The Big Worship Goof
June 12, 2009 by iMonk
One of my major premises in the writing I’m doing these days is that evangelicals have become a movement actually destroying itself.
At no point does that seem more obvious than in the recent evolution of worship within evangelicalism.
Does anyone- I mean, really, seriously- have any idea what is actually happening within the worship culture of evangelicals?
We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what is a worship service. We’ve adopted an approach that demands ridiculous levels of musical, technical and financial commitment and resources.
We have tied ourselves to the Christian music industry and its endless appetite for change and profit. We have accepted that all of our worship leaders are going to be very, very young people. Traditional worship – a la Tenth Presbyterian in Philly- is on the verge of becoming a museum piece.
The reformed- of all people- have led the way in this revolution. I attended a seminar last week where a room full of reformed were instructed in why the optimum worship leadership option was “the band.” Not the choir, the worship team, etc. But “the band.” Does anyone realize what that means for public worship?
Diversity, generational compatibility, even simplicity are all being blown up. Worship is now a major audience event, led by skilled entertainers, aimed at a demographic and judged by the audience reaction.
God? God has been moved around to be things like a reluctant Spirit we sing down with our songs or a divine innovator always blessing as much radical change as possible.
Why do I call this a goof? Because there is no way for this to end well. This is like a NASCAR car with the throttle stuck open. We’re stuck on a roller coaster and we can’t get off.
Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play. We need to give more time to worship doesn’t mean silent prayer or public scripture reading or any kind of participatory liturgy. It means music.
Even singing is getting lost in this. As the volume and the performance level goes up, who knows who is singing?
And who can stand for 20, 30 or 40 minutes?
We have a lot of happy people right now. They have no idea what Biblical worship is outside of the context of their favorite songs played by a kickin’ band. They have little idea of worship in vocation, in family, in ordinary work or in silence. They credit their favorite songs as major spiritual events.
We have goofed up. Simple, plain liturgy. Diversity and inclusion. Appreciation and full Biblical understanding. Cross generational intentionality and suspicion of the profit motive. Renouncing the spirit of competition. Hearing the prophetic warnings about God’s disgust with much of Israel’s “big show” worship culture. We need all of this.
We need Jesus shaped worship, and we need worship that promotes a simple, direct, uncompromising Jesus shaped spirituality.
_______________________
Commenters: If you start a discussion on hymns vs choruses I will not post it. Read that sentence twice.
We have very modest bands in terms of volume. I know two staff members that have ear plugs for every service. It causes them real distress, even with acoustic guitars.
I’ve enjoyed this thread, but I may shut it down soon. Thanks to all who have participated.
Tom,
What’s wrong with a few urban legends? Let’s just call it Lutheran Tradition.
Anna A and other who don’t see contempt in these comments,
I’d encourage you to go back and read the comments again. Do you think using terms like “boo hoo music” is meant to merely describe or to belittle and demean? As I read through the thread I see quite a bit of that type of rhetoric.
When your worship style drives you to demean and belittle those that are eternally bound to you through Christ there’s a much larger issue here than music, worship style, or theology, and it rhymes with shmidol.
Teri:
“The church is US – the body of believers. If you think there is something wrong in your church’s attitude to worship what are YOU doing about it?”
What would you suggest? Interrupting the service? Making complaints through channels? Voting with our feet…?
I’m just one person. I’m dispensible. In cold reality, the church doesn’t care what I think. It’s not that kind of community where everybody is equal (like a family), it’s more like a business model. I might have more of a say if I became the pastor, or the music director, but then I would find myself beholden to a whole new set of pressures.
Here’s a thought. Why couldn’t we have church totally on-line? With a variety of listening options, including the style of background music. (If you want to sing, it could be karaoke.) Add paypal instead of the collection plate, and of course the times would be totally flexible…you could even have a sort of community in the form of message boards and the like. (At least, as much of a community as regular church is.)
