minutes because:
1) The music itself. It comprises of tastefully picked, old hymns and contemporary (not to be confused with CCM) choruses, hymns, and songs that are sung without instruments–a cappella. Everyone participates in singing their part, whether it be soprano, alto, tenor, or bass. And we have good singers. The sound is amazing. The richness, the deep texture.
2) The words in the songs, choruses, and hymns are powerful expressions of theology and worship. Some are a sermon set to music; others are emotions set to music. Still others are expressions of how we should think about God. The music helps give meaning to the words; the words mean more when there is good music that is sung well.
3) I get a strong sense of community when I sing in church; it reminds me that I cannot do church alone. It helps me love my brothers and sisters.
Once I leave school and go back home, I will miss those 30 minutes a lot.
It is time to go sing.
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To make the point more strongly and succinctly, my own experience has been to see much more manipulation coming from behind a pulpit than from the singing set. I don’t think the length of the sermon has anything to do with that.
Also, for every part of the service, engagement (whether of our emotions or intellects or bodies, etc.) is not the same as manipulation.
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Of course 60-year olds (or close like me) get into it. We were growing up with the music of the 60’s! Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the 30-40 minutes time of worship is the same length as a vinyl album.
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From my experience with those who really like long music sets, it is usually, as has been mentioned above, because this is a more “worshipful” time than others in the service. I used to lead youth events and retreats, and frequently it was the “worship” (read: singing) that was voted the highlight.
I think this is because our culture is more used to expression than reflection. We can talk for hours, but have real difficulty listening for more than 10 minutes. Thus, when it comes to a church service, we’re more at home expressing our love for God than at listening to Him and reflecting on our lives.
Furthermore, we like being busy and active. Readings and homilies ask us to do very little at the moment. We are to sit, listen, and meditate. These are just not things we are used to. Depending on the church, the music can require us to sing, shout, cry, dance, lift hands, or even jump. Such “busyness” demands our participation in a way that sermons don’t. I think this has a lot of appeal with people.
It is not bad that we enjoy praising God and participating. It’s actually very, very good. However, I’d argue that we’ve lost something that we should regain. It is possible to participate in readings, creeds, and sermons, but it is a participation that is different from much of everything else we do. It requires work on our parts, but I think it’s worth it.
As an afterthought, we also don’t like silence, and the music part of the service is the loudest. Thus, even though prayers are also expressions of our hearts, they are quiet and can be boring at times. Frequently the things we consider most exciting (parties, concerts, sports, etc.) are very loud. It only makes sense that we would expect this from exciting worship.
Perhaps I’ve put words in someone else’s mouth. If so, I hope you’ll correct me. But from my experience with working with people (especially youth), these seem to be some of the main motives. I have not met the manipulative worship leaders, only those who genuinely want to reach people, and they tend to think that given our culture, this works best.
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John you said:
The first is alienation of those who don’t care for the style or for a particular song, or for those who are tone-deaf or don’t sing well.
I think this can be argued with anything in the service. If prayers are more than 2 minutes, it alienates those with short attention spans. Likewise the sermon. Etc. Clearly a balance of some sort must be struck. Do you think that depends on each individual congregation?
I like your second point a lot.
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This may not be on topic, so iMonk, let me know if this is out of bounds.
Danielle, do you think this is due to lack of preparation beforehand (either before church or even during the week)? Do you think this would be an issue if we were better at “getting the juices flowing” at home?
BJ
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In my view (I’m a contemporary and traditional worship leader at an ACNA church), there are 2 real dangers of 30-40 minute sets of worship songs. The first is alienation of those who don’t care for the style or for a particular song, or for those who are tone-deaf or don’t sing well. Music is not the be-all and end-all of worship.
Related to that is that the band can start to receive “rock star”-like treatment. My friend goes to a mega-church and says that there is a multitude of auditions every week for people to join the band. From my own experience, I think this points towards many people feeling like they want to be up-front to be at the center of what is going on, or perhaps they feel that they need to be in the band to properly participate in the service.
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To highlight what others have said here, singing worship for that period of time is neither inherently good or bad. I’d say the same of preaching for that period. But at least singing is the one part of the evangelical service in which the whole congregation participates. And the words in songs have as good a chance of being theologically edifying as the sermon, and a much greater chance of being remembered and applied through life. Like it or no, that’s the truth. In that way alone, the songs are often of greater importance than the sermon.
