Worship wars is a term I've heard somewhat frequently for some years now. It usually seems to describe the conflict that arises in congregations between those who favor a contemporary style of worship and those who favor a more traditional style of worship. The conflict is severe enough that a number of pastors who have gone through it before prefer to accept calls in churches that have both types of services just to avoid the possibility of having to go through the same conflict again.
I've been questioning this whole concept of contemporary vs. traditional for myself lately. Aside from playing semantic games of what constitutes traditional and contemporary, I have to wonder why it is that people cling strongly to one style or another. It's not even a liberal/conservative thing since some of the more conservative churches embrace 'new' styles of worship, while many liberal churches retain traditional styles.
Unfortunately, the worship class during my first semester in seminary did little to resolve the issue in my mind. However, it did give me one great little nugget to chew on by defining worship in the context of revealing God to us. I hope to always balance my worship planning in the future against this definition.
However, current practices of worship still remain hit and miss in my way of thinking. While the contemporary camp has a tendency to sometimes reveal more about people than God in its worsip, the traditional side has a tendency to replace God with the idolization of worship forms (which might just be the same problem as contemporary expressed in a different way). I don't believe for a minute that God has a preference for guitars over organs, or metaphorical rhetoric over spontaneous expressions of joy. My confession that God is sovereign creator means that all forms of communication, whether it be speech or music or writing or video screens, were created through God's will. When I say that God is all-in-all, that means that all areas of my life are a part of my walk with God. My worship of God should not be limited to a church facility, but rather should be evident in all that I do. Which is, I think, the foundation of evangelism.
So with a God who is all-in-all, by what logic do I limit my worship? If rock music touches me outside of the sanctuary, surely it can also do so inside. If I am willing to jump up and down and cheer for my favorite football team, why can't I get equally excited over my relationship with God? On the other hand, reverence and prayer during communal worship should just as surely transfer into my daily life.
I guess what I'm trying to get at here, is that there seems to be a tendency for us to keep our worship separate from our lives. Or at least to limit it to brief periods once or twice a week. While there is a need to hold onto the sanctity of worship as a community, I question whether we go overboard to the extent that worship becomes like casting a magic spell to bring God to us. Is there anything we do outside of worship that should not be a part of our worship? And, if so, is that something we should be doing at all? And vice-versa. What elements of worship do not play a part in our everyday lives? And why don't they?
Maybe the problem with the worship wars is deeper than just preferences of style. And maybe the solution has more to do with how we worship outside the church building than inside it.
10 comments:
I agree with you that we tend to quarantine the sanctuary off from the rest of life. This is a tendency that must be vehemently opposed, as we affirm that - in the Incarnation - God is intimately involved even in the so-called secular parts of life. In a sense, this means that everything is sacred, for all human reality has been touched by God. Thus, I definitely agree that worship cannot be limited to tradition. If rock music brings one closer to God, then use it.
What annoys me, though, is that contemporary worship often seems to me to be copying pop culture and pop music, and doing it badly at that. Instead of recognizing that all kinds of music, etc., can be media whereby we encounter the living God in worship, instead we get cheap "Christianized" knock-offs of whatever is popular in the culture, and the result is just bad music. I'm not trying to justify unqualified liturgical traditionalism, but there's a reason why we still sing hymns by Bach and Mendelsohn - they're brilliant, beautiful pieces of music that have withstood the test of time. The problem I have with much contemporary Christian music is that it is seen as disposable - we use up these songs, and so we get others. Nothing is made to endure.
Your criticism of much contemporary music is spot on!
I'd like to think that part of the problem is that, by definition almost, contemporary will contain the range of quality from poor to great. Once everything but the great has been weeded out it becomes classical doesn't it (classic rock for example)?
I will certainly admit that I've been to far more poor contemporary services than good ones.
nice questions mr. amen...i read a book entitled 'worship wars' by byars and it opened up some great avenues for thinking...
i would like to spend an extraordinary amount of time living the ideology of 'worship always'...maybe i'll write a book? :)
brian's criticism is spot on...i would like to add to it integrity in lyrics. i often find that the lyrics in contemporary music have zero theological integrity. for example, the words to "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" say the following..."one day every tounge will confess you are God. one day every knee will bow. still the GREATEST treasure remains for those who gladly choose you now." i refuse to sing this lyric when it comes up. i just won't sing words that are counter to what i believe, and to the scriptures for that matter.
Some follow-up questions...
Do we define contemporary worship primarily on the style of music? Or is there more to it than that?
Is bad contemporary music bad mainly because of the theology of the music (a criticism I've often heard)? If so, would setting the words of classic hymns and psalms to contemporary tunes solve the music problem (a P. Diddy remix of Amazing Grace perhaps?)
This past weekend I heard it expressed, by an Episcopalian priest no less, that high liturgy seemed to impart a trancendance to worship, while contemporary conveyed more of a feeling of immanance. I'll have to think on this some more, but it seems more than ever that, in order to truly reveal God
in our worship that we need both.
Personally, I would love to hear the P. Diddy remix of Amazing Grace. But seriously, I think that the music problem is a mix of the two. First, many of the songs I have encountered do possess (a) lots of personal pronouns, (b) lots of gender language, and (c) other assorted bad theology. Also, though, many of the songs I have sung are just hard to sing - too many bridges and choruses; if one isn't familiar with the tune, one is apt to get lost, even with the beloved Holy Powerpoint.