Just my two cents. Episcopalian music kicks ass
My last input on this particular post…. Folks, I’ll just be quite honest here and tell you that I simply do not like much of the contemporary worship approaches and the music that comes with it and that’s the bottom line. I tried going down that road and for a short time thought that was the way to go – the way of the future for the church until I began to see what was happening when these changes were introduced to churches, especially to long established church bodies that had a definate order to their worship practices.
I think the contemporary approach works best in churches that were started that way versus established traditional churches that have it forced upon them as has been the case so many times in these situations. My not liking contemporary is not a whack at those who do but is a statement of where I am personally and the people who like contemporary feel the same way but coming from a different direction. Maybe we need to agree to disagree, forget it and move on in our respective “traditions” as there is plenty of room for both and the people interested in them plus the traditional church worship is not gone nearly as much as some would have you believe these days.
Well that’t all on this one.
Then what do you do with Psalm 150????
Psalm 150….. speaking in broad general terms – just about everyting in that Psalm is existant in one way or another throughout the various traditions. Some have the the trumpets, pipes, flutes, strings others don’t while some have the percussion and the dance yet others do not. Point being is that over the whole of christiandom all of that is taking place from that perspective. Culture has been mentioned many times and that has an effect on things – some world cultures have more of the rhythmic and percussive while others have less of it and the general worship existant in western culture in recent times has been what we call traditional though aspects of that were argued and debated from time to time over the years as contemporary much like we have now yet there were, as there are today, adhearants to their particular interests.
My personal approach is traditional – my worship of God in the coporate church body is best expressed in the churches that have the more traditional approach yet others prefer the contemporary setting and that’s fine but the issue that has bothered me is the forcing of unwanted/undisired change upon church bodies. Sure, some want the change yet others don’t why force it if it’s not wanted? That goes back to the idea that contemporary worship seems to work best in churches that were started with that in mind to begin with and they would no more welcome someone with a traditional bent to come in a force that change on them than traditional churches that have had the contemporary forced upon them. There’s room for both.
Who is the worship service ‘playing to’ would be a good question for all church elders to ask.
Of course, everyone would answer, God.
But IS it?
There’s the real question.
Is He pleased?
(LOVE this post. But it made me cry.)
I have concerns about comparing organ music to a worship band. It might be more fair to compare a chamber ensemble with a worship band. A church with an organ might need at least two capable organ players to cover the services in a given month (growing up, we had one organ player). To fill a capable worship band every Sunday, especially during summer vacation season, requires a pretty deep bench: either at least two musicians each for electric guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, etc. or several musicians who are talented on more than one instrument. How many even mid-to-large size churches can do this and still find enough volunteers for Sunday School? The alternative is hiring paid musicians, but even then vacations and sick days need to be taken into consideration.
Our church appreciates the musicians – even when only a skeleton crew is available, but when things don’t sound right, the musicians themselves take it really hard.
I used to be involved with “praise and worship” music until about 10 years ago. Every time I think about doing it again, I read some article like this and I think, “Forget it. Not going to become part of the problem.”
And it IS a problem. Every time Michael brings this up, he knocks one out of the park.
Playing music Skillfully is not a bad thing. It is a biblical thing. The Psalms demanded it. (Psalm 33:3)
The same passage also says to sing to Him with a new song.
The idea that contemporary music is a faux pas is itself a faux pas. The trouble is content, focus, and teaching.
Content is simply the subject matter of the songs. Yes, there are many mamby pamby songs that are just feel good tripe, but there are many songs out there that really focus on biblical matters of worship (Ever heard Justice and Mercy by Matt Redmond?) This means we have to be thoughtful and selective of the material we choose.
Focus is the that which we point others to in our worship. IF it it polish then you are selling a shell. No one can say that having production values is inherently wrong, though I honestly find myself wary of them, but when having the most flawless transitions and the most emotive pictures on power point is what you struggle most with in preparing worship, then you are off base. So it is a constant thought about how we expose others to Christ, point them, and help spark a dialogue between them and the Spirit, by taking them to the Cross deliberately and pointing to the blood there found.