Also, as a practical matter my own church has a habit of telling people to stand, kneel, or even just listen as we worship through singing. As others mentioned, we mix in choruses and hymns and silence. All that helps cut against a culture of manipulation and also allows for more honest participation. Again, though, please folks lets not talk about emotional (or intellectual or any other kind of) manipulation as if it’s easier or more common from behind a guitar than a pulpit (or an organ, or an altar, etc.) If you want to eliminate manipulation in all its forms, just get people out of the service; stop the preaching and the singing and the corporate prayer. But if the goal is worship, the enemy is not a 30 or 40 singing block of time, whether for sermons or singing.
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Kat,
I have a perfect example of that. When “Cat’s in the Cradle” first came out in the 70’s, I commented to my roommate about it being a sad song. She, the music major, had NEVER listened to the words, only the music and rhythm.
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I’ve always considered the reason to be rooted in the purpose of the meeting. Liturgical folks tend to emphasize communion, Word folks tend to emphasize teaching, Charismatic folks tend to emphasize singing. It is a question, IMHO, of where you expect God to “show up”. Maybe the broad use of this long singing time is an attempt to adopt the Charismatic form, while, perhaps, not fully adopting the reason. Don’t know.
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Based on the language problem alone, I think heaven is going to have to go with Taize-style chant.
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Just as sad songs make us drink more, spiritual songs make us feel religious…?
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The differences?
(1) It’s the same thing every week, for the most part. (No numbered hymns to select from.)
(2) Two words: a capella. (There are probably exceptions, but anyway, it’s not supposed to matter whether the liturgy is spoken or sung.)
(3) Each portion of the liturgy has some identifiable purpose (with a fancy Greek name), which does not really vary from week to week except as specified by the church calendar. Really, the Orthodox produce no end of theology about this.
(4) The sheer degree of biblical language in the liturgy (e.g. phrases from different verses set together in a new way) sets it apart from most modern music.
(5) The language issue. Most Orthodox churches in the USA are multilingual, which makes a big difference in terms of culturally situating the congregation.
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“I believe 30+ min. of actual music that is truly focused on God is needful to help us transition more into God’s presence”
Psalm 139 says that we are always in God’s presence. Since when do we have to “transition” into it?
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It’s a good question. I don’t mind lot’s of music occasionally, but I don’t miss it if it isn’t there. I don’t think a long set of music is intrinsically wrong, however.
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I think sometimes we respond to rhythm and melody even when we’re not “in tune” with the lyrics–some of Frank Turner’s stuff comes to mind. It’s a different level of manipulation when the body responds to music than when the intellect responds to speech.
30-40 minutes of praise music appeals to the body a lot more than a long sermon, no matter how stirring it might be.
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The first time I walked into an evangelical service that started with 30 minutes of singing, I wondered if it was done so that people could come in late without disturbing anything.
My personal preference is for a liturgical service, but I am part of an evangelical church. I will say that our worship leader is first-rate. I have nothing but high praise for him on all counts. It can be done well.
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I agree that all these tactics are manipulative in a certain sense. As Charles Finney pointed out, you can pretty much plan a revival and often get one. And just because something has a natural cause, does not mean that something important is not occuring. Most of what we think of as God reaching in from outside the natural order is not in fact divorced from the facts of the world or ourselves. If we think otherwise we’re tricking ourselves. We’re largely physical beings in physical, historical reality. I’m not even sure we can experience God without the mediation of these things.
But this also means we shouldn’t treat what is obviously a rational formula as a mystery or a magic ticket. I wonder if we just need a lot more transparency — start talking about our favorite methods as methods that promote different kinds of experiences and try striking a balance between the possible approaches? I wonder what would happen if people had 20 minutes of quiet preparation of contemplation as well as 20-40 minutes of rousing music?
Just musing.
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Music plays an important role in joining many generations. Children learn through song and can participate with their families through the music portion of a worship service. Music should match the other elements of the worship service and blend the service together; all elements teaching the same concept and message of the day. In a world of ADD and ADHD, music breaks the monotony and offers a variety of styles to meet the learning styles of different age groups.
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While I’m not supposed to be in this conversation, being Catholic you know.
I a.m in complete agreement about Arvo Part
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By the way, you’ll notice I sidestepped completely the discussions above about HOW worship service is good, bad and every risk in between. That to me is down stream of the question that was asked. Preference for style is not something I’ll touch quickly. And admittedly, I have no flipping clue how “heaven’s band” is going to sound!! Much less the way “Church Bands” should execute a service (does anyone else see a really funny joke there…execute a service…I can’t get over it!)
It’ll probably be like the soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire. Yeah I said it.
