God is Less this...
And More This: 
Posted on 06/11/2012 6:32:24 AM PDT by marshmallow
We're all adolescents now.
The house lights go down. Spinning, multicolored lights sweep the auditorium. A rock band launches into a rousing opening song. "Ignore everyone else, this time is just about you and Jesus," proclaims the lead singer. The music changes to a slow dance tune, and the people sing about falling in love with Jesus. A guitarist sporting skinny jeans and a soul patch closes the worship set with a prayer, beginning, "Hey God …" The spotlight then falls on the speaker, who tells entertaining stories, cracks a few jokes, and assures everyone that "God is not mad at you. He loves you unconditionally."
After worship, some members of the church sign up for the next mission trip, while others decide to join a small group where they can receive support on their faith journey. If you ask the people here why they go to church or what they value about their faith, they'll say something like, "Having faith helps me deal with my problems."
Fifty or sixty years ago, these now-commonplace elements of American church life were regularly found in youth groups but rarely in worship services and adult activities. What happened? Beginning in the 1930s and '40s, Christian teenagers and youth leaders staged a quiet revolution in American church life that led to what can properly be called the juvenilization of American Christianity. Juvenilization is the process by which the religious beliefs, practices, and developmental characteristics of adolescents become accepted as appropriate for adults. It began with the praiseworthy goal of adapting the faith to appeal to the young, which in fact revitalized American Christianity. But it has sometimes ended with both youth and adults embracing immature versions of the faith. In any case, white evangelicals led the way.
Saving the World
Juvenilization happened when no one....
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
The thing that I feel is a wrong assumption is loud music with lights etc = no Biblically sound. While the organ and piano = Biblically sound and doing it right. None of which is true. I know churches from both sides that are not Biblically sound, and some that are Biblically sound.
I would think that it depends on the heart of the person. Are they just trying to be cool? Are they sincerely trying to preach the message of salvation to the lost? “There is a way that seems right”......”and narrow is the way”......sadly, while we want all to be with God, many will not find the way......
What happens is one church does something and then it’s a rage, or a cultural happening.
I haven’t thought about what our worship services will be like after the return and the Warrior King is on the throne after taking out all his enemies and the angels are visible plus all those who are resurrected. Talk about patriot music! Probably will be all the prophecies fulfilled and the Psalms! We’ll get to hear the music from when Jesus was a boy!
Personally, i would like to hear all kinds of music, from a full orchestra to Kentucky mountain music.
As long as it teaches and isn’t too repetitious (I end up humming the Doxology or something else) I’m okay. I can read so I love my hymnal.
If I don’t learn anything in church, I am not being fed.
If Christians ever realize who the REAL enemy is and start opposing him instead of each other, we will start having more influence on the world. Even Christ was opposed because He dared do things with which the religious elite didn’t agree.
“What about using your talents for Christ?”
Cain thought he was using his talents for Christ, too.
Going all the way back to the beginning of human history, man has struggled with worship. And going all the way back to the beginning of human history, Scripture tells us that God cares a great deal about the manner in which we worship. And we know the God of the Bible does not change.
I won’t tell you I know how we are to worship for I’ve struggled with this issue myself. However, I am certain much of what passes for worship in our day is repugnant in the sight of God. It’s irreverant and little different from secular entertainments. I think we should ask the following of anything we do in the name of worship: Is it in accordance with the Scriptures? Is it for His glory or does it please the flesh?
Our general lack of knowledge of Scripture is the hub of the matter. Over the past few generations we’ve had tremendous doctrinal erosion and worship has deteriorated right along with it.
The God I read of in Scripture is sovereign, mighty, and HOLY HOLY HOLY. In our day He’s too often profaned and treated with flippancy and triviality. Compare the manner moderns treat the Lord with the Prophet Isaiah who saw the Lord sitting on His throne and said, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
Cain did his worship for selfish motives. Hence why it wasn’t accepted. His focus wasn’t in the right place. Which is what I”m referring to. If an organists focus isn’t in the right place, it’s still as much as a diservice to God as an electric guitarists focus being in the wrong. I mean, music evolves. Wasn’t hymn music developed from Bar-room music?
Eph 4:12 Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ.
