iMonk Classic: Worship, CCM and the Worship Music Revolution (part one)

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
Circa 2002

NOTE FROM CM: For the next three Saturdays, we will run Michael Spencer’s classic posts from 2002 on “Worship, CCM and The Worship Music Revolution.”

The evangelical church in particular has continued to travel down the road Michael describes in this article. Nearly a decade has passed, and now congregations are filled with people who have little or no memory of the traditional practices that Michael speaks of in this essay. Thousands of churches have been planted with contemporary praise and worship music placed front and center as the main attraction for seekers and the primary component of worship for the Body. Evangelicals continue to speak of “worship” as if the word only means “feeling a sense of ecstasy through being caught up in praise music.” The “worship set” is the primary sacrament of contemporary evangelicalism, the only one in which they acknowledge the real presence and activity of Christ.

With Michael, I lament this state of affairs.

WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION
Trading a heritage of Worship Music for a lukewarm bowl of CCM

Not too many months ago, I had the opportunity to lead my “congregation” of high school students in a chapel service of worship music. Realizing that they had learned many new songs in the past few months, I purposely selected songs that were popular with these students two and three years ago. After leading the service, a student came up to me and said something I have never forgotten. “I sure like the old songs, Mr. Spencer.”

Such is the frantic pace of change in contemporary worship music, that “As the Deer” is now one of the “old” songs. Seniors in high school and their grandparents have this in common: they both love the old songs, songs that are rapidly being replaced..

The revolution in worship music that is now tearing up thousands of evangelical churches and rousing generational civil war in many evangelical families has been brewing for some time. The first identifiable “praise choruses” were appearing in the fifties, and the musical revolution of the sixties, largely confined to “youth services,” musicals and “coffeehouses,” never seemed to disturb churches to the extent we are seeing today. In the Jerry Falwell-style Southern Baptist church of my teenage years, drums and contemporary music were welcome in youth services and occasional choir performances, probably because no one ever thought of turning these occasional forays into pop culture into the regular Sunday morning service. Long haired kids in sandals, filling up the front pews on Sunday night, made the church look evangelistic, but we kept our music to ourselves. It was the age of “Jesus People,” and any church would bend over to have a few more young people in the services, but no one was inviting us to bring the band into the choir loft.

Continue reading “iMonk Classic: Worship, CCM and the Worship Music Revolution (part one)”

Saturday Ramblings 6.18.11

What a week. Chaplain Mike is a grandpa again. My Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup. My Reds swept the Dodgers. With all this excitement, we’ve left a bit of a mess around the iMonastery. Saturday is when we tidy up, starting with these Ramblings…

Speaking of baseball, there is a man whose ministry is handing out bottled water to fans of the College World Series in Omaha each year. The water has John 6:35 on it (“Jesus said, ‘and he who believes in me shall never thirst”). The founder of this ministry relates how this water led to the salvation of a man who, after he was saved, became a “really nice guy. He came to our church – driving [all the way across the city] and he even sang in the choir.” Does it bother you that the fruit of this man’s salvation was he became a nice guy, went to church, and sang in the choir?

Zondervan can forget marketing their updated New International Version of the Bible to Southern Baptists. The SBC has gone on record saying it “cannot commend” the new NIV because of gender references in the NIV. Is it a big deal to you that this updated translation now refers to “brothers and sisters” rather than just “brothers”?

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Our Relational God

Trinity Icon, Rublev

By Chaplain Mike

This Sunday upcoming is Trinity Sunday, the day that bridges the two main divisions of the Church Year. We have been walking through the life of Jesus from Advent to Pentecost since last November. Now, we begin the days of “Ordinary Time,” when we live out the faith daily as Christ’s church, embraced by the Good News of salvation and filled with his Spirit.

About Today’s Art
“Many scholars consider Rublev’s Trinity the most perfect of all Russian icons and perhaps the most perfect of all the icons ever painted. The work was created for the abbot of the Trinity Monastery, Nikon of Radonezh, a disciple of the famous Sergius, one of the leaders of the monastic revival in the 14th-century Russia. Asking Rublev to paint the icon of the Holy Trinity, Nikon wanted to commemorate Sergius as a man whose life and deeds embodied the most progressive processes in the late 14th-century Russia.