OKAY Last thought and I’ve shot my wad:
I have always thought (I mean always) it strange that we sing at church. Its even a little unusual to belt out the national anthem at a game anymore. Even when I was a kid I thought: Why is this the only place we do this? Not that I wanted to do it elsewhere. In fact I couldn’t believe anyone was actually singing at church. I saw people who don’t ever say “Jesus” or talk religious, singing songs. I’ve never gotten over how odd this seems to me. Don’t read into this more than I wrote. I’m just saying it has always seemed remarkable.
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I was bugged by the large number of sniping responses so I thought I’d have a go in responding!
We have a time of about 30-40 minutes of singing mixed with extemporaneous prayers, bible readings and other such “contributions” after the sermon (in this sense of seeking to desire and practice the contribution of spiritual gifts in public worship we could be said to be charismatic).
Like Jared I suppose that the simplest thing to say would be that I too like it. As for the why…
We sing both a blend of contemporary worship ‘choruses’ and hymns as a combination of the best of the old and the fresh setting of the new. We’re connected to the line of worshippers through the centuries but not without anything to say about the God of the Bible ourselves through new songs. Having that length of time means that our ‘diet’ of expression can be widened both with songs that people feel comfortable with and those that stretch us and in so doing expand our vocabulary with which to worship God.
It gives time to see from different angles the truth of what we’re responding to from God’s word and to trust in Christ. In repeating verses and choruses I find it is a means of waking up my heart to the truth of what I am singing. Sometimes it is not until I have sung a refrain for the third of forth time that I go, ‘woe, (or wow), that is actually true and it means this and corrects my heart in this way’. This is especially true when it was something that was said in the sermon and it has taken time in singing these things that the penny drops.
That’s at least my first few thoughts
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I feel like the answer is obvious. I’m not trying to put down the question or be disrespectful. I’m ONLY stating the way I feel about it. All I’m trying to say is, I’ve been thinking about it and as the saying goes, “nothing is harder to describe than the obvious.”
But here goes.
(by the way, I suck at all things tone, music or singing…I just like them…aaa-lot.)
Anytime any discussion of music comes up I remember what a friend told me once: In all the Bible there is not one explicit mention of angels nor any other making music or singing…that privilege seems to be reserved for a Father who sings over us and His children who get to create something actually special in creation. Doesn’t that blow your mind?
This might seem like a tangent, but its not. Lets talk about “secular music” you know “the good stuff” Forget worship for a second. When you hear non-believing musicians speak of music, the only thing that seems to rival it in grandeur is life itself or love itself. Its like that scene in Shawshank Redemption: music can be revealed to be a thing of the highest kind of wonder. Do you agree?
Get rid of the “Christian vs Non” music discussion or the “worship music” thing for a second. Do you see the wonder in music? Why don’t we see the same in a “music service” at church? Well without being too hard on churches, I think its tough to get to that level in any environment without deliberate intentions.
Okay, stay with me. Albums are how long? 45-50 minutes? Don’t get ahead of me. I’m not going to say “then why can we sing about Jesus that long?” But heres one thing: do you ever listen to an album and “do” nothing else? I do. If you can do this and begin to see “whats going on” in an album and have the very music it self lift your spirits, then I submit the “worship service” of 50 minutes of song can be appreciated.
Way out on a branch: If singing Christ-songs or “praise and worship” is too much a function of trying to sing, then it would be a wearisome thing. But if you do it with your wonder muscle, with your ears, then you can drink far longer than 45 minutes of praising Jesus and the preacher won’t be missed! I know, but what if theres not enough to “listen” to. I’m admittedly a huge fan of the hymns coming back in with more contemporary thoughtful melodies ect. Its a bummer when you get either good lyrics OR a good sound.
Seriously, I’d like to return to one thought: What if we get to heaven and we find out there is no music. They really are SAYING “holy, holy, holy”. Won’t you’re heart beat out of your chest when you realize the only singing is from Gods own voice? Won’t you really be lost in wonder when you see that you understand that song and can sing the words? I SERIOUSLY wonder what part music will play in Eternal Pursuit of God. I SERIOUSLY wonder what song we will ALL SING TOGETHER FIRST?!! Seriously, I truly believe that God alone OWNS the truth in Bob Marley’s beliefs about music, etc. How often has the dream of unity in the world been kindled? How often has music been the thing we think can actually do it?
What if it really will be the first thing we ALL (no jew, no greek, no man, no woman, no…) do? What song will be sung? Doesn’t that just get you excited and humbled that yes, all this blogging, all this discussion, all this work: SOMEDAY WE WILL BE ONE!!
