Categories
Megachurches Worship

FAQ about Worship: Seekers, Emotions, and Me-Songs

Some students at Taylor University, where I taught the last two years, have asked me eight questions about worship.  Their questions touch on a number of issues related to contemporary worship but also worship in general.  Here are my responses. 

  • #1: What is your definition of worship?
    • It is not really a definition but I like 1 Corinthians 14:15 (TNIV)
      "So what shall I do? I
      will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I
      will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding."

      Paul here is arguing that there should be an affective (emotional, hearty,
      tongues) part of worship but also a part that is cognitive
      (intellectual, heady, prophecy).  He actually thinks that tongues are a
      good thing but if you do focus too much on emotional stuff in worship that only
      resonates with you (uninterrupted tongues) than a lot of other people
      will be annoyed and not edified (built up). 
    • I think Communion/Lord’s Supper/Eucharist is probably the best example of what worship is.  It is centered on
      Christ, communal, symbolic, looks forward to him coming again, tangible
      (you eat and drink something), involves prayer, and singing (in the
      gospel accounts), remembers back, and builds on the Old Testament
      (Passover).  You can’t go wrong with this as a starting point.
      Catholics and Anglicans/Episcopalians center their worship around the
      Eucharist for this reason.  Jesus told people to celebrate it in the gospels and
      then we see people doing it (Paul in 1 Cor 11). 
    • With regard to definition: one Hebrew word means work/worship; a Greek word means bow. 
    • Declaring to God what he’s worth (worth-ship = worship). 
    • The chief end of human beings is to worship God and enjoy him forever (Westminster Catechism). 
    • People often look at Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4-5 as other paradigm examples on which to build your theology of worship.   
  •     #2: How do you wrestle with the "me" focus and making a meaningful response to God?
    • Some people go crazy turning "me" songs into "we"
      songs but I think this is too simplistic.  Even if we are a community,
      we are still a community of individuals, right?  Also, the Psalms have
      lots of first person singular language (me, I) and they were used in
      the temple and then in the church (John Calvin especially) as the
      corporate prayerbook.  Monks have prayed the
      whole Psalter (all 150) every week.   However, those who think that they would be
      better off worshipping by themselves on a mountain top rather than joining a
      community, have missed Christianity.  But again, there is a place for
      personal retreats.  The thing to emphasize is that we become part of
      the people of God when we become Christians.  Becoming a Christian is
      not just fire insurance for when you die someday, then you can go to
      heaven.  Yes, it is that but it is about being part of a community of
      disciples of Jesus who God has called to be his ambassadors here on
      earth and that we embody the kingdom of God already but not yet fully.
  •     #3: How do you choose worship music? Are there certain themes that you look for? Does that change depending on environment?
    • By
      the way, these are excellent questions.  Yes, choosing worship music.
      I have a blog post about some of the practical ways we tried to plan
      worship at the church.  I
      would recommend reading that.  It is very practical. 

