Fearless Worship

 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. II Timothy 1:7

I hope you have been as excited about our worship services of late as I.  The integration of additional instrumentation, in my opinion, has brought a new energy and spirit to the services.  This has not come about as simply a whim or a passing notion.  For quite some time now pastoral leadership, the session, and other concerned individuals have been discussing, debating, researching, and praying about worship music. At the same time we have been hesitant to take any actions for fear of alienating any segment of our church family.  I suppose we were fearful of collateral damage from a worship war. 

All of us are familiar with the worship wars.  We have witnessed with horror the degeneration of worship music in many congregations.  Fearful that traditional worship practices were becoming irrelevant in the modern world they have moved from the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs into stage band performances.  Not long ago I read an article complete with an accompanying photo of what appeared to be a very modern and upbeat worship "stage" with the theatrical lights and the praise band in casual attire.  But a closer look at the photo and the caption underneath revealed it was actually a photo from a popular night club.   Assured that the slippery slope of contemporary worship will lead to such compromise others would like to see worship music remain familiar and unchanged. Yet congregations who choose that route continue to shrink in number and in their effectiveness to minister in the community.  Obviously, neither of these options are desirable for our congregation.

As a remedy, there are churches in our area who have chosen to hold two different styles of service:  one, a traditional service, and the other a contemporary.  I hope it works for them, and I wish no ill will on any churches or their leadership who have chosen that route, but I strongly question a program or a plan that by definition of itself divides a church rather than unifies it.  Should not a family of Christ come together in some form of unity? Life and its struggles bring with it a plethora opportunities for division and divisiveness within the church.  We have no need to make division part of the logistics of our worship.  I do not believe this is a desirable option for our congregation.

As I have stated before in other articles, I believe it is possible to worship God in a style and manner that is not limited by the words,"contemporary," or, "traditional."  I believe we can worship without fear using the full heritage of our reformed faith, and embrace the modern world of song at the same time.  I don't care if someone is compelled to label that as blended, eclectic, or schizophrenic.  I call it real people worshiping their Savior with all that is available to them.  In fact, I once heard of a group of radicals who saw so great a need to update their worship practices with a brand new set of contemporary Christian hymns and songs that they resorted to writing them themselves.  Today we refer to those fearless worshipers as the reformers.

The integration of the flute, guitar, violin, and cello with piano is something very new for us.  Quite honestly, we are still finding our way with it.  I have never had the opportunity to work with this combination of instruments.  I believe this will give us a unique sound, a desired flexibility, and the essential confidence so that whether we are singing an original composition, the latest product from Gettymusic, or a Bach chorale, we will do so with joy, energy, and daring.  My prayer is that we will come to be absolutely fearless when we approach any psalm, hymn or spiritual song.

Observations and Conclusions

For the last several years I have been making some very disturbing observations from which I have drawn some very uncomfortable conclusions. I have shared with you before that I have concerns regarding trends in worship music.  It seems to me that there is an almost fanatical move to eradicate traditional worship and replace it with the modern contemporary model that is patterned after the youth rally concept of the 80's.  I really don't have anything against contemporary worship music, and have utilized it throughout my career.  Likewise, I see no problem in utilizing multiple styles of music in worship.  The style and forms of music in worship will quite naturally reflect the culture of the participants.  Depending upon the congregations's education level, overall music background, and local cultural influences, I have utilized, features from folk, components from country, rudiments of rock,  sounds of soul, and the cornerstone of classical upon the occasion.

I have no fear of music styles and I do not believe the utilization of any style is a threat to the Gospel.  I do, however, find the tendency toward polarization extremely disturbing.  The active trend, fueled by popular culture is to go contemporary.  Therefore, the reactive archetype is to embrace more ancient styles and forms.  Are our only two options the scream of the electric guitar or the wail of the Gregorian chant? With the polarization comes new labels.  Now we must stipulate. Are we going to the traditional worship, the contemporary worship, or the blended worship service? Can we no longer simply go to worship?

Another trend that disturbs me involves the absence of music education.  Many of you remember the music teacher who would come to the class room and teach songs and music basics in elementary school.  That is no longer a common sight.  Fewer and fewer families are educating their children musically.  Don't worry though.  The various talent competition shows on TV are training our children about music.  They are learning through watching those shows what "real" music sounds like and what "real" musicians look, act, and dress like.  (In case that wasn't obvious enough for you, that was sarcasm.) In other words, popular culture is leading again.

With music education at an all time low, and popular culture running at an all time high, I fear that worship, as we know it is severely threatened.  As congregations embrace text only song sheets, and lyrics projected on the wall, our heritage of four part sung music is being eroded.  Choirs are being replaced by praise teams because of the lack of interest in singing.  The tunes and forms of more ancient hymns are being lost because they are not familiar to us in structure.  We are moving toward simpler and more infantile melodies in place of the majestic, the artful, the beautiful.

A silly but fun movie I enjoy watching on occasion is Sylvester Stallone's Demolition Man.  In the story, a 20th century cop is wrongfully accused of a crime and sentenced to suspended animation in a cryogenic prison.  Following a Buck Rogers type story line, he is awakened in a very changed 21st century.  While the story is very campy and light, the writers seemed to make some interesting commentaries on society.  One of the more comedic elements in the story revolves around what passes for popular music in this supposed Utopian future. Advertisement jingles from our day have become the popular music culture of the post nuclear world.  "The Oscar Mayer Wiener song is considered top 40 material.  Interestingly enough, with the devolving of music I see taking place in our world today I fear that future may not be as fictional a possibility as it sounds. 

I believe it is possible to maintain scriptural integrity, utilize a foundation of traditional music, and employ elements of various music styles in a balanced manner that would simply be characterized as worship, and need no other label.  I also believe the key to the church's music future is participation in the church choir.  (Oh, come on, you knew that was where I was headed.)  We need to see more people involved in choir and we specifically need to see more young people involved.  You young married need to find a place in the choir so you can learn more about singing and pass it on to your children.  You teenagers and young singles need to pour your energy and your enthusiasm into learning more about our musical heritage through participation in the choir.  The more people we have involved, the more we can explore that heritage and the more we can learn together.

Choir rehearsal begins at 9:00 AM on Sunday mornings.  We would love to see you there.  You enjoy hearing the choir.  You won't believe how great it sounds when your sitting in the middle of it.  Come join us and give it a try.