We’re not singing anymore… or are we? Exploring worship and the emerging church…
21 Sep 2007
“You’re not singing anymore!” is a chant that echoes around the grounds of football matches where one team’s supporters crow how the opposition support has been stunned into silence by conceeding a goal or other such setback.
It is also my feeling when i come across discussions amongst people in the emerging conversation about worship singing in church/christian context – is worship an own goal/ a sending off (sin bin) offense for the emerging church? Well if we are deconstructing worship as singing then maybe it looks like it is a flawed activity for a number of reasons. But what is our choice going forward… no music? alternative worship? reframing worship?
Maybe you can help me as I explore with you some suggestions of how we’ve managed to get where we are and what is a constructive/positive/healthy way forward from here…
I don’t feel like singing any more…
Ok 3 areas that strike me straight away about why worship makes me want to do anything but sing…
1. What’s in a name… worship isn’t about singing about my life with God it is that way of life! Sure singing to God/about God can be part of that but how often is that is all we equate worship too? Worship should be about how we live 24/7, what we do with our life, how we live out the Romans 12 definition of taking our everyday ordinary lives and placing them before God.
2. Jesus is my boyfriend… If it’s not the actual singing that we object to, it’s what we sing about – all those trite love songs, you know: “Jesus loves me, I love Jesus, we hold hands and skip down the street, we’re smiling at each other, and i know he wants to towel my feet…” (and my wife still wants me to write her love poems!). How does it feel for people to come into a church and hear such songs and see folks singing with our eyes closed in ectstasy – hmmm i don’t know but may like catching your parents making out on the couch, we all know they must do it but we don’t want to see it…
People say it’s an even bigger turn off to the emotionally backward – otherwise known as us men – and one of the reasons why proportionally you find less of us in chuch. I can understand that it can be difficult, i know that emotionally i struggle to connect to God in that sort of intimate way and I also know that i’m not alone. But I figure that my father issues and the emotional manipulations of my life can equally apply to men as well as women.
3. For an audience of one – me… So rather than making it a homoerotic thang i wonder how much it is just an autoerotic one – songs sung for the benefit of me and my emotional insecurity/well being/emotional high [want an example, here's a whole CD worth :) - HT to Kamsin]
Not to mention it’s an elitist activity where the few put on a show for the many – and those few are hand picked, set up on pillars as worship leaders rather than lead worshippers. I’m sure some people would nod their heads to Aldous Huxley’s quote on performance:
“Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.”
Personally as someone who can’t sing and can only play the fool I am glad that worship leading does have some standards but i can understand how it can become a clique/a way of exluding others – especially when we fete worship leaders like rock stars/celebrities/the Lord’s MOST annointed.
And even if it’s not elitist it is certainly quite exclusive – not only do my shocking musical abilities rule me out but singing is being presented as the only/best form of worship i am reduced to the status of groupie consumer, commenting on quality of sound, the looks of the singer, the choice of song and whether worship did it for me this week or not…
Surely other alternative forms of worship are the way, ways that make everyone participants not consumers, that are not led by an exlusive elite, that allow people to connect with the other 4 senses of their being rather than just sound?
Time out – let’s check those underlying assumptions
I’ve tried to keep it brief in my critique – and maybe you can think of some more reasons why worship gets a hard time in emerging circles – or indeed expand on my own critique/deconstruction.
There are of course a number of underlying assumptions in what i’ve wrote above, here are some:
a. worship is about life not just singing?
b. is singing anyway a missonal activity?
c. too much intimacy is a turn off over time?
d. worship is an activity which the few do to the many – and that is a bad thing?
e. exclusion/consumerism/entertainment is rife within the model?
f. other forms of worship/connection to God are equally (if not more) valid?
g. equality/equal participation or at least no one telling me what to do is a better model for church/life?
Maybe you can see some more? I think that it is worth asking the question what am I reacting too and why I am I reacting like that – i find in my case it often has some assumptions in there that are the same – for instance my preference/wish in church is that worship should be done like this. Or I get annoyed by the association of singing = worship rather than life = worship but if i look at my own life I don’t see much in the way of worship (well of God anywho).
