Posted on 01/22/2015 5:05:08 AM PST by Gamecock
Missional Meditation
Consider this comment I received on the “Modernized Hymns” post.
"I have tried to avoid God my whole life. I wouldn’t know a traditional hymn from a modernized hymn. I’ve never even stepped foot into a church…until this past Sunday. The people on stage sang a song by David Crowder, and I began to feel the very presence of God. It was like nothing I ever felt before. Tears streamed down my eyes and right then, I bowed down and made a decision to surrender my life to Jesus. I ask you a simple question…wasn’t David Crowder’s song – guitars, modernized lyrics, and all – worth being written and sang that way? - The person next to you in the pew"
This type of appeal is quite common, both on this blog and elsewhere. I’ve heard it as long as I can remember. “We don’t worship like we used to because it doesn’t bring people to Jesus. You want people to come to Jesus, right? RIGHT?!? YOU BETTER WANT PEOPLE TO COME TO JESUS!!”
I heard one pastor say it this way: “When we aren’t willing to change how we worship so that our culture understands it, we’re telling the world it can go to hell.”
Yikes.
To make sure I don’t come across as mean or callous, especially to my evangelical friends and readers, I should explain something.
I do want people to come to Jesus.
But my answer to this commenter is, “No.”
For one thing, music doesn’t bring people to Jesus. Jesus does that work admirably enough through the Holy Spirit, certainly better than a brush with David Crowder’s beard.
But there’s an even deeper flaw in our thinking.
Worship is not an evangelistic tool.
We don’t worship together to attract unbelievers.
We worship together because God is worthy.
We worship together because this gracious God has called us into his story and grafted us together as covenant people.
We worship together because we desperately need to tell and retell and hear and rehear that story.
We worship together to be refocused, reshaped, renewed by God’s gifts. We need liturgy. We need Word and Sacrament.
Homily on Homage
Did you know that we’re supposed to do work in corporate worship?
I didn’t for the longest time either, having grown up in the middle of the church growth movement. As far as I could tell, the point of “worship” was to get as many butts in the seats as possible, mesmerize them with a theatrical production of bright lights and shiny objects. You know, the latest and greatest in Jesusy entertainment. And then, we bait-and-switch them with the gospel at the end.
At some point, we decided that the worship service was the best venue for evangelism. After all, if we can just make things interesting enough, funny enough, dynamic enough, and entertaining enough, we can really pack ‘em in. So, put together a mini-concert, followed by a speaker who knows how to get the crowd energized, mix in a few things about Jesus, and you’re set.
Even our language has changed dramatically, as we’ve learned to borrow more from our entertainment culture. Instead of a Sanctuary, a place of refuge, we have an auditorium. Instead of chancels and platforms, we have stages. We have performers and an audience. Churches are now hiring worship “producers.” Our music is entirely current and commercial.
We couldn’t possibly do anything else. We’d lose too many people.
To make matters worse, we’ve grown to like it ourselves. It’s nice to come to church and be entertained. Throw that liturgy out the window. I don’t want to work, I want to sit here and get fat off the spiritual carbs they put in front of me. And if the production value slips, I can always go down the road and find another fast-food church that fits me just right.
No longer are there opportunities for congregants to participate, other than singing along if they feel like it, as if they were singing “Roll Out the Barrel” at a Milwaukee Brewers’ seventh-inning stretch. We’ve lost the idea that we are gathered there for a sacred task, not in search of a good time.
And it’s cost us dearly. We don’t have the opportunity to be the people of God together anymore, reshaped by God’s gifts and molded by the Christian story.
And in case anyone is wondering, it hasn’t really helped the evangelistic cause in the long run, anyway. It’s still shrinking. See, when you compete with all other forms of entertainment – TV, movies, music, sports – you will lose. Those things are always more entertaining, at least to those who are looking to be entertained.
That doesn’t mean we lock our doors on Sunday morning. To the contrary, and this is the tricky part. Evangelism is always a byproduct of true Christian worship. The problem is that we thought we needed to be marketable to begin with. Along the way, we got caught up in illusions of grandeur, judging our evangelistic worth by the number of people we could squeeze in our buildings.
Cancel the Vaseline and shoehorn.
But the moment we turn from our task at hand to try and capitalize, we fall short again. Stanley Hauerwas says it well: “The difficulty with worship especially shaped to entertain those who are ‘new’ is not that it is entertaining but that the god who is entertained in such worship cannot be the Trinity.”
