On Contemporary Worship...

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

An interesting viewpoint on Contemporary Worship....

from http://www.churchleaders.com/worship/worship-articles/247105-contemporary-worship-brings-people-jesus-right.html

 

But Contemporary Worship Brings People to Jesus! … Right?

 

by Jonathan Aigner

 

Missional Meditation

 

Said by the person next to you in the pew — I have tried to avoid God my whole life. I wouldn’t know a traditional hymn from a modernized hymn. I’ve never even stepped foot into a church … until this past Sunday. The people on stage sang a song by David Crowder, and I began to feel the very presence of God. It was like nothing I ever felt before. Tears streamed down my eyes and right then, I bowed down and made a decision to surrender my life to Jesus. I ask you a simple question … wasn’t David Crowder’s song—guitars, modernized lyrics and all—worth being written and sang that way? 

 

This type of appeal is quite common, both on this blog and elsewhere. I’ve heard it as long as I can remember. “We don’t worship like we used to because it doesn’t bring people to Jesus. You want people to come to Jesus, right? RIGHT?!? YOU BETTER WANT PEOPLE TO COME TO JESUS!!”

 

I heard one pastor say it this way: “When we aren’t willing to change how we worship so that our culture understands it, we’re telling the world it can go to hell.”

 

Yikes.

 

To make sure I don’t come across as mean or callous, especially to my evangelical friends and readers, I should explain something.

 

I do want people to come to Jesus.

 

But my answer to this commenter is, “No.”

 

For one thing, music doesn’t bring people to Jesus. Jesus does that work admirably enough through the Holy Spirit, certainly better than a brush with David Crowder’s beard.

 

But there’s an even deeper flaw in our thinking.

 

Worship is not an evangelistic tool.

 

We don’t worship together to attract unbelievers.

 

We worship together because God is worthy.

 

We worship together because this gracious God has called us into his story and grafted us together as covenant people.

 

We worship together because we desperately need to tell and retell and hear and rehear that story.

 

We worship together to be refocused, reshaped, renewed by God’s gifts. We need liturgy. We need Word and Sacrament.

 

 

Homily on Homage

Did you know that we’re supposed to do work in corporate worship?

 

I didn’t for the longest time either, having grown up in the middle of the church growth movement. As far as I could tell, the point of “worship” was to get as many butts in the seats as possible, mesmerize them with a theatrical production of bright lights and shiny objects. You know, the latest and greatest in Jesusy entertainment. And then, we bait-and-switch them with the gospel at the end.

 

At some point, we decided that the worship service was the best venue for evangelism. After all, if we can just make things interesting enough, funny enough, dynamic enough and entertaining enough, we can really pack ‘em in. So, put together a mini-concert, followed by a speaker who knows how to get the crowd energized, mix in a few things about Jesus and you’re set.

 

Even our language has changed dramatically, as we’ve learned to borrow more from our entertainment culture. Instead of a sanctuary, a place of refuge, we have an auditorium. Instead of chancels and platforms, we have stages. We have performers and an audience. Churches are now hiring worship “producers.” Our music is entirely current and commercial.

 

We couldn’t possibly do anything else. We’d lose too many people.

 

To make matters worse, we’ve grown to like it ourselves. It’s nice to come to church and be entertained. Throw that liturgy out the window. I don’t want to work, I want to sit here and get fat off the spiritual carbs they put in front of me. And if the production value slips, I can always go down the road and find another fast-food church that fits me just right.

 

No longer are there opportunities for congregants to participate, other than singing along if they feel like it, as if they were singing “Roll Out the Barrel” at a Milwaukee Brewers’ seventh-inning stretch. We’ve lost the idea that we are gathered there for a sacred task, not in search of a good time.

 

And it’s cost us dearly. We don’t have the opportunity to be the people of God together anymore, reshaped by God’s gifts and molded by the Christian story.

 

And in case anyone is wondering, it hasn’t really helped the evangelistic cause in the long run, anyway. It’s still shrinking. See, when you compete with all other forms of entertainment—TV, movies, music, sports—you will lose. Those things are always more entertaining, at least to those who are looking to be entertained.

 

That doesn’t mean we lock our doors on Sunday morning. To the contrary, and this is the tricky part. Evangelism is always a byproduct of true Christian worship. The problem is that we thought we needed to be marketable to begin with. Along the way, we got caught up in illusions of grandeur, judging our evangelistic worth by the number of people we could squeeze in our buildings.

 

Cancel the Vaseline and shoehorn.

 

But the moment we turn from our task at hand to try and capitalize, we fall short again. Stanley Hauerwas says it well: “The difficulty with worship especially shaped to entertain those who are ‘new’ is not that it is entertaining but that the god who is entertained in such worship cannot be the Trinity.”

