Welcome back friends, and thanks for reading. This post should be pretty intriguing and raise a lot of questions, not only from the ones I give and am mulling over but the ones triggered in you. Hopefully those triggers will result in a contemplative moment where we all engage more with a topic we do not talk about enough, namely worship.
This, and the next couple of posts, are shifting a little bit away from campus ministry specifics and what is going on mainly because school is out and things have not been revamped yet. So the aim here is to take topics which apply, step out some, then apply them back to the City and campus-Christian communities. Worship may bring a few things to your head. One perhaps is people lifting their hands, jumping, dancing, singing, or things of that sort. Two, maybe you think of how Christians act outside of church, a more theologically deep thought which can be a whole other topic. Thirdly, maybe you think about the band at church, the songs you play, how people respond, and the rock concert on Sunday morning. These are three thoughts of many pertaining to worship yet we focus here specifically on worship in terms of music. There is already a plan in the mix to post on the musical, artistic, and cultural side of this, so stay tuned and get ready to discuss since there is so much on that topic which we need to bring forth and so many implications for Christians and the lives we lead. However, this is specifically on worship in terms of the music, how we do that in church, then how it works in campus ministries, mainly those in the Charleston area. A Facebook message has been sent out too in order to get other opinions, words of insight, and perspectives. Those who respond are included in the analysis. If you did not get it and want to contribute, please please please comment on this post, send me a message, or whatever you prefer. There is so much to this topic and I am trying here to condense for the reader's sake.
So let's just jump into it. Worship an the the Church...what do you think of? Do you like it? Do you/we tend to pick churches based on what they sing or how well they play? If there was no music, would Sunday morning be drastically different? There are tons of questions to ask, but these are just a few. The easiest way to answer is simply, yes. We really do, generally speaking even though this generalization is pretty well accepted, characterize our church, or one we visit, by its music. The preaching may not have been that great, but "the worship was just phenomenal. I love singing 'How He Loves' us. The Lord really moved in me through worship." Or, "pastor's preaching was solid but that worship team just did not have it together today." Or better yet, "we always sing those songs, over and over again; it's annoying." Lastly, "why do we always sing new songs? You cannot worship if you don't know the song." All of these are either things I have said or heard having played viola and bass guitar for a church band and constantly having the music as the first thing I notice when I visit a church. Whether it is the new Tomlin hit or "At the Old Rugged Cross", music is a central focus on our weekly church service. We want to go to Hillsong because their worship is "out of this world." Or we constantly sing songs from Australians like Hillsong and Planet Shakers because we like them, they are powerful, and they are comfortable. We can go on and on, but I think it is pretty clear to us that worship music is at the forefront of our minds even though we do not discuss often its purpose and effects.
Here are a couple of more questions...Is worship preoccupying our focus? Are we too concerned with professionalism or musicianship? Are we becoming dependent on the worship portions of services? These mainly apply to more contemporary services, though the level of comfort and refusal for traditionalists to evolve certain works in this discussion, just maybe a little differently. (First off, I am not and will not be saying that worship is not important; this is to get us talking and thinking about how we utilize something which is important). Author Gabe Lyons suggests in his book The Next Christians: The Good News About the End of Christian America that our churches today have gotten preoccupied by a number of things, taking our focus off the true message of the Gospel, namely restoration (in place of a footnote: definitely read this work; it is incredibly insightful and accepted by great people of faith including Billy Graham; it is also much more than I am referencing here). We make sure there is a good set list, but forget or neglect working with the poor in our community or training our members how to think and work out their salvation (Philippians 2:12). Some may say "well, we are worshiping God so it's not like He is mad at us." To that I say we know that worship is not all music and that the Gospel does not command us to play with great pomp and style, or to sing with many harmonies and display lyrics on state of the art screens with crazy, psychedelic graphics. Again, this is more typical of charismatic, youthful churches. In no way should we devalue worship, but perhaps get back to Matt Redman's "Heart of Worship" where we discipline ourselves to remember it is about God and being about His Gospel of goodness, justice, salvation, and restoration.