So back to David Crowder. Whether doing his songs or his hymn arrangements is a good thing, well, that’s up for discussion I suppose. But I don’t think answer can be, “It’s okay, because it brings people to Jesus.”
Hymn of Invitation
So what happens, then, if we don’t craft our worship services to attract unbelievers?
We’ll have to get serious again about Sunday. All of us. And then as the clock strikes noon, we’ll have to go.
Go out and feed the hungry.
Go out and clothe the naked.
Go out and associate with people who don’t look like us, don’t think like us, don’t act like us, don’t vote like us, and don’t usually like us.
Go out and fight for justice.
Go out and end oppression.
Go out and proclaim anew the old, old story.
Go out and reach out to those who are running from God and God’s church.
Go out and stop deflecting tough questions with our usual, tired cliches.
And do all of this in the name of the one who sent us.
And then open the doors wide again on Sunday morning.
Then we’ll actually be the church.
A Redeemed Benediction
I can’t help by think of Fred Pratt Green’s haunting, convicting hymn.
When the church of Jesus shuts its outer door, lest the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer, may our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware that the world we banish is our Christian care.
If our hearts are lifted where devotion soars high above this hungry, suffering world of ours, lest our hymns should drug us to forget its needs, forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds.
Lest the gifts we offer, money, talents, time, serve to salve our conscience, to our secret shame, Lord, reprove, inspire us by the way you give; teach us, dying Savior, how true Christians live.
Forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds. Wow. Let it be so.
I hope not. It's not the style of music that is the problem, it's the content. The best hymns can be described as little sermons. They incorporate scripture directly and contain an orthodox message with a complete thought.
The new contemporary hymns contain a touchy feely message that seems more disconnected from Biblical content than the traditional hymns.
One contemporary song that comes to mind. "I love you Lord and I lift my voice. To worship you, oh my Lord rejoice. Take joy my King in what you hear. Let it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear."
The song has a soothing melody, but only one doctrinal note. The problem may stem from musicians writing the songs rather than theologians.
One of my favorite hymns is "A mighty fortress" by Martin Luther. It's such a great hymn that even the Roman Catholic Church includes this song in their hymnal.
Define “contemporary hymns.”
I love that song...It's more than a song...It's a personal conversation with God...
One of my favorite hymns is "A mighty fortress" by Martin Luther. It's such a great hymn that even the Roman Catholic Church includes this song in their hymnal.
I love that song as well...
Somewhere we got the idea that we need to bring someone to church to "get saved"
BINGO
Why can’t we have both?
**Somewhere we got the idea that we need to bring someone to church to “get saved”**
It’s easy to invite people to church. It’s harder to tell them about Jesus.
I think the issue is the man centered words of "contemporary" songs.. listen to he words..see how many time the word "I" is used..I call it "Jesus is my boyfriend" music.. like the world out side it is "all about ME"
Songs should be Praise and Honor to God.. and there is precious little of that in "contemporary" music
Most of the contemporary music has its basis in the Psalms.
I think there’s a place where people can go to a church service and see that God is really among them (thinking of 1 Corinthians 14) but good music alone, isn’t it.
For the record, while I like a lot of contemporary Christian music, I simply have no use for what passes as *worship* in most churches.
I am not interested in a rock band type concert on a Sunday morning that blasts my eardrums so that I leave church with my ears ringing. And the performance of the *worship leaders* on the platform is something else I don’t even want to get started on.
WAY too much self in it.
...
But the heart of the regulative principle is not about restriction. It is about freedom.
1. Freedom from cultural captivity. When corporate worship is largely left to our own designs we quickly find ourselves scrambling to keep up with the latest trends. The most important qualities become creativity, relevance, and newness. But of course, over time (not much time these days), what was fresh grows stale. We have to retool in order to capture the next demographic. Or learn to be content with settling in as a Boomer church or Gen X church.
2. Freedom from constant battles over preferences....
3. Freedom of conscience. ...
...
Most of the contemporary music has its basis in the Psalms.
Some is, yes. But I've yet to hear anything imprecatory in contemporary Christian music.
Aaand, I think I'll drop this right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZQlmvtZ7E. (I come back to this now and again. It's beautiful. "With sighs and groans...")
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