Michael Spencer, who is a Protestant but blogs under the name The Internet Monk, wrote an excellent piece on worship a few days ago. I will print some of the highlights here followed by a few personal comments. If you want to see the entire article and read the comments on his blog (of which there are 173 at the moment) go here.
Here are the highlights:
- We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what a worship service is. 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 is on the verge of becoming a museum piece.
- 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.
- Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play.
- Even singing is getting lost in this. As the volume and the performance level goes up, who knows who is singing?
- 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.
_____________________________
There are a number of things I want to comment on here, and I make these comments as a musician and Pastor of Worship who is training people to be part of, as Spencer calls it, “a kickin’ band”. But I am also one who believes that music is only a small part of worship which, although powerful, cannot be allowed to become what is seen as the only form of worship. I explored that idea a while ago in a post call “What Is Worship?”
1. Spencer claims that singing is getting lost in all this. I agree. I have noticed this in my own church, having grown up there and now returning to it as a pastor, the singing is not as vigorous as it once was. It seems to me that people once sang much louder, that they filled room with song – not with pitch perfect delivery, but with enthusiasm and confidence. Too many people have forgotten how to express themselves in song. People no longer sing because the room is too loud for them to hear themselves or anyone else around them.
2. Some of this is certainly my generation’s fault. In some cases we’ve pushed too hard for modern songs and styles at the expense of the old. We want what the world has: a loud band to perform for us while we consume the experience of their performance. In a lot of cases the older generation, wanting to keep us around, has acquiesced. We, like over ambitious high school athletes, have taken the ball, run past the goal line, and kept right on running right out of the stadium. (Need a visual on that statement? Watch 4:10 to 5:04 of this video) We now have not only modern instrumentation but all the look and feel of a modern rock concert. Like a rock concert, the privileged few create the experience and the rest of us consume.
3. I’m not unhappy at all with having what some oldtimers call “Rock and Roll” in our church. It has a time and place when it is effective – but that time and place is not always and everywhere.
4. I am committed to addressing these issues and as I figure out how to do that I’ll try to keep you posted on this blog.
Recent Reads
Michael Spencer: “The Big Worship Goof”
Here are the highlights:
- We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what a worship service is. 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 is on the verge of becoming a museum piece.
- 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.
- Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play.
- Even singing is getting lost in this. As the volume and the performance level goes up, who knows who is singing?
- 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.
_____________________________
There are a number of things I want to comment on here, and I make these comments as a musician and Pastor of Worship who is training people to be part of, as Spencer calls it, “a kickin’ band”. But I am also one who believes that music is only a small part of worship which, although powerful, cannot be allowed to become what is seen as the only form of worship. I explored that idea a while ago in a post call “What Is Worship?”
1. Spencer claims that singing is getting lost in all this. I agree. I have noticed this in my own church, having grown up there and now returning to it as a pastor, the singing is not as vigorous as it once was. It seems to me that people once sang much louder, that they filled room with song – not with pitch perfect delivery, but with enthusiasm and confidence. Too many people have forgotten how to express themselves in song. People no longer sing because the room is too loud for them to hear themselves or anyone else around them.
2. Some of this is certainly my generation’s fault. In some cases we’ve pushed too hard for modern songs and styles at the expense of the old. We want what the world has: a loud band to perform for us while we consume the experience of their performance. In a lot of cases the older generation, wanting to keep us around, has acquiesced. We, like over ambitious high school athletes, have taken the ball, run past the goal line, and kept right on running right out of the stadium. (Need a visual on that statement? Watch 4:10 to 5:04 of this video) We now have not only modern instrumentation but all the look and feel of a modern rock concert. Like a rock concert, the privileged few create the experience and the rest of us consume.
3. I’m not unhappy at all with having what some oldtimers call “Rock and Roll” in our church. It has a time and place when it is effective – but that time and place is not always and everywhere.
4. I am committed to addressing these issues and as I figure out how to do that I’ll try to keep you posted on this blog.
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Posted in: Church, Jesus, Music, Pastor, Quotes and Comments, Theology, Worship.