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Worship - Who exactly are we addressing?

So my kids and I were at the Children’s Museum yesterday and we stopped all the fun playing to sit down and have lunch.  As we bowed our head, my almost-three-year-old said the following blessing:

God is great, God is good

Let us thank Him for our food

By His hands, we all are fed

Thank You, Lord, for daily bread.

Amen.

It got me to thinking - to whom are we praying in this prayer?  I know that the easy answer is God, but only one out of four lines is actually addressed to God.  If prayer is supposed to be conversation with God, one would think that prayers should actually address God.  Maybe my kids’ mealtime blessing should be something more like this:

Dear God,

You are great, You are good

Lord, we thank You for our food

By Your hands we all are fed

Thank You, Lord, for daily bread.

Amen.

Now, since I’m the one who taught them the first prayer, it’s my own dumb fault for teaching them to talk about God rather than talking to God.  Is the same not true with much of our worship in the church? 

 

worship |ˈwər sh əp|  noun acts, expressions and/or a state of religious devotion typically directed to one or more deities.

As a popular song recently stated, our worship is for “an audience of one.”  We worship as we direct our entire being on loving God, communing with God, praising and adoring God.  Why, then, are many of our songs sung about God and not to God?  Previously, I posted about the importance of thinking about the theology being espoused by the music selections we make as worship leaders.  It is important that we make sure that our song selections reflect the corporate nature of our worship.  Likewise, it is important to think about the subject, whether stated or implied, in our songs.  For example, think about the following hymns and ask yourself, “Who is being addressed in these words?  Who is the subject?  Who is the object?”  (If you need help remembering the words, click on the song titles for a link to the lyrics)

Amazing Grace

All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name

Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise

I Surrender All

How Great Is Our God

His Love Endures Forever

Trading My Sorrows

In the story of the Fall of Humanity in Genesis 3, the serpent comes to the happy couple and asks the woman, “Did God really say...”  One pastor pointed out that the serpent’s first attack was to convince the woman to start talking about God rather than talking to God.  The slippery slope to destruction began when prayer stopped and theologizing began (a good reminder for those like me who love theology).  Likewise, in our worship, we have to ask ourselves, who are we addressing?  Many of the songs listed above are songs about God, not songs sung to God.  In fact, many of them have as the implied audience the congregation of worshippers.  Is that what we want to promote in our worship - a time of talking to one another about God without talking to God?

I don’t want anyone to misunderstand me, I’m not saying that these songs should not be used in worship - I’ve included them here because we’ve used every one of them in my own church.  What I am saying is that we need to think about our songs and the role we are expecting them to play in our worship.  Do we use them to encourage one another?  Good!  Do we use them call one another to focus together on God?  Great!  But use them in the right context.  These are not worship songs in the strict sense of the term.  They are not expressing our love/adoration/worship to God.  Instead, they are songs of testimony to the world (and one another) about our God. 

Pastors cannot get away with preaching the same sermon week after week (although I know of some who come pretty close).  They don’t have the luxury of instilling the message through repetition.  As worship leaders, we do.  We have the chance to sing songs over and over, week in and week out - to the point that these songs become a part of people’s lives.  For this reason, we need to take heed with the music that we select.  What kind of theology are you implicitly advocating because of your music selection?  Are we encouraging people to a deeper communion with God or are you encouraging a deeper fellowship with one another and God is merely the topic of conversation?

What is "Relevant" in Church Music?

After writing my last post, it got me to thinking more and more about the state of church music in today’s fast food, “have it your way right away” kind of culture.  The word relevant gets thrown around pretty often in churches these days.  We don’t want to be outdated or archaic.  Cutting edge is the goal that many churches are striving to reach week in and week out.

I can’t help but wonder, however: what exactly does it mean to be “relevant”?  To whom exactly are we trying to be relevant?  Are we really trying to be relevant to the culture at large or are we using countless time and energy to keep up with the latest trend or fad in the Christian subculture that the rest of society couldn’t care less about?  Why is it that it is the exception for a “Christian” artist to make it big in the mainstream arts world?  When this happens, such an artist often gets labeled with terms like “sell-out,” “compromise,” or “hypocrit.”  Does this lack of success merely reflect the cynical nature of the mainstream culture, prejudiced against anything that might resemble faith?  Perhaps.  Or maybe novelist Madeleine L’Engle had her finger on the pulse of the situation when she wrote:

Too much concern about "Christian" art can be destructive both to art and to Christianity. I cannot try to write a "Christian" story. My own life and my own faith will determine whether or not my stories are Christian. Too much Christian art relies so heavily on being Christian that the artist forgets that it also must be good art. 