I think it really is that awesome, and I really think its worth rehearsing for!
I know it was ambitious, but there you go… Take it or leave it.
And if I struck out above…heres a bunt:
I’ll take a 50 minute song set almost any day. I don’t get it often, so maybe thats why. Also, here’s another thought, that to me, seems related: Who would want a 45-50 minute prayer service…in “big church”? I’m not going for badges or anything, but I’d like that too. I’d get to listen to the heart of the body for 45-50 minutes. At least that’s the hope.
What do YOU think? Love this place. Keep it up IMonk and all you Waking people.
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Deliberate. Hmmm. I just don’t see it. That doesn’t sound like David’s worship. It doesn’t sound like the Psalms. It sound like “17 habits to an Effective Worship Experience”TM.
I have long wondered why young people enjoy music more than adults. It is not puberty, because college students usually get it the most. It is something we lose. And it is our loss.
I’m not faulting, necessarily, what you chose to do. But why does that have to reduce my enjoyment of a long worship set into “my emotions are manipulated.”
Charge me guilty. I go on long hikes and God manipulates my emotions the whole time.
The charge of manipulation has to be based on more than your experience. It implies either a level of intent and/or a lack of content and thus a push for inauthentic emotion. But even then, how are you so sure that you were being manipulated and that it wasn’t the weakness of your own heart? I don’t ask that flippantly, nor accusing you. But I think it is a fair question.
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I am so thankful for the redeeming love of God that I want to sing much more than 45 minutes! We gather and do more than sing, we also preach and pray. But I think when God has saved you from your enemies at the Red Sea you want to sing and say “The Lord is my strength and my song.” Lots of happy singing of heartfelt truth is an appropriate response to the gospel. “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great redeemer’s praise!”
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I remember when I liked the music like that. I was in middle school, hadn’t really fell in love with playing music yet, and had spent all my life before that in Episcopal or Catholic services. With the big church all singing and stuff, I really got into it and was brought along with the rest of the congregation. But when we’d try that in our youth groups… well, it never seemed to work as well.
As I got older, I actually played in the worship band. Again it was a lot of fun, until the day I realized that some of our worship leaders were using the music to emotionally manipulate us in the name of worship. I began to get cynical then. After reading some of Robert Webber’s stuff I realized my problems weren’t with the music, but with unfocused, unstructured, un-deliberate services.
When we designed our order of service at our little fellowship, we very very deliberate in our use of liturgy, scripture, and song. As far as the music goes, it’s split up into two three-song sets (about 8-10 minutes each). One set follows our responsorial psalm and serves as the lively transition point from the “Entering into God’s Presence” section of the service to the “Ministry of the Word” section. The second set follows the sermon and serves as the reflective transition from “Ministry of the Word” into “Responding to God’s Word.”
Even though some of our music leaders like to drag out that second set at times, I’ve found that breaking the music into two sets with two different foci really helps make it work better than some of what we’d experienced in other traditions.
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I’ll answer your question:
Because I like it.
Which is why everyone who griped and gave fancy historical reasons why they don’t like it, approve of their pastor’s 45 minutes sermons. Because they like big fancy sermons.
Back to the question:
I like singing. I like instruments making melodic noise. I enjoy expressing all sorts of messages to God through song. I like songs with lots of words and songs with only a few. They can be quiet or loud.
A local black church from SanBernardino joined some of our worship team members for a Friday night concert. 30 minutes was not enough. It was praise for the Lord, plain and simple. Long and loud and happy. From the inside-out. Not some fancy theology wrapped up in Pharisaical trappings. Love for God spilling out and being expressed. Like David dancing on a rooftop. Try selling David on 3 songs in 12 minutes. I can’t see it. He’s just getting warmed up.
I love going to Christian rock summer festivals and rocking for Jesus. The only lame part is when they shoe-horn some dang sermon in right before the best act. Let the music speak for itself. Most of the artists share the heart of the gospel with the audience anyway. I don’t need some preacher getting in the way of the next act.
Go ahead. Give me all your complicated reasons why this doesn’t work. Why my theology is messed up.
I say rejoice. Rejoice always. Rejoice loudly and with emotion and with some happiness.
