My students have been reading a chapter I wrote called Contemporary Worship, due out with Broadman Holman publishers in a book called Five Views On Worship this Spring.
In the chapter, they will consider worldview issues, Church and culture integration, the content of contemporary worship music and the worship trends of the emerging Church.
The question for this week is:
“What were the two (2) most impacting thoughts you came across in this chapter? Explain why they impacted you, and their implications for the 21st century Church’s worship (and it’s connection with popular culture)?”
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Reading your chapter on contemporary worship was a good thing for me to do. It really opened my eyes to the world of musical worship and worship in general. Coming from a background where there was no worship band, and the whole service seemed very empty, the world of contemporary worship is still very new to me and I will fully admit that there are still a lot of things I don’t know yet.
When I read your chapter, there was a lot to take in. There were also a lot of things I needed to sort through, and really think about. I needed to consider how much went into preparing a musical set of worship, I needed to consider where I really fit into this new revelation of worship, and where I can contribute something.
What really hit me when I was reading this chapter was how much church and culture are entwined together. I know that it is in my past to be completely isolated from the culture of the world around me. When I first became a Christian, not wanting to fall, I decided the best way to stay firm was to only be interested in “Christian” things. It got to the point that I couldn’t tell you who was part of the media industry (i.e. I didn’t watch of T.V. that didn’t portray Christian messages, or listen to “secular” music), and I couldn’t understand why people weren’t where I was. I didn’t meet people where they were, I just expected them to meet me where I was. I now realize that this was not a good balance at all of church and culture.
When I read how intertwined culture and church are, it really hit me that we are called to be in the world and not of the world. As Christians we can’t avoid being part of the world, what good to God’s purposes are we aren’t interacting with the lost? I love how the church cannot be removed from the culture or vice versa. I think God set it up that way on purpose, so Christians wouldn’t forget their purpose on earth, and the lost would have opportunities to learn of God’s great love.
I also really like the idea particularly addressed by Robert Webber of the rediscovery of the church. Webber suggests that we need to “rediscover our triune God, the themes of creation, incarnation, resurrection, ascension. Rediscover how God is working signs around us, rediscover corporate worship, and evangelism” I love the idea of our global church re-facing itself and incorporating the lost; so we can’t forget God’s eternal purposes. I think this part really jumps out at me, because I am in a place right now of rediscovery of the church, of myself, of God, of school, and so many other places in life.
I think these two apply most directly to the pop-culture of the 21st century. It is time for the church to immerse itself in the lost people, and not to seclude ourselves away, so we won’t be tempted or stumble. In our realization of church and culture being incorporated together, we will start to penetrate more areas of the “secular” world. Our music will not be separated (maybe) and our purposes won’t seem so foreign. I think when we will start to have more influence in the “secular” world, as we will be more human, we will let people see our brokenness and also see our glory given to us. In our rediscovery we will seem more approachable as we won’t have a set tradition or system that might intimidate. I think that now is the time that we could quite possible have the most influence on the lost of this world.
What were the two things that inpacted me the most while I read your chapter?
That’s pretty tough to answer now because I finished reading it long ago, but here I go.
The thing that struck me the most was how we as Christians are not to totally separate ourselves from the culture that we live in. That hit me because we have a hard time reaching people and we don’t know why. I think that sometime it is because in our effort to be perfect we totally take ourselves out of the culture. We no longer have anything in common with others. The truth of that hit me when I at home stopped doing the things my brothers did. That had not so good results, I stopped doing some things that were not healthy in my relationship with God but I also cut out some things that were good to do. And in doing so I alienated myself from my own family. I think that the church today should not repeat the same mistake that I made. In order to still be able to hang our with our unsaved brothers and sisters in Adam we can’t cut out the things that they do that is not harmful to our relationship to our Father in Heaven. How else can Jesus use us to reach our unsaved Brothers and Sisters in Adam. Even Jesus lived in his culture and mange to reach out with out sinning.
The other thing that hit me was the need for new songs. We need new songs because some times the meaning goes out of a familiar song for a while. And then we need something meaningful to sing, in those times. I think that we need to keep encouraging the younger songwriters to keep on writing. I think that God is going to use them to keep on writing the great songs of faith.
