We Need Salvation, Does our Worship?
The first part of the title of this should be well-understood for any Christian. Humanity is deeply stained with sin and apart from the grace of God we are lost. We need to be saved from the penalty of our sin, from the personal guilt that accompanies it, and ultimately from the very presence of sin. Whether Reformed, Lutheran, Baptist, Wesleyan, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Pentecostal in leaning, all branches of the larger church understand the human need for salvation.
I'm coming to the end of a four week sabbatical and as part of this have been visiting other churches, mostly incognito. This meant going where I can just be an average worshiper, not ordained minister with seminary sheepskin on the wall. It meant going where I would not be known by the pastor there or by congregants. This exercise has lead me to think about Christian worship pretty seriously.
In my opinion much Christian worship needs salvation, perhaps not from sin as such, but it needs to be rescued or at least reformed and reshaped. This is not so much about the traditional vs. contemporary "worship wars" that ravaged the Protestant landscape 15 to 20 years ago. It's not a complaint against contemporary Christian music as such, since some of the issues I will address in this post and in the one that follows can be present in any style of worship or music. However, the basic nature of the way contemporary music is sometimes done, it can lead to some serious issues regarding worship. I like good worship- whether traditional, contemporary, taize, etc or a combination. My own church uses two different styles. I am not not writing merely to critique "contemporary" music/worship. Though much of it does leave lots of room for complaint, there is also some that is remarkably good. What it is about is the very definition of worship. What constitutes worship?
Several times in the car recently I've heard Christian radio stations describe upcoming concerts in the area- "The Newsboys" and Laura Story to be specific- as being "a great night of worship." I'm not being critical of these artists because I really like listening to both, but am making the point that a concert is not worship. Worship is participatory- in the Old Testament worship involved bringing of the tithe and bringing sacrifices to the temple, it involved singing Psalms, as well as teaching from the Torah or Prophets by an educated rabbi. The New Testament church sang Psalms and "spiritual songs," as well as had reading and proclamation of scripture. One of the great advances of the Reformation is that it returned worship to the people. Prior to the Reformation, music was done by professionals and done in a largely unknown tongue (Latin), in fact the sermon and liturgy were in this same largely unknown tongue, with the result that the congregants were nearly totally passive observers of a show that was being done for them. The Protestant Reformation brought with it great shift in worship. As is well known it brought the scriptures and liturgy to congregants in their own tongue making it accessible. It also included a virtual revolution in hymnody and congregational song (Martin Luther himself was a great hymn writer in his own right.) The danger in some of our services isn't so much the music as it is the service itself, which can become too much performance and not enough participation.
One service I attended had no congregational singing at all. The words to the songs were projected onto screens so people could sing. The problem was that they didn't. As far as I could see looking around, everyone stood, but no one actually sang. The service itself was a short concert followed by a sermon, and in this case the sermon was live-streamed from another location. I would argue that this does not constitute worship at all. The band was good, great stage lighting, the sound quality was top notch. The problem was that like the pre-Reformation church, it left no room for the congregation. A really good band did a concert, but the congregants were only spectators to it. The entire atmosphere (style of the band, volume, lighting) produced good music but no worship. In a service where I as a congregant have no more involvement other than putting a check into the plate or bucket that is passed around, am I actually worshipping God? I contribute no more to the service than would if I attended a Casting Crowns concert or a performance of Handel's Messiah. Depending on one's preference either might be moving and powerful, but neither would be worship.
In a next installment I will delve a little deeper into this topic. What is the church to do in worship? What constitutes good worship? What is good church music? How are we to evaluate church worship?
I'm coming to the end of a four week sabbatical and as part of this have been visiting other churches, mostly incognito. This meant going where I can just be an average worshiper, not ordained minister with seminary sheepskin on the wall. It meant going where I would not be known by the pastor there or by congregants. This exercise has lead me to think about Christian worship pretty seriously.
In my opinion much Christian worship needs salvation, perhaps not from sin as such, but it needs to be rescued or at least reformed and reshaped. This is not so much about the traditional vs. contemporary "worship wars" that ravaged the Protestant landscape 15 to 20 years ago. It's not a complaint against contemporary Christian music as such, since some of the issues I will address in this post and in the one that follows can be present in any style of worship or music. However, the basic nature of the way contemporary music is sometimes done, it can lead to some serious issues regarding worship. I like good worship- whether traditional, contemporary, taize, etc or a combination. My own church uses two different styles. I am not not writing merely to critique "contemporary" music/worship. Though much of it does leave lots of room for complaint, there is also some that is remarkably good. What it is about is the very definition of worship. What constitutes worship?
Several times in the car recently I've heard Christian radio stations describe upcoming concerts in the area- "The Newsboys" and Laura Story to be specific- as being "a great night of worship." I'm not being critical of these artists because I really like listening to both, but am making the point that a concert is not worship. Worship is participatory- in the Old Testament worship involved bringing of the tithe and bringing sacrifices to the temple, it involved singing Psalms, as well as teaching from the Torah or Prophets by an educated rabbi. The New Testament church sang Psalms and "spiritual songs," as well as had reading and proclamation of scripture. One of the great advances of the Reformation is that it returned worship to the people. Prior to the Reformation, music was done by professionals and done in a largely unknown tongue (Latin), in fact the sermon and liturgy were in this same largely unknown tongue, with the result that the congregants were nearly totally passive observers of a show that was being done for them. The Protestant Reformation brought with it great shift in worship. As is well known it brought the scriptures and liturgy to congregants in their own tongue making it accessible. It also included a virtual revolution in hymnody and congregational song (Martin Luther himself was a great hymn writer in his own right.) The danger in some of our services isn't so much the music as it is the service itself, which can become too much performance and not enough participation.
One service I attended had no congregational singing at all. The words to the songs were projected onto screens so people could sing. The problem was that they didn't. As far as I could see looking around, everyone stood, but no one actually sang. The service itself was a short concert followed by a sermon, and in this case the sermon was live-streamed from another location. I would argue that this does not constitute worship at all. The band was good, great stage lighting, the sound quality was top notch. The problem was that like the pre-Reformation church, it left no room for the congregation. A really good band did a concert, but the congregants were only spectators to it. The entire atmosphere (style of the band, volume, lighting) produced good music but no worship. In a service where I as a congregant have no more involvement other than putting a check into the plate or bucket that is passed around, am I actually worshipping God? I contribute no more to the service than would if I attended a Casting Crowns concert or a performance of Handel's Messiah. Depending on one's preference either might be moving and powerful, but neither would be worship.
In a next installment I will delve a little deeper into this topic. What is the church to do in worship? What constitutes good worship? What is good church music? How are we to evaluate church worship?
Comments
Post a Comment