Teaching. Churches need to be more deliberate in their communication of what worship is. Making sure that Praise does not become wholly synonymous with music is the Job of the church that is supposed to be teaching, correcting, admonishing, etc. This also means that new leaders are mentored. Having all grade A musicians in front means you do not care to teach others behind. I have been to the churches where only professional caliber musicians are leading the praise singing… and getting to become a part of that team takes years of pre-qualifying. Mentorship almost doesn’t happen in that context.
Most of the above has nothing to do with traditional or contemporary styles. Todays traditional Hymn was once the “Pop” of it’s day. It just didn’t have the commercial drive that so much music has to day because of radio. Let’s divorce ourselves from style issues and ask instead the questions that matter.
One more thing. A dear friend of mine wrote a magnificent book on worship that I think gets into this a lot. It is called “Experiencing Worship, and Worshipping Experience – The Effects of Post Modernism on Evangelical Worship” You can find it at his website. http://www.danradmacher.com
Thanks
As a slight counterpoint to this, I extend the following link:
http://shoredfragments.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/matt-redmans-doxological-theology/
“Starting at the end, ‘the traditional liturgy’ strikes me as a deeply problematic concept. There are many different liturgical traditions, each instantiating different theological concerns. For some reason, theologians from a broadly evangelical background (who tend to be the ones decrying contemporary worship music, on account of the fact that they have encountered it) tend to point to Anglican liturgies for proper doxological theology. With all due respect, every Anglican liturgy ever promulgated is, as far as I can see, a theologically-incoherent political compromise between Catholic and Reformed traditions”
I haven’t had time to read through all the comments yet, so at the risk of repeating what someone else has already said…
1. I used to be part of a “worship team.” While it was fun to play with the group, the music was just terrible. I tried to overlook it, but never quite could.
2. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone describe a reasonably decent guitar/bass/whatever solo as “anointed,” “prophetic” or “godly,” I’d be able to finance a 3-month trip to Monaco. (Well, OK – maybe to London, Ontario…
)
3. I have never, ever understood why “worship” is supposed to consist of saccharine choruses and lots of repetition of the phrases “thank you, Jesus!” (etc.). And for a long time, I tried not to see that the emperor had no clothes.
4. Our love for entertainment and trendiness are going to make us fall hard. Though goodness knows, there’s nothing truly “trendy” about so-called “worship music.” It’s more like bubblegum pop from the 70s-early 80s than anything that’s actually occurring right now, in both popular and classical music.
5. Singing from a hymnbook requires some degree of reading skill (with words) and a reasonably good vocabulary. Reading ultra-simple words on a screen… not so much.
6. I am so ready to go back to a liturgical form of church service, but also agree that anything can become a kind of liturgy – and that so-called “contemporary worship” is the unacknowledged liturgy of most American Protestant churches.
7. Catholics who were alive during the “folk mass” period (lasted about 20 years post-Vatican II) will remember that there were a lot of lousy songs, and a few good ones. I mean, really lousy songs. But did we Protestants learn anything from our Catholic brethren on this score? Nope!
8. Some of the more memorable (read: awful) things I heard while being part of a “worship team”:
“Jazz isn’t worship.” [I guess folk rock/soft rock is the only God-approved genre.]
“To worship is to kiss God’s face, like a dog licking a human. Kinda messy and slobbery.” [OK, not the exact words, but a very close paraphrase.]
“You’re a really talented musician, but I can’t see how I could possibly fit you into the music we do.” [Scout's honor, I was actually told this, because I play percussion instruments that were unfamiliar to the person who made this statement.]
9. Oh, and – obligatory worship team meetings are invariably closed with at least 2 hours of “ministry time” (read: personal prayer) and always run until midnight-1:00 a.m. I literally know folks who ended up having to sack out on someone’s couch because if they drove home, they’d end up getting a whole 3 hours of sleep before having to get up for the a.m. commute. (I packed up and slipped out before the prayer sessions started; or else avoided practice altogether, because the songs were so easy to pick up on the bandstand, without any prior hearing.)
