Eclectic Christian

I must admit that I have had limited exposure to liturgical worship. What I have seen I appreciate. These days the only exposure I tend to get to it is through the occasional visit to my sister-in-law’s church. Admittedly, her church does liturgy well. She is part of a very excellent church choir which has been selected to sing (check out the practice video) at both St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. So when I say I have an appreciation for liturgical worship, it is in the context of what I expect from all musical styles of worship that it be done with the pursuit of excellence.

My sister-in-law has had exposure to both evangelical and liturgical traditions, but has come to appreciate more the style of worship in a liturgical tradition. In many ways I think that her thoughts would echo those of Michael Spencer, who wrote some time ago that:

One of my favorite times in the worship service is the congregational confession. Standing together, saying in unity the words that agree we are all failures and all in need of grace, I really feel at home. It’s the same with the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, questions from the catechisms and our weekly responsive Psalms. Together, as one body, no one showing off, we confess our sins, announce our faith and talk to God in the words He has given us.

Michael Spencer, like myself, was very influenced by the writings of Robert Webber. I would encourage you to read about his introduction to liturgical worship through Robert Webber. Much of what he writes I would want to echo. After reading, please come back here and answer these questions for me: Does what Michael Spencer wrote resonate with you. If no, then why not? If yes, then what do you think would be the best ways to introduce liturgical elements into our contemporary services?

Recently, I have read quite a lot about contemporary versus traditional music used in churches. I think its time we took a step back and looked at our own heart attitude. When we let ourselves get all worked up about what type of music is played on a given Sunday, we lose our ability to worship. Worship is not about a particular style of music it is about our response to God.

God desires for us to be honestly seeking him, to be honestly responding to what he has done for us, and to love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. This is what true worship looks like. If the music helps us to respond in this way, great! If not, we still have the responsibility of giving God the honor he is due.

I particularly liked what Tyler had to write about the topic:

Often times we call music in church, worship. We have a genre of Christian music called worship. We call Sunday morning a worship service, and we have worship pastors. The list could go on.

When I think about music in church I almost automatically get caught up in musical style and the current really awesome “worship” song. The problem is that when worship becomes about those things, I don’t think it’s worship…it’s just music.

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Todd C. wrote what I feel is a very interesting comment to a blog post about the slow death of congregational singing. It is a problem that needs to be addressed.

I had commented that I have found over and over again that if you sing two songs in a service that the congregation is unfamiliar with you will lose most congregations. They will tend to switch off and not participate in the rest of the service. I also noted that you have to be very careful and intentional as to how you introduce songs. I think that many of us worship leaders need to take our big worship binders with the hundreds of songs we know, and say, OK, here are the songs that we are no longer going to sing, and reduce our existing repertoire to maybe 75 songs.

Todd’s response took a slightly different tack but one that is worth reading.

Musical language and expression in worship is undoubtedly changing stylistically from one generation to the next, but this isn’t a large problem. True, the rhythms and arrangements of contemporary music are very different from traditional hymns. True, newer songs are more relationship based and less theological, and tend to be more about experiencing God than about knowing facts about Him. It is certainly true that there are next to none which have stood the test of time of so many of the greatest hymns.

It is true that few of the younger generation entering the church doors are familiar with traditional hymn arrangement, and the ability to sing four part harmony is becoming increasingly rare. Unfortunately, use of “contemporary” music can sometimes appear to signal a willingness to abandon the old faithful in order to appeal to the younger crowd. But this needn’t be the case.

The larger picture is that church is perhaps the last place on earth where all generations come together and participate in something in common. The larger problem is that unity can sometimes be threatened when we become too concerned with whether we should be more contemporary versus more traditional. Those are only style preferences, and if one must have one’s own style preferences in order to “worship”, then perhaps one misunderstands the sacrificial nature of worshipping.

We each have our preferences, but we also have an opportunity to worship together as family, and with songs that stir the entire family, in its present composition, with an eye to equipping its present outward-focused mission, and across all the generations.

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As I pointed out in a previous posting, I have read a lot of criticism of contemporary worship. I figured it was time to offer a defense.

1. Contemporary worship allows us to worship God in our own “language”. In many senses it is similar to when the Bible first got translated into the vernacular, and people no longer had to worship in Latin. Today, only a small percentage of people listen to classical music. Yes, many like myself appreciated classical, but it isn’t the music of my generation or the generations that have followed. In the same way that most evangelical churches have switched from the King James Version to the New International Version (and other versions), the move to contemporary music has also allowed Christians to worship God in their own heart language.

2. The extended worship that many churches have today has its basis in scripture. It reflects the praise that we see in the Psalms (and in many cases borrows directly from the Psalms) and it gives us a glimpse of what Heaven will be like. As I said in a comment to a previous post:

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