      How to plan and lead worship

    • Does
      it change depending on the environment?  Yes.  I think as worship
      leaders we should think of ourselves as missionaries or educators.
      (Here is where your Christian Educational Ministries classes might help.  We need to know our audience /
      students, etc. and help them to praise the Lord.  We need to speak
      their language and begin where they are at.  As Thomas Groome, in Shared Christian Praxis would
      say, we need to bring people from where they are at (their "present
      action" = Movement 1) to reflecting on that (Movement 2 = Confession) to God (Movement
      3) to action (Movements 4-5).  In order to do that, we need to know the
      people.  For many years before Vatican II in the 1950’s, all Roman
      Catholic worship services or "mass" as they call it, were in Latin.
      But most people couldn’t understand it.  They decided at Vatican II (a
      big conference of Catholics) to let the mass be done in people’s
      everyday languages!  Similarly, I think we should lead
      worship in a way that "speaks the language" of teenage African American
      kids (hip-hop) or whatever language the group understands.  This is
      what a good missionary does and what a good educator does.   
  •    #4: How do you react to the statement "One cannot sing praise songs
    without noticing how first person pronouns tend to eclipse every other subject?"
    • I
      think the person who is saying it (I don’t know who but I know the
      type) wants to beware of narcissistic (self-centered) tendencies.  They
      want to correct the excesses of consumer culture which says everything
      only has value in what it can do for me.   But I think they are reacting
      in the wrong sort of way.  Like I said above, the Psalms are often
      first person singular.  We/us songs can be just as vacuous (shallow) as
      I/me songs.   I would be sympathetic to the person’s concerns in that
      we want people to focus on God, not themselves, but the pronouns I and
      me are just part of the way we speak and are not inherently bad. 
      Again, I would want to sympathize with the person making the criticism
      that Christianity is more than just praying a prayer to go to heaven.
      It is not just individualistic one-time thing that excludes ethical
      commitments, commitments to Christian friendships/community/church/accountability/critique.
      Again, the danger of the individualistic thing (me and my Bible on a
      mountaintop  – I don’t need anyone else ever in my life) is not
      generally the problem with people who are passionate about contemporary
      worship in my opinion.  But there may be exceptions.  I see the
      Vineyard, Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin worship folks as quite committed to
      Christian community despite some of their I/me songs. 
  •    #5: How does the corporate worship that occurs on Sunday morning
    differ from the corporate worship of chapel or other Christian formation experiences throughout the week?
    • Again,
      excellent question.  I think it makes sense to worship with those who are your primary
      community.  I think it makes sense that those who hold you accountable
      (those who would call you on sin in your life) that those people are
      the people you worship with.  Thus, I think there is some rationale for
      chapel at a Christian college or even worship in a small group. 
    • There is some reason by Christian tradition to worship
      on Sunday (the Lord’s day) but I don’t think this is crucial.  I think
      Sat night services (or any other day) is fine!  Additionally, I think
      that Sunday worship in a church may offer some things you don’t get in
      chapel and dorm floor prayer and praise.  For example,
      intergenerational relationships (we can learn from older people and
      from kids); stability (it is not an entirely new group of people every
      four years); and locality (ministry to people locally).   Again, I
      think there is great value in extended evenings of singing (it teaches
      musicians new music, people learn to sing better, it is good to
      refocus, etc.) but just a worship night and never being part of a
      community would be a deficient Christianity (need discipleship,
      evangelism, ministry to the poor, and community care). 
  •     #6: What can seekers gain from worshiping?
    • See 1 Corinthians 14:23-25 (TNIV). 
      23 So if the whole church
      comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or
      unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? 24
      But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is
      prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment
      by all, 25 as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!"
    • What
      Paul is saying here is that worship should be comprehensible to
      non-Christians.  That does not mean it should be watered down.  Paul is
      simply saying that new people will probably attend every worship
      service and the basics of the service should be fairly understandable
      to them.  If everyone in the room is speaking in tongues, than the new
      person would understandably be confused.  Paul thinks that it is
      possible that the observer will be moved by what he or she sees when
      they observe Christians in worship when the service is intelligible.
      Now there is a wide range of applications of this that I think are
      legitimate.  A Roman Catholic feels they have made it understandable
      enough by having the liturgy in the hymnal and in the common language.
      Andy Stanley / Willow Creek / and Granger Community Church (Granger,
      IN) would say these verses are their primary purpose.  Their primary
      goal is to inspire and intrigue seekers to come back and to say, "God
      is really among you!"  In order to do that, they meticulously plan
      their worship services to praise God and tell about his truth but doing
      so in a way that the average non-Christian in their community would
      understand.  They try to rid their services of extraneous theological
      jargon while still conveying accurately the truths about God.   Some
      would say that this is putting the cart before the horse or having the
      tail wag the dog, "Why would you let non-Christians decide what
      Christian worship is?  Worship is for Christians!"  But the seeker
      driven people would respond, "But aren’t we supposed to be ‘the one
      organization that exists for non-members’ (William Temple)?  Isn’t the
      point to ‘make disciples’ (Matt 28:18-20 Great Commission)?"  I would
      urge the seeker-driven church proponent people to make sure they are
      not just reaching people where they are at but also helping them
      develop into sacrificial close imitators of Jesus.  I would urge the
      worship purists to make sure they have other ways of reaching
      non-Christians for Christ (such as the Alpha course or vibrant personal
      evangelism).  I think either approach can be legitimate. 
  •     #7: What kind of music we should sing, particularly in regards to worship music?
    • There
      was a time that drums were seen as the music of the devil.  But people
      responded by saying, "Martin Luther put hymns to bar tunes" and
      redeemed that musical genre.  (I’m not sure if that Luther thing is
      actually true.  Perhaps it is.  People repeat it a lot though).  I
      think it is conceivable that some music in itself is incompatible with
      Christian worship.  I think of shrieking heavy metal where the words
      are incomprehensible.  I think this is comparable to the discussion by
      Paul in 1 Cor 12-14 about tongues.  That just because it moves you
      emotionally and it is done with a Christian motivation, doesn’t mean it
      is appropriate for Christian worship.  But maybe those people who
      shriek the 23rd Psalm can do it by themselves or with a small group of
      people who appreciate that in a setting outside of corporate worship.
      They should still be going to a church service where there is in Paul’s
      words "intelligible" content to the worship services.   
  •     #8: What part do you think that traditional worship should play in corporate worship?
    • Again,
      as an educator or missionary, you are trying to help the whole audience
      understand the message.  Thus, I think if you have lots of older people
      who have difficulty comprehending the words and singing contemporary
      worship, then it is your job to help them do so or to incorporate
      aspects of worship that they do understand (like hymns).  This is what
      we did in our church as you can see from the worship guidelines I
      mention above in number 3.   However, I would also try to make the case
      to the older people that "the church is an organization that exists for
      the purpose of its non-members" and thus we need to continue to pursue
      methods that make it more likely that when "inquirers or
      unbelievers come in" (1 Cor 14:23) and young people come in, "they will
      fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’" (1
      Cor 14:25) because the service is designed to be intelligible (1 Cor
      12-14) to them. 
    Categories
    Ecclesiology Megachurches