10. We were not supposed to be “performance-oriented,” yet our music was nothing if not performance.
11. The so-called “worship leader” is allowed to make completely nonsensical decisions at any time. (Includes claiming that the bassist and percussionist had never been placed next to each other at any time in the past, when in reality, they’d been paired up on the stand for the past 6 years.)
12. “Worship leaders” may be as dictatorial as they wish, because that’s how God wants it. No questions allowed.
All this to say that yes, iMonk, I like your post.
I think that this worship movement leads to spltting christians even more. We recognize and catergorize christians based on the music of their church, contemperory, traditional, etc. Sometimes these splits even happen in the same church. Thenof course we are all trying to out perform the next church. I agree, it is rediculous, we need to get back to the basics of Christian worship.
I’m unable to find a theological position that eliminates or endorses only one style of worship. I’m fairly certain that any member of the early church transported to today would find just about every worship service in existence nearly incomprehensible (even with the language barrier removed), though that is neither an endorsement or condemnation.
Do with that what you will, God knows I have.
This is too ironic–yesterday EVERYONE at my Church was overmiced–the band, the singers, etc and it was earsplitting! This coming from an old fart who used to go live concerts in the 70′s! I agree it’s all too much, but I believe the older folks, such as myself, have kept silent because we’ve bought into the con that current Christian music will bring in the kids. Whether is does or not I have NO idea. What I find ironic is ALL denominations complain that no one reads the Bible anymore, but NONE of them ever considers PUBLIC scripture readings in Church! Considering most folks get their theology from Christian Rock is it any wonder Hyper-Calvinism is considered Biblical!
Could someone explain to me what Evangelicals do for a funeral?
I recently attended a funeral for a friend’s husband. I was unfamiliar with the type of church this was. The ‘sevice’ began with a country music song. Then a poem by a family member. Then the preacher. I kid you not he went on for 25 minutes and would have gotten a ‘f’ at any seminary homiletic class I could think of. Then two verses of a hynm and a very very short prayer. Then the preacher dismissed everyone except the family. So the family could bury him privately. What!!!
Mich,
I don’t know exactly you mean by “public Scripture reading in church” but every Sunday we read a section of one of the Gospels and two accompaning scriptures. Usually one from the Old Testament and one from the letters in the NT and one of the Psalms. I think that is pretty common in all liturgical churches. What would a minister preach on if He/she didn’t have a given Scripture?
Revolutions are always times of turmoil and uncertainty, times when everybody is scrambling to recover the equilibrium of more stable days. Revolutions are also times of widespread misunderstanding and shared ignorance about what is happening.
I wonder how many people are aware that the evangelical church in America has just experienced not a change in musical style but a musical revolution.
This is the second musical revolution in the entire history of Christianity. The first was the rejection of Latin plainchant sung primarily by those who had taken ecclesiastical orders, in favor of four-part homophony sung in the vernacular by the entire congregation. This accompanied the theological revolution known today as the Protestant Reformation. The second musical revolution, which is under way today (and is already victorious in many churches), is the rejection of the Protestant hymn, hymnal, and musically educated congregant in favor of CCM/pop Christian solos adapted for congregational singing and mouthed by musically illiterate congregants reading lyrics alone from video screens. This is accompanying the dawn of Post-Protestantism, or postmodern Christianity, or pop Christianity, or whatever it is we’re now experiencing.
For the most part, when I discuss church music with people, they treat the revolution as though it were just another change of style. They do this because they don’t know enough music history to make a sound judgment about how a musical revolution differs from a change of style; and, as in so many other areas where people don’t know that they don’t know, the result is often the loud proclamation of total nonsense and the lack of respect for those who do in fact know something. These are the times that try men’s souls—if those souls know something about music history.