So what then do we do if we concede to the point that worship is preoccupying our focus negatively in many of our churches? Let's look at what I am calling the "How He Loves Us" (by John Mark McMillan) conundrum. This song became the Christian anthem for the last couple of years as the Holy Spirit really moved in many people's lives. Truly people were touched by being able to sing and shout the truth that God actually loves us. John Mark's lyrics hit an emotional and spiritual trigger with his imagery and vulnerability that people just grasped a hold of and refused to let go. How amazing it is that one song has had such an influence on so many. Not only did the song get picked up by David Crowder and Bethel, but it crossed cultural bounds to be sung in everything from the Southern Baptist churches to the Pentecostal services to the AME churches known for very emotional and impactful services. Is there an issue with all this? Not with the effect, but I suggest there is when you think about worship overall. Why did our experience evolve around one song then die with it too? Clearly the song is overplayed today in our churches and I really think it is because we have lacked music to take us further. Thus we hang on to a song and justify that by saying "well, it is just such a good, honest song that it does not need replacing." I am a firm believer in singing to the Lord a new song (Psalm 96:1 and Isaiah 42) yet we struggle to do so regularly. Some oldies are great and don't need to be shunned, but overall there is a principle in those verses, namely keep moving forward. Keep developing your abilities to express your love, anguish, gratitude, etc. to God. Keep opening and expanding your mind toward an infinite God.
John Mark McMillan talks about writing for the local church (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsGmGIkdKSw). Originally he did not start writing songs with the thought in mind that they would be sung in a corporate setting. He describes how he searched for a language to express what he wants to say to God or about what is going on in his life. Personally I think that is profound- we are to search, yes SEARCH, for language to express what we want to say. John Mark says in another interview that in Charlotte they have developed a culture of writing for the local church. His task at his first church when he began leading worship was to write and sing all original stuff for the church body there. He was not allowed, in a sense, to sing Tomlin's stuff, or Bethel's stuff. And guess what...Charlotte has been on fire with worship because they have created and honed a culture that sees worship in light of the Gospel. They write and sing based off collective experience and what God is doing there locally and use it to create a culture which draws in the community resulting in restoration. I strongly believe this should be the example for the church in America. Praise God we can sing others' songs and grow from that! But! We should move towards writing for our local church, focusing on how worship with music is to extend the Gospel.
There are many different styles in worship and I am thankful, in spite of me liking them or not, for the Phil Wickhams, Kari Jobes, and Matt Mahers. They really help lead the charge. However we should not use their gifts as crutches for ourselves. Instead we must take the high road, cultivate our musicians, treat them well, perhaps pay a worship leader and be clear on the goals you (the Pastor) have set. We established that music is a key part of church life and that we really are attracted by it, deterred, or put up with it. We know too that musical worship is very Biblical. How so? Well one of our most read and quoted scriptures are the Psalms. (This can lead to whole other topics on poetry, art, expression, and language, but we definitely won't try to dive into any of that here). There are also tons of examples throughout the Old Testament, one being King David dancing in worship down to his underwear (2 Samuel 6:14), and Paul's exhortation to the Ephesians (chapter 5) to sing to one another hymns and speak psalms together for encouragement. So we know it is important. Paul in his letters tells us these things in light of the Gospel though. We do these things to encourage one another, live in peace with our brothers, and share Christ with our neighbors. If that is not happening, then we have an issue.
That's it for this blog. I can see it is kind of long and it is just the first part of what has been going on upstairs in my head. Let me know your thoughts. I would like to hear your answers to some of the questions posed and here any challenges you have. This is also a link to an interesting article you may like to read which talks about the "Death of Praise and Worship": http://samnunnally.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/the-death-of-praise-and-worship/. It is very intriguing and raises many good points. I do not agree with all of it, especially some of the conclusions, but it is a good article.
The next post will get into the campus ministry worship. This post leads us to it. At the time I have received some input from some college students and will be waiting to see these comments as well. Thanks a ton! God bless you!
~Alex
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