Sorry this isn’t long or all that Great but that’s what hit me the most.
Munning Roose
It is difficult to reduce the chapter on Contemporary Worship to two mere points… there is a lot in there! The chapter itself was put into three main parts: worship in culture, worship today, and where worship is going. So the chapter explores how we’ve gotten to where we are today in worship, the practical aspects of worship, and the direction it is taking. What to choose…
I think one of the main themes that resonated within me is how worship relies on honesty, both for the worship leader as well as the worshipers. But let’s emphasize the leader in a worship setting. Firstly, the worship leader has to be honest and be able to relate to the songs he/she is singing. Much thought needs to be put into this. For example, a worship leader has to consider the song selection for a worship set. When doing this, they have to ask themselves: What is the theme for this set? What is the message we are trying to convey to the congregation? Choosing a set requires thought, not just a random selection of your favorite songs. On top of this, the leader has to be honest and feel for the message in his heart as well… otherwise the worship lacks honesty. If the theme of the worship is “a heart for the poor” and the leader doesn’t truly have a heart for the poor… then what’s the point?
One other theme that stood out to me was how worship music is a vehicle to teach the messages of the Bible in a new light. Dan’s exact words were: “Contemporary worship music repackages biblical truths…” (27). This thought makes a strong impact, as it shows the importance of worship; it is a powerful tool for expanding God’s Kingdom. It is able to communicate the themes and messages found in the Bible, but in a way that is far more adaptable to our “modern” culture.
I refrained from going too in depth on these themes, but they strike me as being important. Knowing how to be as a person is uber important when it comes to leading worship, as it will help bring true, honest worship out of the leader and congregation. Viewing worship as a means to express the messages in the Bible is great thought. I don’t think I ever really made that connection before… Maybe I’m numb, but really, what an awesome way to preach the Good Word. Music is something that can connect with every person, and to use it as a way to lead people to God is an exciting thought. What a powerful preaching tool.
I was glad that we read the chapter, “Contemporary Worship” at the beginning of the course because it offers a great deal of the foundational thoughts on which this class is based. While, evidently, the focus for the chapter fell on the significance of a fresh approach to congregational worship, it also dealt with the passion that is reignited in church circles when traditional forms of worship, such as liturgical worship, are utilized.
Near the beginning of the chapter, you offered a few definitions of the term ‘worship’ that I found very helpful. Once again, this whole abstract ideas meeting technical definitions is something new to me. I especially loved this one: “Worship is a corporate act engaged in by individuals. It is not centrally a private act engaged in by groups” (p. 5). This one really hooked me on account of the idea of unity as a congregation in worship. I mean, honestly! We are all singing the exact same words at the exact same time…for the most part…so, it shouldn’t be that difficult of a concept for me to grasp, but it is! I guess I’m having trouble since, even though we’re all singing (relatively) the same tune, it’s our hearts that make the music worship, not the melody lines or the lyrics on the projector screen. Right? So, what if the hearts of the people are all going in completely diverse directions? Is it still congregational worship as long as the individual hearts are headed toward God? Then, wouldn’t this really make it an individual act? I’ve confused myself. Zoe Stream of Consciousness Fitch. I just took something that I purposefully noted in the text and then decided that I didn’t understand it at all. What interesting abilities I have. This paragraph is getting much to long so I’m going to move onto my second point.
I love this line: “Music unlocks the heart, and unlocking the hearts to worship God is the co-mission of the Church with Christ” (p. 27). How beautiful! No wonder we spend half of our service in worship. I love the idea that singing melodies together as a congregation is sort of a symbol of the liberation that we need as a group of people. We need to let go of the weekly garbage and let God do his thing in our hearts. We do this through music. How marvelous! Kinda makes you want to do music for the rest of your life, eh, Zoe?
Aye, it does.
The End.
Zoe
Post- Script: Overall Favorite Quote of the Entire Chapter (drum roll, please) – “This will targeting our thinking toward an individual block that seems to make an entire philosophical and theological Jenga tower wobble.” (p. 3) THIS caught my attention and Mike, Dana and I drew pictures of a small child’s theology next to wobbling Jenga towers.