Sing a new/old/different song…
In our deconstruction we’ve hit some problem areas that we should not trivalise but after deconstruction we need to start reconstructing – otherwise we are in danger either of staying stuck in our rut, bitterness or adopting our own form of elitism – worship in church with singing is out our new/alternative way is the best…
So here’s some suggestions from me which may be able to help:
4. Worship as spiritual formation… if we see the practices of what happens in church as formation of our christian faith, practicing together what is important about being a christian than I think there is a role for singing in that. Singing/music has been around for a long time (some as we’ve discussed above would say an aweful long time) and is still a passionate/creative/cultural form – maybe we need better creativy in our music (not just copied/counterfeit) in more styles not less of it?
One of the primary ways that christians learn about God is not through the preaching but through the singing – the repetition of songs becoming a sung liturgy where the words can bypass our brain at times and yet form deep impressions in us as to who God is/what God is like – they teach us and we learn even when we don’t realise that we are being formed.
We are singing of love to God and God’s love of us and maybe it is this love which we primarily seek to live out/respond to/invite others to find and respond too. To consciously set aside some time and deliberately dedicate it to God instead of all the other things that fill our head/heart space is surely no bad thing.
5. Mouthing the right words is harder than singing and meaning them… I guess the question that I am asking myself is as much as i nod my head to a life of worship how often do i actually consciously dedicate time to God? Often i am so busy living my life my way I really have no time for God [or a token amount of time like Jesus is a fish sticker that i stick on my car to baptise it rather than letting Jesus behind the wheel of my life). In fact it is more easy to say for me to claim my life is one of worship than to actually give up 30 minutes of my life once a week to sing about God who i supposedly worship 24/7.
Those 30 minutes (well more like 90 if i include the whole church experience) are probably the most counter-cultural thing I do all week - and in doing so allow me to actually stop living my way, to my choices and timescales and reflect/reconnect/recentre myself around God.
Singing together songs chosen for us is a powerful cultural response to our western individualistic focus - where let's face it a song comes on our iPod that we don't like we just hit skip (some days i spend more of my time skipping tracks than listening to them). Actually taking part in such an activity poses for me a cost - will i put aside my struggles with words/tunes/the whole shebang and enter in or will i stay on the outside and spectate from a position of smugness or refuse to enter in and sulk that i can't have my own way?
Maybe we can help ourselves in this a bit more - maybe instead of singing about 'my God' or 'your God' we can sing about our God? How about taking some songs and changing them from the first person pronoun to the plural - so out goes I and in comes us/we/our etc. Not as some sort of strict rule because having a God who loves us personally so that he calls us by name and can number the hairs on our head is a wonderful thing worth singing about but to remind us that God doesn't leave us as individuals he calls us to be his people, his community of faith, who bears his image in the world.
Perhaps instead of lyrics that read like an instruction manual e.g. 'praise him' we need to create space to do that, to allow people to express themselves where they are in prayer/reflection/connection?
6. Immediacy and Mediation... Change is often reactionary driven - at the moment we are drowning in a flood of intimate worship so our reaction is to drop the worship. Go back 20-30yrs and people were just getting their heads around 'praise and worship' music (instead of hymns of praise and worship or spoken liturgies of praise and worship) - praise being the loud bit with a lot of drumming and worship, well the initmate bit. Now of course the intimacy has become an over familiarity and that of course has bred contempt...
As exciting as a God who is emotional, who cares about our lives and is involved in them now is we also need to rebalance this with the God who is the creator of the universe, who is Lord, King, Master. We need both songs that help us connect emotionally as well as songs that help us question, help us to face the hardness and pain in our life, when we struggle, when we doubt and when we don't feel loved or that we can love. At those times songs of God's presence remind us (even if we find them hard to sing) that God is still present even if we can't feel him and the songs of doubt help us to express our own pain/frustration and hope that God is still present.