As one with extensive education in music history (master’s degree in musicology; thesis about hymnody), this revolution grieves me deeply—and it grieves me even more to have no voice about it in my church, because shared ignorance there is preferred to knowledge.
As one with extensive education in music history (master’s degree in musicology; thesis about hymnody), this revolution grieves me deeply—and it grieves me even more to have no voice about it in my church, because shared ignorance there is preferred to knowledge.
I have a lot of fellow-feeling, Bill, though I’d say there’s probably been more than two “revolutions.” (Coming more from a perspective of spending a lot of time dealing with American popular music during the 19th and 20th centuries.)
Having no voice about it really *is* hard.
oh my, that is quite depressing, Bill. Fear not. I’m sure you are well educated in your field but you will be happy to know their are still Christians who worship in Word and Sacrament and without rock music. The revolution may have over taken your traditions but not all of Christianity.
What’s popular has always been a problem for Christian Worship and Christian living. I am old enough to remember what was popular in the 1950s. Being a Church member. Mostly of a mainline variety. Jobs, socialablity were tied to being a looking good Christian and church member and church worker.
That’s when I learned from my mother never to call hypcrite in the church. Lot’s of people were jamming the church who could care less about Jesus and his teaching. My mom said at least they are here and can hear the Word proclaimed and preached. It is not our place to judge because only God can see their hearts.
It will all sort itself out in the end Bill. Never quite trusting in God’s mercy. Ask God what your role in this is and do it.
Considering most folks get their theology from Christian Rock is it any wonder Hyper-Calvinism is considered Biblical!
Amen and amen, Mich.
Now I’m trying to grapple with there having only been three musical styles across church history in all geography, Latin plainchant, four part congregational hymns, and whatever it is we have now.
Somehow it just doesn’t compute.
I recently attended a worship conference at one of the churches you might consider one of the chief offenders. Darlene Zschech of HIllsong fame spoke at one of the breakout sessions and said that while music can exclude, true worship always invites people in. I agree and think you overstate your argument, coming off a bit demagogue-ish. Maybe you are not aware of how many evangelical churches are effectively and faithfully addressing the very concerns about the substance of worship you raise without retreating from a more modern musical style. But they are. Can modern songs with their volume and pop feel exclude? Yes. Can hymns be exclusive? Yes. The issue is not musical style (for the ump-teenth million time), but one of authentic worship helping to facilitate a transformed life. Churches of all styles are great at true worship, and churches of all styles stink at it. Anecdotal stories abound in support of both realities. To Bill above, degree notwithstanding – only two revolutions in the history of church music? I would not much care to have to defend that one.
I appreciate everybody’s dialogue with me on this, especially those who think I’ve gone too far by saying there have only been two true revolutions in church music (that’s western church music, T). I’m rethinking my position to try to justify calling another shift somewhere a revolution rather thatn just a development or modification. Music has changed constantly, styles coming and going, this or that new idea being promoted or some tradition being modified or challenged–that’s the way of all music history. But most changes have been incremental or in some way a modification of existing norms. To me a “revolution” is something that changes things at a deeper level, a level that is neither a development nor a modification, but is rather a comprehensive rejection or demolition of an existing norm.
I’d be interested to read what others regard as the true revolutions and what others regard as merely modifications or developments.
Sorry to have displayed my pedigree in the way I did. I tossed that off rather hastily and without much thought about how it would come across. Reading what I wrote a few hours later makes me cringe a bit. Altogether the wrong tone. Oh, well. Good fuel for some furnaces of forgiveness others can light up.
Bill,
Might it not be that rather than a “revolution” you’ve just seen the continued modification of music sped up as nearly every other area of human endeavor has?
Err… spirituals and gospel music, for two.
After I read this post, I went away and pondered what I read. I disagree with you on this. There are seven references in Psalms about worship through songs. Two of the references in particular provide a counter argument to your post:
Psalm 95:2
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
Psalm 98:4
Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.