“…From the earliest times, the idea of the Trinity was controversial and difficult to understand, especially for the uneducated masses. Even though Christianity replaced the pagan polytheism, it gave the believers a monotheistic religion with a difficult concept of one God in three hypostases — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Not only the uneducated population but many theologians had difficulties with the concept of the triune God; from time to time, a heretical movement, like Arianism, questioned the doctrine, causing long debates, violent persecutions, and even greater general confusion. Trying to portray the Trinity, but always aware of the Biblical prohibition against depicting God, icon painters turned to the story of the hospitality of Abraham who was visited by three wanderers. In their compositions, icon painters included many details — the figures of Abraham and Sarah, a servant killing a calf in preparation for the feast, the rock, the tree of Mamre, and the house (tent) — trying to render as faithfully as possible the events described in the text. (Genesis, 18:1-8)”

• Alexander Boguslawski

The Holy Trinity
The Church’s belief in the triune God—we believe in one God who is three persons in one essence—is foundational for Christian faith. This teaching is fully spelled out in the Athanasian Creed. Of course, this doctrine is a mystery, transcending human mathematical logic. However, it is perhaps the most practically important fundamental teaching of the faith, for it clarifies who the true and living God is, and what he is like. In particular, it reveals that he is a personal, relational God.

Continue reading “Our Relational God”

Quotes

“Sooner or later the world must burn, and all things in it—all the books, the cloister together with the brothel, Fra Angelico together with the Lucky Strike ads which I haven’t seen for seven years because I don’t remember seeing one in Louisville. Sooner or later it will all be consumed by fire and nobody will be left—for by that time the last man in the universe will have discovered the bomb capable of destroying the universe and will have been unable to resist the temptation to throw the thing and get over it.

“And here I sit writing a diary.

“But love laughs at the end of the world because love is the door to eternity and he who loves God is playing on the doorstep of eternity, and before anything can happen love will have drawn him over the sill and closed the door and he won’t bother about the world burning because he will know nothing but love.”

Thomas Merton, Echoing Silence

Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about bush or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of the brook and bush.   G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

Annie Dillard, Teaching A Stone To Talk

Continue reading “Quotes”

The Third Time, It’s a Charmer

By Chaplain Mike

UPDATE: We have a name. Ladies and gents, meet Veda Rae!

New baby girl in the Mercer family arrived today. 5 lbs, 5 oz, all doing well.

Grandpa recuperating.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

• Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)

Difficult Scriptures: John 6:52-69

The Jews began to quarrel with each other. They said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus told them, “I can guarantee this truth: If you don’t eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have the source of life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will bring them back to life on the last day. My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them. The Father who has life sent me, and I live because of the Father. So those who feed on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came from heaven. It is not like the bread your ancestors ate. They eventually died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”

Jesus said this while he was teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum. When many of Jesus’ disciples heard him, they said, “What he says is hard to accept. Who wants to listen to him anymore?”

Jesus was aware that his disciples were criticizing his message. So Jesus asked them, “Did what I say make you lose faith? What if you see the Son of Man go where he was before? Life is spiritual. Your physical existence doesn’t contribute to that life. The words that I have spoken to you are spiritual. They are life. But some of you don’t believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning those who wouldn’t believe and the one who would betray him. So he added, “That is why I told you that people cannot come to me unless the Father provides the way.”

Jesus’ speech made many of his disciples go back to the lives they had led before they followed Jesus. So Jesus asked the twelve apostles, “Do you want to leave me too?”

Simon Peter answered Jesus, “Lord, to what person could we go? Your words give eternal life. Besides, we believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:52-69, God’s Word Translation)

Difficult Scriptures is your turn to share your thoughts on a passage from the Bible. Today I am not looking for you to interpret these verses. Rather, I want to know what you would have done if you were standing in that crowd. Would Jesus’ words have turned you away? Would you have returned to your old way of life, or would you have continued to follow him? Tell us why you would do one or the other.

Following Jesus is very demanding. He will not settle with being part of our lives, even the biggest part. He wants all of us. And the more we walk with him, the narrower the path becomes. Is the command to eat his flesh and drink his blood a point where the road becomes too narrow? Why—or why not?

Ok, pick up your pencils and open your blue books. Your time begins … now.

 

Whatever Happened to . . . Bill Gothard?

By Chaplain Mike

I was one of those rebellious teenagers of the “hippie” era that Bill Gothard was destined to reach. Self-indulgent, resistant to authority, in love with rock music, seeking freedom from the constraints of societal demands, I needed order, direction, and purpose in my life. Most of my companions in youth group were cut from the same cloth.

So, in the aftermath of our spiritual awakening in the early 1970’s, the natural thing for our youth leader to do was to herd a bunch of us onto an old school bus to head to Philadelphia for the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, where we were issued our red padded three-ring binders and forced to sit and listen to a short guy with short hair in a dark blue suit lecture us for three hours a night over the course of six days.

We loved it. At least I did.

“The Bill Gothard Seminar” we called it. It was an “experience,” and more than anything, that was what I was after. Sitting in a darkened room with thousands of people learning “God’s principles,” this became a significant annual element of my Christian discipleship. Gothard was savvy in his use of media, even though it was elementary in those days, and his charts and diagrams and words up on the big screen seemed to carry an authority far more powerful than anything we received in church or Bible study (though we loved those settings too).