 

So back to David Crowder. Whether doing his songs or his hymn arrangements is a good thing, well, that’s up for discussion I suppose. But I don’t think answer can be, “It’s OK because it brings people to Jesus.”

 

Hymn of Invitation

So what happens, then, if we don’t craft our worship services to attract unbelievers?

 

We’ll have to get serious again about Sunday [or Saturday]. All of us. And then as the clock strikes noon, we’ll have to go.

 

Go out and feed the hungry.

 

Go out and clothe the naked.

 

Go out and associate with people who don’t look like us, don’t think like us, don’t act like us, don’t vote like us and don’t usually like us.

 

Go out and fight for justice.

 

Go out and end oppression.

 

Go out and proclaim anew the old, old story.

 

Go out and reach out to those who are running from God and God’s church.

 

Go out and stop deflecting tough questions with our usual, tired cliches.

 

And do all of this in the name of the one who sent us.

 

And then open the doors wide again on Sunday [or Sabbath] morning.

 

Then we’ll actually be the church.

 

A Redeemed Benediction

I can’t help but think of Fred Pratt Green’s haunting, convicting hymn.

 

When the church of Jesus shuts its outer door,

lest the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer,

may our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware

that the world we banish is our Christian care.

If our hearts are lifted where devotion soars

high above this hungry, suffering world of ours,

lest our hymns should drug us to forget its needs,

forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds.

Lest the gifts we offer, money, talents, time,

serve to salve our conscience, to our secret shame,

Lord, reprove, inspire us by the way you give;

teach us, dying Savior, how true Christians live.

 

Forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds. Wow. Let it be so.  

 

[Gregory Matthews]

Aigner raises a very important issue, even though, as I understand him, he does not realize that he is doing so!

 

His article if focused on what he sees as being proper for a group of people meeting together to worship God.  That is how I understand him.  For now, I will not either argue of debate his position as I believe that there is another issue just under the surface. So, let me put into focus in the SDA Experience.  When we meet together on Saturday morning, is it our intent to worship God?  Is it, perhaps to be educated and/or supported in our spiritual journey?  Is it to evangelize and bring people outside of Christ into a closer relationship with Christ?  Or, perhaps is it all of these?  This question is important due to the fact that our focus, will play a part in determining the manner in which we conduct our business.  IOW, a service designed for the worship of already committed Christians will probably be designed differently from a service that is focused on evangelizing people who are not committed to Christ.

 

A properly conducted Sabbath School can clearly be a service that educates and supports people in their Christian journey.  However, that may be a Sabbath School that has classes that are not using the Quarterly.

 

For many years our SDA Congregations have focused on a worship service that is centered people who are members, often of long standing.  AS a result, these congregations, in North America are in membership decline and all to many of them are dying.  As a result, some congregations are changing the Sabbath focus to that od evangelizing people who are not in a relationship with a congregation and/or with Christ.  I will suggest that such a focus should have a different emphasis and style than that of a congregation focused on worship.

 

If Aigner is correct as to his application to worship, it does not necessarily follow that he is correct if he were to apply his thinking to an evangelistic service.

[LifeHiscost]

…22"Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'....Matt 7 Emphasis theirs' LHC

 

1Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness^a is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God....2 Thess 2

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

[JoeMo]

I attend two different churches to get a balanceed message.  The charismatic church (what some would call "entertainment-based") allow me to be passionate about worship and the type of worship music that appeals to me; but is a little short on Bible teaching - especially eschatology.  The traditional church is a little stuffy and conservative; but the Bible teaching is great!

 

What is "corporate worship"?  To me, it is the music and ministry/prayer times of the service.  And then it's only worship if I participate.  The sermon is generally a "continuation" of Sabbath School; except with a different topic and venue.  Don't get me wrong - I love a good message.  By good I mean something I can chew on for several hours (or days); not something that makes me laugh.  But the message isn't worship; it's a message.

[whbae]

How does he know the  music  brought him to Jesus?  Is that real Jesus or Satan in disguise!  He will find out soon enough.

[Gregory Matthews]

Do you claim to know?

[Tom Wetmore]

It seems to me to be a rather cynical perspective that could apply pretty much to any worship style, religious activity or exercise.

And if one is willing to doubt whether a particular song or style of music leads one to Jesus, how on earth can you tell if any song or style of music can help connect to Jesus? Mor does it really connect to Satan? How would you know? sort of reminds me of the Pharisees accusing Jesus of casting out demons by the power of the devil.

[Sojourner]

Yet the Pentecostals, the group that emphasises modern worship are still the fastest growing group in Christendom..?