Most evangelical churches that I have attended have offered two different types of Sunday services — one is focused on members of the church where the music you decry is more prevalent; another (usually later) service focuses on unbelievers and is far more traditionally evangelical.
I have always liked the formal liturgy that is used in Catholic and Anglican churches. However, the younger generations that fill churches today grew up with far different secular music and are far more comfortable with more modern music.
I know what you mean about posting in haste and regretting in leisure. I’ve done the same. But you certainly sparked discussion!
What I would say (in support of Bill) is that the present age seems determined to discard any and all songs (regardless of quality) once they get too old. The choruses I sang as a youth in the 1980s are seldom heard today, and I am confident that the same will soon be true of the current crop.
The trouble with this mindset is that, once songs become disposable, the incentive to write good ones diminishes; the desire to write well becomes subordinate to the need to write quickly and in quantity. We are likely to get plenty of bad songs in this environment, but we will insist on using them because the existing songs are “too old”.
The church has not always done it this way; the older tradition (in the western church) is more cumulative. A typical Protestant hymnal frequently contains elements of Latin plainsong (“O Come, O Come Emmanuel”), Reformation hymnody (“A Mighty Fortress”), Methodist revivalism (“O For a Thousand Tongues”), 19th century revivalism (“When We All Get to Heaven”), spirituals (“Lord, I Want to be a Christian”), and 20th century gospel (“I’d Rather Have Jesus”), among other things. The arrival of new songs did not mean the automatic end of all of the old ones; “Great is Thy Faithfulness” did not relegate “Now Thank We All Our God” to obscurity. These songs, while different in style, could exist in a common repertoire, be accompanied by a common instrumentation and be sung in a common setting. Not everything from every era was retained, but there was no notion that the old songs HAD to be replaced en masse, simply because new ones had been written. The mindset today is much different.
The saddest part of this whole scenario is the likelihood that the worship wars will never really end. As long as the old must constantly give way to the new, people who actually value the old songs will clash with devotees of the “latest and greatest”. We may not be fighting over hymns 20 years from now, but I suspect that we’ll have the same sort of ugliness over Chris Tomlin’s songs, which will seem quite dated by then. The combatants and battlefield will be different, but the nastiness and lovelessness will be strangely familiar.
Hooah IMonk, Hooah
It’s gratifying to see that a thread like this can run to almost 200 posts without mention of Luther’s tavern tunes.
In case you’re one of those still passing around this tired old urban legend, let me set the record straight by quoting something I wrote on another blog.
“For years now, when using or making music intended for Christian worship, people have rationalized their conformity to popular culture by repeating the widespread myth that Luther (sometimes in the myth it’s Wesley) used drinking songs as the basis for his great hymn tunes.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Luther (Wesley too) abhorred the idea of borrowing a tune or style already saturated with secular connotations. Why the myth, then? Because of a misunderstanding. One of the many forms of music (i.e. sonata, fugue, minuet, rondo, etc.) is called “bar form”—three or more stanzas, each divided into two Stollen (section a) and one Absegang (section b)—and it happens that Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is a perfect example of this musical structure. So Luther did indeed write a bar tune, but it was not based on a barroom tune. (If you want to look it up yourself, check out the article on bar form in the Harvard Dictionary of Music, or just Google it and read the more obviously scholarly articles that pop up. You’ll learn that many Lutheran chorales are in bar form, and that the Star Spangled Banner is another good example.)
Next time somebody tells you that Luther based his music on the popular tunes of the day, ask him if he learned this from a musicologist—or if he’s just perpetuating an urban legend to justify the church’s increasing conformity to the world.”
OK, OK, Bill. Be an old stick in the mud. Luther’s wife did own an operate a brewery! A skill she apparently learn while being a Cistercian Nun. Maybe that’s where the Trappist beer can from? What do ya think?
I’m saying nothing against a good beer, Sue!
Nothing at all! Good beer is . . . good! (I wish my wife could make an Orval ale.)