    Small church vs. large church

    On Out of Ur, the Leadership journal blog, the latest post is about two nonChristians who have been attending churches in Toronto.  The post is called: "Razzmatazz or Ragamuffins? Two non-Christians paid to visit churches are impressed with charity not facilities."

    They were turned off by the megachurches they visited but were moved by the devotion to Jesus by a small church that served the homeless.  I posted the following comment. 

    This post is exactly right to point out that churches without flash and pizzazz can still definitely show people who Jesus is.  Small churches do not have the resources to put on a fancy Sunday morning show.  They should be who they are – equipping their people to serve and showing the community Jesus by serving them.  Many, who are not attracted to the slick production, will be attracted by them. 

    But I do question the implication that the majority of young people and unchristian people are not attracted to quality Sunday morning programming.  I do not think we can make that conclusion based on the opinions of these 2 college students.       

    My experience is that more young adults and nonchristians are attracted to megachurches and cool emerging churches than poor social justice churches.  But I would be thrilled to be wrong.

    The sample size of two is inconclusive.  Are there statistics about how many people are coming to Christ in megachurches vs. small-churches that are more oriented toward social justice?  There are many sociologists people out there doing research on this kind of thing: Gallup, Barna, Christian Smith, Christian Schwarz (Natural Church Development), Lilly Endowment, Baylor survey, denominational stats, and the Alban Institute.

    There is still a place I think for quality Sunday morning programming (welcoming, music,  and preaching) for the purpose of drawing in new people and equipping the Christians.  And yet it is easy to spend all of a church's resources on the Sunday morning show.

    May the Spirit of God give us eyes to see what he is doing through the variety of church forms.

     
    Further thoughts:

    I want to affirm small churches and churches that care for the poor.  I also want large churches to appreciate these small churches.  Posts like this one on Out of Ur serve to do that.  That is good. 

    But it also bothers me when churches don't at least try to have quality Sunday morning programming.  (The end results will vary depending on the size of the church.  A church of 500 can do more than a church of 30 in terms of quality programming). 

    This probably bothers me because this is one of my strengths – organizing people into a team to improve Sunday morning programming.  (See my post "How to plan and lead worship.") I just don't want churches to get complacent thinking that the quality of the Sunday morning programming is irrelevant to their outreach to young adults and nonChristians.  I think the seeker folks (like Granger Community Church and Willowcreek Community Church) are right to urge churches to welcome people well, clearly explain the elements of the service to them, and try to relate the eternal truths of Scripture to the world of today. 
     

    Categories
    Megachurches

    Spoof on Consumer-driven Church

    This video called Me Church has been on YouTube since December 2005 but it is still worth sharing because it is not offensive and it is funny. 

    It is 1 minute 22 seconds long but you will have an hour’s worth of a smile.  It is a commercial for a church called "Me Church" that is all about you.  It is light-hearted and fun.

    For those of you who are quick to throw stones at megachurches who try to meet "felt needs," you should know that one of Andy Stanley’s Seven Practices of Effective Ministry is "Narrow the Focus: Do fewer things in order to make a greater impact."  As they get large, many of these megachurch leaders see clearly the absurdity of trying adjust their ministry approach to the needs of complainers. 

    To some people it seems that Stanley almost disregards the needs of people because of his narrow focus.  No, this need to please people and meet their every need transcends denominations, sizes and styles. 

    What needs are legitimate and need to be addressed by the compassionate, justice-seeking church and which are driven by our consumeristic culture?  That ladies and gentlemen is the question. 

    For more humor, see my post about Purgatorio.