Well it has been a while since I have read this chapter on worship and it is a chapter that is full of ideas, explanations and theories. Out of all of these ideas I have picked some ideas tat stuck out to me more than others.
One point that stuck out to me among the vast array of ideas presented was the idea of experience and truth. “We must be careful not to elevate experience above truth (32).” There often can be times in a church or a service or more often at a conference that a pressure can be put on the parishioners to look, act, or experience God visibly. Whether this pressure is deliberately imposed by the pastor, leader or peer group or whether it is derived from the individual’s own insecurity, it is still a wrong view to hold. What really needs to be focused on is the truth: truth of who Jesus is, what he has done, and what he desires for you. If these truths are focused on and you can allow God to speak to you there is a security that comes.
The next thing that I found interesting was that “contemporary worship can bridge the gap between one’s culture and one’s faith, and creates space for a new way of thinking to dawn on the soul’s horizon (26).” It’s a cool idea to think that music can address a culture directly and relate current issues. The idea also about the genre being able to celebrate and be true to God before it can successfully relate to and be true to the culture. It is sort of along the lines of truth again, I guess when I was reading this the whole theme of real, authentic, and true worship was something that I felt and still do feel is important. If we focus too much on the feeling we get, it steals from the glory that rightfully belongs to God.
It was hard to comment on just two things in the whole book, as there was a lot of ground covered. It was an informative chapter and there were a lot of interesting points about worship made.
(And of course I fully agree with Zoe’s postscript, that quote will remain with me for the rest of my life; it will go wherever I go.)
This is a tough response. Not only did I find reading this chapter a challenge because a lot of the language was impossible to figure out, I also read it over a month ago, which means that I am trying to remember the things that I never really got in the first place, yay for highlighting. As o go back through the chapter one of the first things I find that I have highlighted for myself is this: “May it be said of us by our journey’s end that we did not attach all of our own opinions to God, and that our preferences did not become prejudices whilst we were unaware” (pg 4).
Too bad that the thing I found that had the most impact on me seems to have nothing to do with worship. Even so I think that this is a beautiful mission statement, and it is most certainly one that should be applied within worship, even though that is now how it was meant in the context that I took it from. We should always be wary of putting God in a box. Musical preferences are very strong things. It is never easy for a musician to give up their creativity in order to serve a congregation, but it is very necessary. When a worship leader lets his musical preferences become prejudices they can get in the way of worship, and the music becomes a hindrance to connecting with God instead of helping.
Something else that stuck out to me in this chapter is the necessity for new songs within worship. There are many times when the only songs I want to sing are the songs that touched me so deeply when I was younger, songs that my generation owned. Many of these songs have died out now and I rarely hear them, and its not that they are now bad, but I love the thought that God is always giving us new songs. It makes so much sense that as our walk with God changes, as we come to know him better, as we see more and more of his beauty, we begin to sing different songs. When I stop to think about it, it is strange to think that we would be singing about the same things that we sang about five or ten years ago, unless we were still going through the same things with God we were going through then. And if that were the case, I think we would be in trouble.
The point from the chapter that had the greatest influence on my thinking was regarding to the impulse to worship that was built into Man when God created him. The text says that “Worship is a foundational impulse built into all human beings, and will be expressed in some way, shapre or form, proximate or far from its ordained Focus.” (p. 5) This was huge for me, as I’ve spend the last year struggling with a question that I hadn’t been able to answer. The question was why is my culture searching continuously for something to worship, and why don’t they turn to God? I lived in a house with nine other Canadians, all relatively my age, and as we learned about each other I began to see this deep longing in them for something spiritual that they could connect to. We went to mediatation sanctuaries, Ojibwe tribe sweat-lodges, they read tarrot cards, got involved with the spiritual side of reflexology, shakrahs, buddhism, zen, karma, thai chi, the list goes on and on. For the first time I had realized that the people we meet with everyday are so thirsty for the Living Water that God offers, but they are trying to find satisfaction in all the wrong places. Of my two part question, I needed to know why people were searching so hard for something to follow. And in the chapter I found the answer, we search for God or a god because it is what we were created to do. Since the beginning of time, Man has worshipped. This answer spurs new questions in my mind, Who are we worshipping? Since all worship is to fullfill that longing, and that longing is to worship God, then is all worship worshipping God (even if just in the most skewed way)? What will it take to purify our worship? How skewed is my own worship, in that, how much of worship is to fulfill my longing to have a spiritual connection, rather than to worship God for who HE is? Why don’t people turn to God anymore? Why has there been such a rise in the new age movement? Why does it seem more prevalent today that everyone is longing to worship than in generations before? Most important, to me, What will it take to see my friends and family realize the True God who deserves to be worshipped?