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While I understand what you’re saying about manipulation, I think we’re missing something by simply writing off long worship or planned worship sets off as being manipulative. You could take the same argument you’re making and apply it to the Gospels, the epistles (especially Pauline epistles), and pretty much any well delivered sermon. If it’s ok for the Gospel writers to take the events of Jesus’ life and piece them together to make a statement (manipulation of the facts), if it’s ok for Paul to use every rhetorical tool in the box to convince and “manipulate” his readers, and if it’s ok for preachers to raise and lower their voices and use said rhetorical tools, why is it that music is kicked out and labeled manipulative? What would our church services look like if they were rid of such manipualtion? Is liturgy not a form of this type of manipulation (albeit more subtle but then again more dangerous in it’s subtlety)? Just throwing something out there to think about.
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I have enjoyed long sets of music in worship and I have thought that I’d rather be having my wisdom teeth yanked than hear one more verse. I think there is nothing wrong with long music sets, but they shouldn’t ever be mandatory nor formulaic. If the Spirit is moving I see no reason to cut music short just like I wouldn’t say that a sermon has to be so long or be finished within 30 minutes. I will not even address the fact that our North American ¨services” must always fit in the 60-90 min. time slot (with very rare exceptions).
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The church we are attending (an Evangelical Free Church) has two songs at the beginning, one after the offering, and one at the end. There is often a connection or theme consistent with the message. It is very a refreshing change from what I have experienced in some other churches.
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Bingo. Now the tough question: How to explain this to a church where people are somehow blatantly missing it…
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I also attend a Vineyard church in San Diego and we have a 35 minute worship set.
In fact, I would say that I first felt the touch of the Holy Spirit during a similar worship set at UCSD’s Intervarsity fellowship.
I enjoy singing and dancing to music. We have good songs and a very talented and gifted worship team. You could argue that it’s about performance and such, but the worship leaders are humble and it seems to me that it really is about praising God.
Likewise, while you could say that it’s emotionally manipulative, and songs can have a profound emotional impact, God’s emotional impact is much bigger and more profound. My emotional response to God isn’t the same as my emotional response to a really good song. If a song makes me cry, I cry because of the song. If God makes me cry, I cry because I realize how great my need for God is and how empty my life is without him.
Playing Devil’s advocate here, what if the song “tricked me” into realizing my desperate need for God? Does that mean that I don’t really need God? It’s not like I stopped needing God when the song stopped playing. I think “manipulative” is the wrong word to use here. It might be better to say that the worship music convinced me of what was true.
I’m seeing a lot of cynicism in this thread directed at longer musical worship, especially of the “contemporary” variety. I’m guessing a lot of people had some bad experience with that. I’m sorry it doesn’t work for you. I definitely agree that there are other ways to worship and if the music thing isn’t doing it, then the church definitely should branch out and try something different.
That being said, a 35 minute continuous set of musical worship works great at my home church.
Also, those angels around the throne have the best job in all of creation.
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True. I’ve had a number of friends explain to me that they like long, uninterrupted chains of praise chorus music because it takes about a half hour for them “to get the juice flowing,” to “feel the Holy Spirit,” etc.
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I don’t mind 40 minutes of singing, if:
(1) It is properly balanced by the sermon, liturgy (if applicable), and contemplation;
(2) The music is not overly repetitive, builds upon a common theme, etc. That is to say, the music should be ‘doing’ something to justify the time spent on it.
Forty minutes would be very long in an hour-long Roman Catholic or mainline Protestant service, but it seems alright in the heavyweight services that occur in some other traditions. My church home as a teenager was an E. Free Church (but Southern Baptist in history and in mentality) whose service lasted 2 hours. In that context, 1/2 hour of music seemed appropriate.
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Yes you did.
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We have the same experience in our congregation. I observe that many just check out until the “concert” is over. And, many do choose to arrive late not really minding that they have missed much of the music portion of the service. This is sad, but I understand.
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iMonk,
my husband and I were part of one of the original Vineyard churches in LA in the ’80s when John Wimber was still the driving force. It was my experience that the Vineyard took what Calvary Chapel had developed- simple songs that people could sing without handouts or a projector- and stepped it up a notch or three.
The point was to take the time to settle in to a whole-person experience that sought to bring the head and heart into better balance as one approached God in worship. There was not as much repetition as nowadays, and no “special effects”. The worship leader was viewed as the lead worshiper, who strove to be transparent. The attitude of the band was the utmost seriousness about a sort of priestly function; being a worship leader/band member required character and commitment equal to that of a pastor, along with musical competence. Most of the songs were well written as songs- perhaps not always as theology, but it wasn’t about singing theology to God or to one another. Mike K. above expressed part of it. In progressively open one’s whole being to God in love, the worship time was a journey from celebration to adoration/visitation (the term Wimber used was “God showed up”- but it wasn’t, at its core, about the signs and wonders stuff), using the music as the vehicle. We usually did about 35 minutes’ worth of music consisting of 6-8 songs, with much thought and prayer given to crafting the time with lyrical continuity from one song to the next.