Looking back, I liken what I felt in those arenas to what many feel in megachurch settings today—a sense of being part of something “big,” a sense of intimacy with a “celebrity” through a media event (even though I was but one of a huge crowd), a sense of expectancy that my life could be changed by an overwhelming experience.

I remember going home after Gothard seminars determined to apply what I had learned. I asked forgiveness from those that I had offended or sinned against. I tried hard to submit to my parent’s authority. I took up devotional practices advocated at the seminar (his teaching on meditating on Scripture is still a part of me). However, like most “mountaintop” experiences, our week long marathons of spiritual intensity quickly lost their power to affect what happened in my daily life.

Continue reading “Whatever Happened to . . . Bill Gothard?”

Distressing Disguise or Distraction?

By Chaplain Mike

It finally happened. A church asked Jesus to leave the sanctuary during a worship service because he was being a “distraction.”

Jesus was attending Elevation Church in Matthews, NC in the distressing disguise of a little twelve year old boy with cerebral palsy named Jackson. Jackson excitedly got all dressed up for Easter worship and went to the service with his mom. After the opening prayer, the boy reportedly voiced his own unique “Amen” and a church volunteer approached them and, in the mother’s words, “very abruptly escorted us out.” They were taken out to the lobby to view the rest of the service from there.

You can watch the news report about the incident and meet Jackson and his mom HERE.

The church issued the following statement: “It is our goal at Elevation to offer a distraction free environment for all our guests.” Now there is a statement that screams for cultural exegesis.

Elevation Church, led by Steven Furtick, markets itself in these words: “Elevation Church has a passion to see those far from God filled with life in Christ. It’s an explosive, phenomenal movement of God – something you have to see to believe.” Apparently “explosive, phenomenal movements of God” have no room for Jesus in his distressing disguises—like little boys with special needs who don’t know how to follow the script. Wouldn’t want someone like that to “distract” the worshipers, you know.

I’ll be frank. I’m so mad about this I could spit. If such an incident isn’t the ultimate indictment of what’s happening in the evangelical world of entertainment worship and style over substance, I don’t know what could be.

Continue reading “Distressing Disguise or Distraction?”

James MacDonald Needs a Business Meeting

By Chaplain Mike

James MacDonald and I both graduated from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1988. He went on to become a successful pastor, author, and radio teacher. I went on to . . . well, let’s just say, a less illustrious career. So, I will leave it to you as to who has more credibility.

MacDonald just posted a deliberately provocative article called, “Congregational Government is from Satan.” In a note introducing his thoughts, he writes, “The tone of this post is intentionally aimed at engaging those who are engulfed in this system of church government that neither honors the Scriptures nor advances the gospel.” He calls this style of church government a “forum for divisions,” says that voting is “not biblical,” criticizes those in churches who resist the ministry of elders, asserts that the system crushes pastors, and states belief in the priesthood of all believers but does not think that should mean the “eldership” of all believers.

Wow. Tell us how you really feel. Never mind that the Bible really doesn’t prescribe any particular form of church government. If it did, would we have Episcopal churches, Presbyterian churches, Congregational churches, and others that built entire denominations around particular forms of church polity? You’ll find support for them all in the Bible, because the New Testament describes what churches did without setting forth a particular structure.

James. James. I’m sorry this has you so upset, but I know just what you need. A few words from Michael Spencer came to mind while reading your post, and so I thought I’d pass them on to you. I’ve inserted your name where appropriate, because the iMonk first addressed these words to another megachurch pastor several years ago.

Here’s hoping you get what Michael wished. I think it might do you good.

Continue reading “James MacDonald Needs a Business Meeting”

Ask Chaplain Mike: Eagle’s Questions (part one)

By Chaplain Mike

To me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of writing on Internet Monk involves getting to “meet” people from a variety of backgrounds who come here to discuss their thoughts and share their experiences. It is a conversation, and everyone is welcome. We have folks from all different Christian backgrounds, people from around the world, and individuals who are dealing with various levels of conflict in their journeys of faith and, in some cases, non-faith.

Our friend “Eagle” has been involved in these conversations for awhile now. He has talked openly about his journey through various religious communities and various ways he has been hurt and disillusioned by them all. In particular, he looks back on his life among the “fundagelicals” with not so fond memories.

He sent some of his questions to me when I solicited inquiries for “Ask Chaplain Mike,” and I will deal with a few of them today. He wrote, “I read your post this morning and was wondering if you could give some thought and maybe tackle some of these questions (though I know you are probably drowning in email…..) It would also be nice to know how others have worked through some of these issues, and how they have resolved them. Some of these have become huge obstacles to me believing in God. I really would like to know…how do others work through some of these issues and believe in God?”

Eagle submitted several questions, and I hoped I might deal with two or three at a time, but the first one at least deserves a post of its own.

I hope you will join the conversation and try to be of help and encouragement to him and to others who find themselves in similar places.

Continue reading “Ask Chaplain Mike: Eagle’s Questions (part one)”