I read an article recently in an issue of Worship Leader Magazine (the fact that we even have such a magazine might very well be an indication of exactly what I’m talking about, and the fact that I have a subscription may also say something about my own complicity in this whole enterprise) that suggested that the average “shelf-life” for contemporary praise songs in today’s church is about six weeks.  Could is be possible that the main reason that many of these songs are here today and gone tomorrow is that they were never really that good to begin with?  Isn’t it sad that we have to have our own specialized stores to carry Christian music?  Isn’t is pathetic that we put up little charts that say, “Do you like this mainstream band?  Then try this Christian alternative?”  It’s as though Christian music music is nothing more than a cheap imitation of what is really driving the culture (actually it’s not “as though,” this is exactly what is happening).

For me, it begs the questions: (1) What is the role of music in our faith anyway?  (2) What is the role/function of music in our church?  Music has a way of touching us in places that words alone cannot.  I have come to believe that just as everyone has a “heart language” (i.e. the language that they were spoken to as a child and which is the language of their emotions), everyone also has a “worship language” based on where they grew up, the kind of music they grew up with, and significant influences on their spiritual development.  Music is more than just a soundtrack for our lives.  It has the power to take us to places where words alone fall short, and allows healing to happen when all else has failed.  It has the power to unite our hearts when we are separated by linguistic dialect and the power to transcend cultural barriers.

What, then is the role of this music in our churches?  If it is merely for entertainment, why do we use second rate mainstream music?  Let’s do the very best cover tunes from the Billboard charts, or better yet, get some of those acts to come perform in our churches?  If music is nothing more than a space filler, then why not get rid of all the live singing and everything all together and just used prerecorded CDs bought in the store?  But if music is to have any significant impact the actual ways that we live our lives and our faith, we are going to have to give it time to sink in and begin to work its transforming power in us.

One of the powerful aspects of many of our hymns is that they were ways to teach people theology.  Some have argued that hymns in the free church offer a similar function to the liturgy of the high church tradition.  Rich Mullins once said that many of the church’s hymns were 1st rate theology set to 6th rate music.  I’m not sure that he was entirely accurate in that statement, but we get his point.  My concern here is that our consumerist attitude towards new worship songs causes us to discard them long before they have had time to go from our head to our heart and from our heart to our character.  (The radio playlists and top 10 charts are so fickle that songs are here today, gone tomorrow.  It is unlikely that anyone will be radically transformed by songs when we barely sing them long enough to feel comfortable with them, let alone long enough to have spent time meditating on them).  Additionally, so many of the songs just contain bad theology.  Why do we want to reinforce bad theology through our song selection?  It just doesn’t make sense.

Here’s my bottom line: music ministers, worship pastors, and worship leaders need to be very intentional about the music they choose.  In my opinion, most need to select fewer and better songs.  We need to reject the practice of being relevant if by that we really mean being relevant to the Christian subculture.  We need to dare to “unleash the arts on the church” and in the world.  Maybe we might dare to allow the church to be the cutting edge of culture, driving the best music and art of day once again.

If you want to read more on this, check out these books:

Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts by Steve Turner

It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God edited by Ned Buster

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle

(I'm sure there are other great books on this topic, these are just some of the goodies from my own library)

Corporate Lyrics

I've gone through a process in my worship leading.  As a self-avowed postmodern Gen-Xer, I've loved new forms of praise music - especially some of the newer praise choruses and new hymns.  I cut some of my musical chops accompanied by a pump organ in a rural southern United Methodist Church in Mississippi, though, so I love the old hymns as well.  One of the criticisms I've heard about some of the newer music is its inherent narcissism.  Many of the songs seem to be all about me, what God does for me, and how I relate to God.  Yet, the context in which many of these songs are used are corporate settings, where it's not about me, but about us - the Church, the body of Christ.