Many of the Vineyard songs in the ’80s and ’90s had lyrics expressing deep love for God the Father; the “Jesus as my boyfriend” songs came later. My theory about the emphasis on the Father is that we Baby Boomers, who were the core demographic of the Vineyard at that time, were the first generation to name the pain and recognize the loss that comes with physically absent or emotionally distant fathers. Finding God as a tenderhearted father to whom we could say “I love you” was what so many of us needed for healing.
Hope that helps.
Dana
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I find that a longer time of singing can be very prayerful and meditative, in a way that a shorter period is not. I think the longer singing makes people feel more connected to God. So it makes sense to me that people would make this a major portion of a service.
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Love any length of music. God is a musical spirit and has made me so as well. He’s so interested in our being “musical” that he asks us to even speak to one another that way as part of the way we’re to walk with Him and one another. I much prefer my worship, prayer, meditation, declaration and conversation with the Father be immersed in the flowing sounds of a musical environment. (not ruling out the time & place for silence & speaking.). I find little need to rate or evaluate the type/style of the music team as their role is to lead me toward God & mine is to worship…
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you nailed it.
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I think the 30-40 minutes of singing started as a reaction. I think it was a reaction to the perceived or real deadness and formality of liturgical worship. As someone who grew up in a quasi liturgical mainline church, I was imediately impressed with the longer “worship set” because it seemed like worshipers were “singing from the heart.” This was not something that occurred in my mainline church.
But over the years I have become less of a fan. I honestly believe that the “worship set” is 30-40 minutes long because it takes that long to run the gamit of emotions – upbeat “highs” to reflective “lows.” I suppose I didn’t know it at the time, but my foray into the longer worship set was about manipulating the emotions.
Years later I stumbled across a book that I first embraced, but now would be troubled by. It was a book for “worship leaders” that revealed the strategy for this type of “worship set.” I still have the book. There are a couple of diagrams that chart out how to craft a longer worship set based upon where you would like the emotions to be felt. You could start slow and end upbeat or vice versa. You could even start slow, go fast, and end slow – all for different emotions. If this is not manipulation I don’t know what it is.
So all this to say, I believe the 30-40 minute set is designed to reach people’s emotions to create the sense that we have “met with God.” Cynical? Yes it is. But this is why I think the 30-40 minute worship set has caught on. People like the emotional rush and leaders want people to think something really spiritual has happened.
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I *know* you wanted the Catholics to take a break, but…
You know, if you go to an Eastern Catholic or Eastern Orthodox divine liturgy, you’ve got..60-90 minutes of almost continual “singing” – i.e. chant. Fairly repetitive too, both within the service itself and from week to week.
So what’s the difference?
Why is one more tiresome than the other?
(Well, I should take that back – since many would probably find the Eastern model pretty tiresome…I’m just saying it doesn’t *seem* to be in the same category. Why not?)
And whenever I hear about these long praise-band sets, I confess I always wonder about the 60-year olds. Do they get into it? Or are evangelical services generationally segregated these days?
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Ever get a song in your head that you like so much you have to hit “repeat” on your iPod and play it several times in a row? Now, imagine if every song in your church’s praise and worship set was like that. It’d be like the world’s biggest U2 fan going to a concert and not only are they gonna play the extended version of every song, they’ll play it again! And again! And again! Jump around!
Of course, if you don’t like those songs, you’re not gonna be so thrilled. And if you’re looking at all the folks who are jumping around and thinking, “They’re enjoying themselves far too much. Worship isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be about God. They’re making it about themselves. Buncha selfish, self-focused Christians…” not noticing how, ironically enough, your disquiet over what they like is largely based on what you like.
God is not a sadist. We’re supposed to like worshiping Him. If you think He enjoys us being uncomfortable while we coldly mouth second-rate songs to third-rate music, you have a really demented view of the Father. If the reason 15 minutes is pushing it, is because singing is uncomfortable, or feels like a chore, or you don’t feel any closer to God, or aren’t more mindful of Him, your church’s worship sucks, and doesn’t honor God. You’ve turned God into the grandpa at the nursing home that you really don’t care to visit.
Hymns or choruses or rock songs or chants; 5 minutes or 50 minutes; doesn’t matter. If the people of your congregation can’t detect God inhabiting the praises of His people, your worship leader is doing it wrong. (Or you are. But I’m gonna go with the worship leader for now. It’s less convicting that way.)