(Why am I so full of questions???)
Another idea from the chapter that I would like to further explore was that “neither complete rejection of culture, nor unthinking embrace of culture, will in the end suffice as tenable modes in which to live out the life of Christ in the world. Rather, it is in the arena of engagement with culture that we not only bring the transforming presence of Jesus to the world, but we also find our interactive home.” (p. This is a thought that I’ve been struggling to understand. I spend a semester of my grade twelve year in a program called Bronte Creek Project, basically an outdoor environmental program. In that program I learned the impact that our culture is having on the environment, and from there I went on to look at the impact our culture is having on Third World nations. I studied this for a summer in Nicaragua, living with people in poverty because of (and this is all my own opinion, of course) the selfishness of Western culture (myself included). I understand that the text is talking speaking about culture as I would think of ‘the secular’ vs. ‘the sacred’, however I think it goes further, to the encompass all of that which the secular is. By unthinkingly embracing all the aspects of the culture I live in, or on the same level by completely rejecting all of my culture as ‘bad’, I am not able to see it for what it truly is, people who appear to have good intentions but who sometimes get confused. (Again, myself included.) I don’t think I’ve really been able to explain what I mean here, I’ve probably just rambled, but I guess it comes down to a new understanding that I need to rethink some of my opinions and try to find a balance between ‘unthinking embrace and complete rejection’ of North American culture.
Guys, I read every word every one of you posts on this site (though sometimes it takes me extra time to get to the cute sarcasms — i.e. Tyler on the FreeFall run).
In reading each one of these posts, I must indeed say that each one is both thoughtful and thought-stimulating.
It sounds to me as though some good Jenga towers wobbled in you as you read, and that is satisfying as a writer. More than that, I hear a depth rising in each of your “worship language” that is enriched and amplified from when we began the course.
Continue to wrestle with these issues, and we’ll dig into them next Friday (after the chapel evaluations).
I am a bit late on my postage of this brilliant chapter. Just brilliant I tell you. So, I will get right to it. Contemporary Worship rocks the Casaba. There are a few key things that stuck out to me like a pickle in a carrot dish. The first thing was the reiteration of the true essence of worship, and furthermore, how contemporary worship has helped to shape a more intimate way of connecting with God. Some people have their own twisted views on what worship is and isn’t. Consequently, this forces God to chill in a insignificant cube-shaped box with no “EXIT” signs. This is not a good thing(said with french accent). I like the insight about how worship is not just the traditional things that each religion faces, but, because of contemporary worship, we are invited to experience something fresh and new with God. We are free to incorporate the old ways with the new, and perhaps, from that something else can be sparked from that.
On a musical note…(insert pun here), I loved what Dan said about the importance of new songs. “The Lord has given His church fresh songs over time to enable us to convey the renewed music that is bursting from our hearts.”(Pg. 9) That is so true. And it creates hope for all songwriters and worshipers. It is exciting to study the tradition of worship, worship today, and also the future of worship which brings me to my next point. I really think we can grow in our worship experiences with God. The future for me means something better. Something worth waiting for. I really liked what Dan said about the next decades of worship being so significant.
I thought another significant portion of this chapter is found in the simplest sense. The simplicity of worship. Normally, a contemporary worship song is simple. “ Simple songs can build bridges for our simple minds ( like my own!) to access truths that hold the universe on its course.”(Pg. 37) I relate so much with this “simple” concept. For me, the one thing I have to offer to God is a heart of worship. As I sing to him, even the simplest thing, it can really shake my experience with him during that time. I agree with the last statement that was made about reclaiming the “heart of worship” during this time.
So many super-D-duper thoughts and truths within this chapter. It will be a great study tool in understand our role in worship and the importance of worship in our lives.
Hollister out.
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