7. Riches of the church: Perhaps what we need is more songwriters from our own communities who can express where we are as a faith community and give us the words that we need to sing to cope with which ever season of faith we are finding ourselves in and indeed the things we value the most. If indeed we are formed by what we sing maybe we should sing more about mission/justice/creation - about what we long for God to do in our own community/culture/context?
If no one has written the songs that we hear on God's heart then maybe we should? maybe quality becomes less important and honesty/prophetic calling/Holy Spirit inspires us to sing a new song.
The new is so important (afterall intimacy was revoloutionary once and not well written - we wince at those 80's 3 chord only rainbow guitar strapped songs now but at the time wow!) - imagine in 25 yrs of people writing songs of God's dreams for his earth, the work of the kingdom being done, unfolding, coming true here as in heaven: love, peace, hope, justice, gnerousity, healing of the planet, reconciliation, reconnection, finding our humanity in Christ not our consumer driven inhumanity... wow!
Here's a great example of what I mean - it's got all the hallmarks of an early 80s worship song, the clunky music, the unstylish middle agged musicians but the lyrics are awesome and maybe give us permission to have a go...
[and of course brace yourself in 25 yrs time when people say all this justice/reconciliaton is great but...]
And yes maybe that means more than just singing songs, we have permission to be creative in other ways [let's use art/ image, let's use movement, let's use techology etc] but they are not the exclusive alternative but another way of helping us – recognising that our own preferred style will be not be the choice of someone else – that learning to share/be generous/gracious is better for us as a practice spirtual formation than maybe actually the activity itself.
And of course we don’t just have to have the new, throughout church history people have worshipped God – in song, word and deed. We have a treasure house that can inspire us – from great hymns and poems to liturgies and prayers…
Participation…
I have suggested a few areas of critique of worship and also maybe a few ways in which we can reconstruct/find positive/healthy ways [at least for me] in this area of worship as singing.
But what about you… here are some Qs that you might like to take one or more and consider posting your thoughts on:
What has struck you reading this?
What do you agree/disagree with?
What questions/thoughts/feelings did you have whilst reading it – what do you think are the underlying assumptions of those?
Are you in a deconstruction or reconstruction phase?
What other postive ways can you reimagine worship (singing or otherwise?)
What practices do you use/resources you would recomend as you do this?
Thank you
Tagged: Emerging-Church, worship
18 comments
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Comment by Jon
8.36 am on 22 Sep 2007
Hi Paul, great post. Part A is why I still struggle to do lead worshiping – a lot of it drives me to despair sometimes – some of Part B is why I still do it – especially the hope at the end.
Also, in that sometimes in life we can mysteriously tangibly sense God in our midst, a whole lot of those times have been, and continue to be during the singing of corporate worship songs.
“You only sing when you’re winning” is another phrase from the stadiums – and singing is hard when you don’t feel like you’re winning. Christianity is becoming so marginalized that a lot of worship (as it has been) doesn’t feel appropriate (”we’ll take this land for Jesus?”) Also, a lot of people personally feel a long way from wining in life – so celebration is hard for them. Interestingly enough, I get the sense that in the OT the people of God had a tradition of singing when they were loosing, and well all the time. The singing seems more integrated to life.
I do think that my whole life is worship to the degree that the way that I live my whole life makes a statement about what is “worth it.” When I press in to Gods way and do the things I believe he is calling me to – this is worshiping God. On the other hand – if I spend hours going through the motions of my feed reader on the net etc. am I really saying God is worth it? and so I try to do this less now. God is worth it when I spend time investing in my kids, God is worth it when I do any number of unpopular things that I don’t really want to do. BTW I don’t set myself up as someone who has lifestyle worship cracked – haha no, far from it. But if my life is worship, then I’m trying to improve the quality.
There are different meaning to the word translated “worship” in the bible, and one of the most frequent ones means to “bow down and to kiss” – I want to cultivate ways to do this for God in my life. I thought comes to mind about working with the poor as I type this, because God is found among the poor. But in a personal sense I’m about to start a personal project to spend time meditating on some core scriptures, and praying for God to form them in my life. If I’m honest I’m not at all good at reading the bible like this, I’d much rather do something more interesting and engaging and preferably with other people – but that can be avoidance for me – social entertainment at times – but I sense God drawing me to himself, to spend time one on one with him.