Though I do tend to think there is more to contemporary worship than music style. It's an entire liturgical style (or lack thereof) that is what defines contemporary worship. What bugs me, however, aside from disliking most contemporary services I have attended, is the name itself, which I think is incredibly presumptuous. Calling it "contemporary" worship sets up an artificial opposition between these kinds of services and those kinds. It implies that "non-contemporary" worship services are somehow antequated or behind the times. This gives one the impression that contemporary services are designed to replace what come to be seen as the older, out-dated traditional services. At least, this is how I often hear it discussed: "We used to do it the OLD way, but now we have CONTEMPORARY worship." I find this slightly offensive because all worship - even Greek Orthodox services that use a thousand year-old ordo - are contemporary insofar as they are a involve an assembly of today's people worshipping God from within their own cultural context. It's all contemporary insofar as it's an event happening in the here and now, involving people who are alive today. And it's all traditional insofar as it interfaces with the liturgy (even if it doesn't call it that), with scriptures, with the sacraments, and with proclamation. So, basically what I'm saying is that I dislike the distinction that the term "contemporary worship" attempts to draw.
First off, two disclaimers:
1. I typically choose to attend traditional worship services over contemporary ones. This is typically because the theology and liturgy is done typically done better in the traditional services than the contemporary.
2. I play guitar for the contemporary service for my congregation. I know, that's wierd given statement #1. My grandfather used to say that you don't get to gripe about politics if you don't vote. I have similar feelings about contemporary worship - I don't get to gripe about the bad theology and liturgy if I'm not making myself available to help solve the problem.
That said, I could disagree more with BCD's statement:
It's an entire liturgical style (or lack thereof) that is what defines contemporary worship.
I think this misconception is one of the largest and most unfortunate out there. The best contemporary worship services I have ever been to (one of them being the 2005 SHYC closing worship) did amazing contemporary music with songs that were well chosen for the liturgy. I can say with 100% certainty that the 'best' worship services I have ever participated in (both contemporary and traditional) were those that were both planned by the worship leaders and partcipated in by the congregation in ways that clearly demonstrated everyone's understanding of the liturgy. (That was a long, hard to read run on sentence.)
I have been in great traditional services with excellent liturgy. Those services had leaders who had clearly put thought, prayer, and planning into every element of the service. I have been in horrible traditional services where it was clear that noone thought about why they were doing anything - the leaders and congregation were both just going through the motions.
I have been in great contemporary services with excellent liturgy. Those services had leaders who had clearly put thought, prayer, and planning into every element of the service. I have been in horrible contemporary services where it was clear that noone thought about why they were doing anything - the leaders and congregation were both just going through the motions.
I also disagree strongly with this statement:
So, basically what I'm saying is that I dislike the distinction that the term "contemporary worship" attempts to draw.
While I do strongly disagree with the distinction, it's not just contemporary worshippers that try to draw the distinction. Traditional worshippers are just as guilty of trying to draw that line.
As an aside, I just received a book entitled "Beyond the Worship Wars." It was recommended to me by a former IVCF high-level staffer who is also an ordained Presby minister (and was while he was with IVCF.) He has obviously led lots of worship in both camps. I'm looking forward to the read.
oops, that should've been "2006 SHYC closing worship."
Jared, I was shooting from the hip a bit with this comment, but I didn't mean to imply that contemporary worship necessarily lacks liturgical form. What I meant to imply is that many of the contemp. services I have been involved with have have either lacked a defined ordo OR that the ordo was different from a traditional liturgy. In response to your second comment, I agree that "traditionalist" are partly responsible for the unnecessary distinction. I just think there needs to be a better term for what we call contemporary worship, that's all.
In response to some of the comments thus far:
I wouldn't mind finding other terms than contemporary (and traditional for that matter) for service styles. This problem of semantics is also found in the term 'praise music' which is primarily thought of as music with a faster upbeat tempo, but which can also describe the theological bent of a hymn. However, whatever terms we come up with, the same issues remain.
Also related to terminology, a pastor of mine was once approached by a discontented group of parishioners who were unhappy with the worship and wanted to move back to a more 'traditional' worship service. My pastor pulled out the Directory of Worship and the Book of Confessions and led this group through a quick worship study. After finding out that these resources claim that worship should be expressive and emotional, as well as intellectual, they decided that they didn't want 'traditional' after all. Of course, the services they were complaining about did not contain have 'contemporary' music or hand-raising. What they really wanted was a more 'high-church' style.
With regard to the theology of 'contemporary' music, it is difficult to deny that some of it is not very theologically sound. But, I don't think that is an argument against any and all music of that style. I've been tempted to go through a hymnal and relook at the theology of some of our classic hymns, but a comprehensive analysis involves a lot more time than I have right now. I did, however, thumb through a hymnal this morning during chapel and stumbled upon 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God'. Now this hymn is just out and out dualistic in theology. Since we reject dualism in favor of the sovereignty of God, isn't this traditional hymn just as guilty of faulty theology as a number of contemporary ones?
In line with Jared's comments above, in one of the communion hymns I was looking at this morning, we sing 'let us break bread together on our knees.' When is the last time any of us were on our knees while singing this? One huge critique I have of many services (I've noticed it more in traditional styles, but it can and does exist in any style), is that people are saying and singing one thing, while doing another. We actually have hymns in the hymnbook where we sing about lifting our hands, and yet almost no one does it as they sing it. This strikes me as hypocritical worship.
I think a really good exercise for anyone going into worship leadership would be to design a good service in a style that you don't care for. I really believe that contemporary and traditional each have merits and can offer a lot to each other. It's a shame that it is yet one more issue that tends toward polarization and limitation of dialogue.
Back to music for a moment, I hear that a lot of (most?) newer music is lacking, but I'd like to hear some nominations for good ones. Anyone got a favorite 'contemporary' style song that is theologically sound and suitable for worship? (it has to have a decently fast beat, no traditional style hymns disguised as contemporary!)
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