I used to not be phased by this at all, thinking that people were just looking for something to complain about, but then I got to thinking.  One of the biggest problems in the church in America is that we have become slaves to the ideals of individualism.  One of our cultural icons has been the Marlboro Man - the guy out on the range by himself, taking care of business without need of anyone's help.  We lift up as role models people who "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps" and we esteem the entrepreneurial spirit. 

These, however, are contrary to the interdependence and community called for by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, where we depend on one another, bear one another's burdens, and spur one another on to good works.  For this reason, I have become very selective about the songs we sing in our church.  I've even taken it upon myself to change lyrics of some songs to reflect a corporate nature and to emphasize that we are one body made of many parts - that together we are the bride of Christ.  One such song that we are working on right now is Tim Hughes - below is the version that we are using in our church:

God in our living, God in our breathing

God in our waking, God in our sleeping

God in our resting, God in our working

God in our thinking, God in our speaking

 

Be our everything, Be our everything

Be our everything, Be our everything

 

God in our hoping, God in our dreaming

God in our watching, God in our waiting

God in our laughing, God in our weeping

God in our hurting, God in our healing

I encourage all worship leaders to think about the lyrics closely.  What kind of faith are those lyrics encouraging/cultivating?  Is it a private spirituality that doesn't need anyone else (i.e. an "it's just me and Jesus" kind of faith)?  Or is it a faith that stresses the community of believers, working together for the Gospel?  Do our songs stress only what God does for us, or do they praise God for who God is without making requests of God?  It's worth all our time as worship leaders to think about it.

The Good Samaritan 2.0

After hearing a few of Pete Rollins' parables retold, I became inspired to try one for myself.  Since I said that I would offer any scripts or such that we have used in our church in the hopes that someone else might find them useful, I offer this one here:

The Good Samaritan 2.0

by Steven T. Norris

One person reads the story while others act out what is being said.

On one occasion, a well-known Pastor was speaking at a Wednesday night prayer meeting.  One of the prayer warriors of the church asked him a question.  "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the scriptures?" the pastor replied. "How do you read it?"

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

"You have answered correctly," he replied. "Do this and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked the pastor, "And who is my neighbor?"

In reply, the pastor said: "There was once a young teen.  This teen was from a broken home and had experienced much neglect and rejection from her family and suffered from poor self esteem.  She went in search of anyone who would accept her for who she was.  Quickly she found herself in the midst of a difficult crowd, pressured into things she never thought she would do - a drink here and there, which led to drugs, to shoplifting, and much worse things.  She dressed to try to hide her shame.  Her self-esteem fell further, even to the point of abusing her own body.

“One Friday night at the school football game, this girl was standing off by herself.  A parent and her child from the local church walked by.  This parent had gone to great lengths to raise her children in a Christlike way - sending them Christian schools, praying together every night, keeping a close watch on their friends, and protecting them from unnecessary temptations.  Fearing that this young teen might negatively influence her child, the parent passed by on the other side of the sidewalk, keeping her child from interacting with this girl.

“Soon after, a youth group came walking up the same sidewalk.  This youth leader had a great heart for teens.  He knew that many of them just needed someone to show love and he wanted to reach out, but he remembered the complaints he had been getting.  He remembered that some of the people at the church didn’t approve of the new teens he was bringing in.  These kids didn’t act right, dress right, or talk right.  He really couldn’t afford to bring one more kid like that into the church.  So, fearing more for his job than the life of this girl, he distracted the group and they passed by on the other side of the sidewalk.

After that, a retired man from the church walked by.  He saw the girl, not paying attention to the wild clothes, colorful hair, and scary makeup, but seeing the hurt in her eyes.  He introduced himself to her, learned her name, and listened to her story.  He introduced her to his wife and the couple became unlikely friends with this teenage girl.  They spent time together, going out of their way to take a genuine interest in who this girl was.

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the girl looking for acceptance?”

The prayer warrior replied, "The man who had mercy on her."

The pastor told him, "Go and do likewise.  For I was that teenager.  I was hungry and someone fed me.  I was thirsty and someone gave me drink.  I was a stranger and someone welcomed me.  I was naked and someone clothed me.  I was sick and someone visited me.  I was in prison and someone came to meet me where I was.  Just as Jesus said, ‘as you’ve done it to least of these my brothers and sisters, you’ve done to me.’ "