Comment by Paul
10.37 pm on 23 Sep 2007
Thanks Jon, awesome thoughtful comments.
I think the winning mentality can certainly be a hard one – not just taking the land for Christ but the whole i’m winning in life as a christian or othewise when infact it feels like all i’m doing is losing…
And i like your other examples of worship as well – again there is that cost between ME and what I want to do (so bloody well will) and actually what God is maybe calling us to do (as parents in your example).
And your bow down and kiss reference speaks of an element of submission and subserviance that is pretty much alien in my life but also maybe of finding a freedom in giving back my life rather than continuing to run it on what i want to do – what do i want to exchange my life for?
Which now leaves me challenged/confronted again by the words of Jesus in Matt 16:26-28
Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?
Comment by Mackan Andersson
6.19 pm on 22 Sep 2007
Tomorrow we are trying something different in our church.
We invited everyone to bring music intruments and play, together, in worship. No “leaders”, no worship team, just all of us together.
Pray for us :)
Comment by Paul
10.38 pm on 23 Sep 2007
Thanks very much Mackan, how did the jam go???
Comment by Richie Rich
7.23 pm on 23 Sep 2007
Having grown up detesting church and christians, and eventually becoming one in 2004 the thing I feared the most was singing in church! It wasnt that bad, and I actually felt I was giving something to God. Having getting involved and playing for a church for over a year I stopped as I realised yes, I was giving – but my heart wasnt in the right place. Music has become a big passion in my life, and I just can’t stand listening to contemporary ‘Christian’ music. I have yet to hear anything I actually ‘like’, and from hearing a lot of lyrics of modern worship songs makes me very apprehensive about singning them – it does seem to be ‘look at me, our praises are amazingly worthy’ bullshit. I now struggle with attending church because the main reason I would go is to hear the sermon! I want to give and use my talents for his purposes, as I am entrusted with them – I just can’t bring myself to play those crap songs! I know church isnt all about music, and I have other issues to deal with, sorry for the rant! But thankyou Paul for encouraging debate on this…you’ve hit the nail on the head!
Comment by Paul
10.43 pm on 23 Sep 2007
Thanks Richie, i appreciate your honest thoughts. I don’t think you are alone – for one, people are asking the Q how do we write songs for postmodern people to help them worship God. And for two i wonder whether we need people who can express just that sort of honest frustrations within their community – develop expressions of where they are as well as joining in with the hope of songwriters that are writing when their faith in God is high – (the sort of work that features in psalms where as Jon says above people sing when they are both winning and losing/at a loss…)
Comment by Richie Rich
11.47 pm on 23 Sep 2007
I like that idea Paul – of songwriting about the hard times like the Psalmist – I dont know how that would go down though! Another part of the problem from what I see in my limited experience is a lack of musical ability. From playing with quite a few Christians for Churches, at parties, for fun etc. I realised that many of them don’t listen to a lot of different styles and often just listen to the Hillsongs, Delirious etc. I think this is a possible reason why there isn’t much fresh material coming through. I totally forgot about my favourite modern worship song, I apologise – it came back to me this afternoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5K8v0G2hYI&mode=related&search=
Comment by Paul
11.33 am on 25 Sep 2007
Thanks Richie, you know what this conversation has got me thinking of – how we need to start concreting ourselves in the emerging church, just as the charismatic movement gave birth to a whole slew of churches and musical styles maybe it’s time we started to do the same. I think it’s easy to quote the election winning slogan of my ol friend Homer (simmpson) and say “can’t somebody else do it?” but i guess if we don’t create new ways and rediscover old ways than who else will?