Now true, there are a lot of folks who don’t know the difference between the bass guitar and the Holy Spirit, just as there are a lot of folks who think if we’re not proclaiming profound theological truths into the heavenly realms we’re wasting our time. I think we all forget sometimes that the purpose of worship is to enjoy God. John Piper has this right, at least. If we don’t enjoy God in our worship, we’re naturally not gonna enjoy our worship. Nor should we. But regardless of its form, we should enjoy it enough to do a lot of it. It should be pushing into the sermon time. We should be so insistent upon overdoing it that the spiritually slumbering among us complain about us. It should be joyous, fun, free, and drive us to study God more, follow God more, obey God more, and love God more. It should engage the emotions without nullifying the intellect. And it should produce the fruit of the Spirit.
And don’t forget prayers, scripture, Communion, testimonies, anointing, and the rest of the liturgy. But particularly music. God loves music. He spends a lot of time outside of the Eternal Now just so He can hear it.
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Actually, the model is older than the past few generations. I don’t want to leave the impression that this is a phenomenon that is tied exclusively to “contemporary” styles of worship. Its roots are back in the revivalist movements, when music was used to “prepare the heart” for the gospel. Moody and Sankey were masters of this, and countless Sunday evening services for more than a century followed this style of conducting services.
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From what I’ve seen the people who want more than 10 to 15 minutes of music (forget 30) are on the worship team or would like to be. Most of the congregation seems to be acting as puppets on a string where I’ve seen long music sessions.
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In large part I think it has to do with which church culture you are from. And then, it also has a lot to do with whether you personally like singing for that long or not.
I personally like 30-40 minutes of singing if it’s spiritually meaningful. In large part, for me, that means there needs to be content, which is why I like the bulk of singing after the sermon. Ironic, because a lot of people would say the singing is meant to “warm people up for the sermon”, but I find that a sermon speaking God’s truth creates a response in me that I like to express through singing (assuming the songs can be related to the truths spoken in the sermon – sometimes there needs to be explanation). We’ve done it this way in our small group – though not 30-40 minutes, admittedly – and it is very meaningful.
Without that sort of prep, whether I like 30-40 minutes of singing really depends on my frame of mind and what’s going on in my life.
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We were having a discussion about this earlier this evening. In some circles singing is extended because of a theology that says, “If we really, really, really get passionate and work ourselves up to an emotional fever pitch, then God will pay attention to us and meet with us and “transform” us. I have read books and attended workshops on worship that have taught that the job of the music in a worship service is to take us on a journey from the “outer courts” to the “holy of holies,” or some other such thing. The author defined the path almost completely in terms of the music modulating emotional highs and lows for the congregation. The model for this approach is the concert or the music program, not the established liturgy of the church. An entire theology of worship has been developed over the past couple of generations based on this model, which in my view is more about mood manipulation than worship.
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It’s not so much that there is 30-45 minutes of music, it’s that there is 30-45 minutes of, well, *that* music. I just realized yesterday the relief that I feel at not having sung a praise song in years! And I used to be in the worship band…
But seriously, put me in a service with music like Arvo Part’s, and you can go all day as far as I’m concerned.
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I don’t know about 45 minutes straight on a weekly basis but the “seeker” churches I’ve attended in recent years have nailed it down to 10-15 min. tops or people will get bored. Obviously, interspersed prayer, silence, scripture reading would make longer worship times richer but I believe 30+ min. of actual music that is truly focused on God is needful to help us transition more into God’s presence and use our voices and bodies for worshiping the Lord. I often feel that I’m just getting focused on God, coming to the place of worhsiping with my heart, mind…, when we’re rapping up the “set” to move on to the next item on the menu. Perhaps, I’m unique this way.
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Oh, if the sermon is Spirit-led, well prepared, and at least halfway decent in delivery, then people will sit for 45 minutes. See Piper/Driscoll/Chandler and in my area, several PCA ministers who are gifted speakers (check Joe Novenson at lmpc.org). People will listen long if it’s worth listening to.
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Something that occurred to me is this: if the average service runs about an hour and if we only get 15-20 minutes of singing, what are we supposed to do with all that extra time? Not everyone wants to listen to a 45-minute sermon and if your church doesn’t regularly do the other things that iMonk has been writing about in his liturgy series, what do we do with the other 15 or so minutes? I mean, yes, there are other things to do but if your church isn’t about to start doing them it really does leave a hole.
The worship team really could throw us a bone and let us at least sit part of the time.