Eph 4:13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. .
We had a new pastor at church and my men's group told me how the prior Sunday eve, the pastor dressed up Doris Day and sung a song. Some of the men asserted they did not get up on stage with him. One thought nothing of it that the pastor had asked to borrow his wife's shoes.
I emailed the pastor and asked if he had really dressed in drag and how that honored God. After much pressing in, the response I got was “fellowship”, that was truly the purpose and goal of the church in his mind.
The most amazing part of this is that no other man stood up to this. If men in a local church won't stand up to this, what will they stand up to? The answer is very scary.
That’s where people need to make sure it’s Biblical. There is nothing in the Bible about using an electric guitar compared to an organ (as long as your hearts in the right place). But there is stuff about gender identification.
Blessings.
Probably thinks that once people abandoned the beauty of the Gregorian chant, everything went down hill.
NO, NO, NO!!! :) This is an urban legend that started because someone didn't know anything about musical notation and made an incorrect assumption, probably in trying to prove a false point. Bar music is actually a form of music notation and not a reference to "tavern". Click here for an article debunking that hoax.
Cain’s sacrifice wasn’t accepted for the same reason our “good works” aren’t accepted. His motives and focus were only part of the problem. Even if he had pure motives and his total focus had been on God, His sacrifice would not have been acceptable.
I said nothing about the style of music. I’m more concerned with tone and content than instrumentation. There’s nothing in Scripture about organs and pianos. I think most belivers know when something glorifies Christ and when it doesn’t.
Think of Aaron’s sons Nadad and Abihu. They were cut down for offering “strange fire” before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.’”
In the end worship isn’t about what we like. It must be about what He wants and likes.
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23)
“The thing that I feel is a wrong assumption is loud music with lights etc = no Biblically sound. While the organ and piano = Biblically sound and doing it right. None of which is true. I know churches from both sides that are not Biblically sound, and some that are Biblically sound.”
You forgot the Church of Christ, which forbids instruments in worship “because they’re never mentioned in the New Testament”. That’s one of the things that drove Max Lucado’s Oak Hills Church to drop “of Christ” and its affilition.
I’m going out on a limb source-wise, but I think John Wesley said, “In the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, freedom; in all things, love”.
Ok. Thanks for the correction. Apologies for being mistaken.
I was just trying to make the point that music changes throughout history. In Bible times David used his harp. Churches used organ then. Then piano. Then acoustic guitar. Now electric guitar. Are people not supposed to use microphones with reverb b/c that wasn’t a Biblical thing and alters the voice? Same as distortion with a guitar.
“I am certain much of what passes for worship in our day is repugnant in the sight of God. It’s irreverant and little different from secular entertainments. I think we should ask the following of anything we do in the name of worship: Is it in accordance with the Scriptures? Is it for His glory or does it please the flesh?”
I think we have to be careful about distinguishing between content and vehicle: the vast majority of the praise tunes that are sung in contemporary churches are either direct Scripture or paraphrases of Scripture. Paul says to use “hymns, psalms and spiritual songs”, he says nothing about tempo or instrumentation.
God is Less this...
And More This:
[ I was just trying to make the point that music changes throughout history. In Bible times David used his harp. Churches used organ then. Then piano. Then acoustic guitar. Now electric guitar. Are people not supposed to use microphones with reverb b/c that wasn’t a Biblical thing and alters the voice? Same as distortion with a guitar. ]
Actually instead of liberal sounding hippie jesus music if you wanted music to go with the Old Testament it would be “Heavy Metal Rock” as times in the Old Testament era were “Brutal”. Even the New testament would be Hard Rock as well, not the metrosexual tones of “Christian Rock”.
Ugh!!! Pardon my typos. I’m trying to do too many things at once.
I like all types of christian music. Hard screamo music, or flowing melodic music (I disagree with calling it hippy music, but whatever). It’s all about the musicians focus and mindset.
Were I put in charge of revising the Methodist hymnal, I would throw out everything written after 1939 and replace them with hymns by great postbellum Methodist hymn writers such as Lelia Morris, William Kirkpatrick, Charles Gabriel, George McGranahan and Daniel W. Whittle, which have been largely forgotten.
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