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The old hymns with the great theology are my favorite, but 30 minutes of singing is a bit much. Of course, we do need the time for entertainment from the soloists and choir. It’s like a concert or an episode of American Idol most of the time.
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Not sure why anyone is posting on why contemporary worship music is bad. That’s not the topic. Look….I don’t have time to moderate this thread. the topic is clear: “If you like 30-30 minutes of music then why?”
Please DO NOT take this in the direction of general trash talking about contemporary vs traditional worship. Seriously. Don’t.
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Considering that the singing is sometimes referred to as the worship portion of the service apparently some think that they need 40 minutes of worship before getting to whatever the rest of the service is supposed to be. I’m not sure why Scripture readings or the Lord’s Supper isn’t part of worship but there it is. It’s actually rather hard not to be snarky about this subject but I know there really are people in the congregation who find all the singing very edifying and I wouldn’t want to centre my comments around just what I want church to be. But on the whole I find it too much and would be quite happy to use other elements to focus our attention on God.
But to get to the point, I don’t know why there’s so much singing. Something to create an inviting environment for visitors? It’s the right tool for putting our hearts and minds in the right place? Somebody must know.
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Most worship teams do not seem to know the difference between thanksgiving, praise, and worship.
Too many modern “worship” songs are either simplistically repetitive to the point of leaching out any vestige of meaning, or too complicated lyrically or musically for the average non-musician person in the pews to sing. Most of the time, in my experience, the “audience” pretty much gives up singing after a song or two, and the “worship” becomes a concert performance, complete with peer pressure to remain standing until the last note peters out.
Many people have learned that they can arrive late, and miss most of the concert…and they do.
I will gladly trade one Holy Spirit inspired hymn or modern worship song for most of the drivel emanating from the platform these days.
The prideful music spirit is alive and well; I miss the “hymn sandwich” (hymn-sermon-hymn) of my youth. The lyrics had meaning, the hymns were written by spiritually mature and scripturally literate lovers of Christ, and were reasonably easy to learn and sing in keeping with the fashion of the day.
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Too often lengthy, repetitious wall songs take over at the expense of wonderful classic worship hymns. Maybe God doesn’t mind, but fragile humans often do. 30-40 minutes is more standing and drums than many of our older congregants can take. This does not constitute worship for everybody in the pew.
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Brian, I agree that interspersing the songs with other elements of the service is good. I attended an AMiA church recently where that was done and it flowed well. Unfortunately in the case of my church it is 30-40 minutes of solid music.
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I was just asking my wife this very question last weekend. In our evangelical church the first 30-40 minutes is music from our “praise and worship band”. They just kind of do their thing up front and I guess the rest of us are suppose to follow along. After the singing then the offertory, the sermon, ending prayer, and bye-bye. I would love to see the music shortened replacing it with the Lords Supper each week (instead of monthly) and maybe a responsive reading or two.
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Could you repeat that comment 5-7x Brian? 🙂
For everyone: I am talking about a normal worship service, not special musical service.
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That may have been a bit harsh. I don’t mind simple songs, and I don’t mind some repetition. But constant repetition on every single song every single service just gets tiring. I say that because it’s implied that the congregation must maintain intensity with every repeat.
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I don’t mind 30-40 minutes of music IF it’s interspersed with prayer, responsive reading, and meditation/quiet. Mix those in, and I don’t the “worship set” going that long.
What I don’t like that much is 30-40 minutes that comprise 3 songs sung 10-12 minutes each (I’m looking at you, Pentecostal/Charismatic churches) where the songs in question have a total of 20 different words at best).
Then again, when I read Isaiah, it makes me wonder if the “worship set” around the throne ever gets past the first song (Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, the earth is filled with his glory).
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When a worship service has several elements that do not tie into each other (sermon is unrelated to music is unrelated to liturgy…), it becomes very disjointed. Growing up, we did exactly two hymns that didn’t relate to each other or to anything else in the service, then we sat down and heard announcements, then we did another hymn that wasn’t connected to any other part of the service. You know what this looks like. Then along comes the whole praise and worship thing, and suddenly 35-40 minutes of the service has continuity because the music leader has a plan for the songs that day (a particular theme or progression of some sort), and so that part of the service has cohesiveness and direction.
If you are part of a church that has a cohesive plan for every service, this probably doesn’t mean much. But if you grow up in a tradition that doesn’t think in those terms, a 40 minute music time can be a great thing in terms of putting your mind and heart on one track for more than 3 minutes in a row.
I’m not saying it’s the best thing. But I think there’s at least one reason for it.
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