I think that’s why i made my comment about rainbow guitar straps and 3 chord status quo esque worship songs than were so profound in presuming that we can be intimate with God that no one cared how wonky they sounded/played. I guess we got to earn our right in the emerging church to play new sorts of songs in the same sort of way – I can’t see there being any shortcut in the process – altho it would be good to see collaboration and sharing going on amongst emerging muscians [any one know any such sites?]
Right going to check out your tune :)
Comment by Richie Rich
6.54 pm on 25 Sep 2007
I’m willing to do it! But after my bad experience serving at a church I am shunning playing for another until I am at least at Grade 8! My step-dad also served his church for over 20 years – and was treated badly. So I am a little hesitant to get involved again! Although I think the ‘heart’ condition of the group is probably of greater importance than musical ability – that doesnt mean music lessons should be ignored! At my old church they complained about a lack of musicians and there response was: “lets pray them in!” Great idea! But why not do something practical and invest in members of the congregation and pay for and/or help give music lessons for those who wish to learn but never had the opportunity! And maybe to existing band members to help them grow in their ‘gifting’ and develop it?
Comments won’t nest below this level.
Comment by Paul
1.17 am on 29 Sep 2007
Grade 8, you’re hard core ;)
I like your ideas, heart is so important but so is the practacalities – let’s face it david played for yrs in front of an audience of sheep before he got his big break – plenty of time to practice and grow character. Maybe investing in others is part of the whole character thang?
Reply here
Comment by Katie
7.42 pm on 2 Oct 2007
Paul– Sorry this is a little late. I really liked this post! The style of how worship is sung (”me myself and I.. oh, and Jesus too”) and how it is viewed is a big deal to me. I really liked your point about that worship is the only 30 minutes of the week that a lot of people focus on God. I’m guilty of this as well– I show up at church and there have been times when it’s a “oh yeah, God! I totally forgot about Him!” Worship should be a part of our everyday lives– like you said, 24/7/365. Worship should be our lives. We should worship in everything we do and everyone we meet. We should be inclusive in our walks with God and focus our entire lives and hearts on the worship of our creator. Thank you so much for this post!
Comment by Paul
4.02 pm on 4 Oct 2007
Thanks katie :) I like to think that we need all the help we can get including have worship modelled and carried out in church :)
Comment by JD
12.10 am on 22 Oct 2007
I”m not sure what I think. I did a google search on “incarnate and the emerging church” because that seems to be a term my church throws around a lot lately as they embrace some of this emergent church philosophy, and your post popped up, so I read it. I’ve been walking with the Lord for 30 years so I’ve been around and seen a lot of movements come and go. Something about this whole emerging church movement just hits me wrong.
And what you are saying about worship…something isn’t quite right.
It seems your focus is on what others are thinking about us, how do “they” see our worship? How does it affect them?, what can we do to attract them? That isn’t worship. Worship to God is us reflecting back to Him His awesomeness, His beauty, His holiness. There is power in corporate worship, life changing power. Why is it being watered down in order to attract the unchurched? That isn’t our job anyway, the Holy Spirit will draw them and add them to the church. Our job is to fall on our faces and worship the King of Kings and lift Him up HE will draw all men.
no?
Comment by Paul
7.40 am on 22 Oct 2007
Hi JD, thanks for your thoughts and feedback, it is really appreciated.
One of the assumptions i made when writing it was that people wanted to worship God and God is worthy to be worshipped. We can often get caught up in the baggage of how we should worship rather than getting on and worshipping.
If there was an overall conclusion in my mind it would be that worship is not just about me and God but embraces creation, justice, community etc…
Comment by JD
4.25 am on 23 Oct 2007
thanks for the reply Paul. I guess what I’m not understanding is how worship to God embraces community and justice.
Unless of course you are NOT talking in the context of a worship service say on a Sunday morning; But I thought you were writing about the singing portion of a “worship service”. Did I totally miss the point?
Is what you are trying to say is that we should be “Christian” ALL the time, toward everyone, in all situations, every moment of every day? Because I call that genuine Christianity, and I call worship being in awe and reflecting God’s greatness back to Him in a moment just between me and God, where He sees the deepest darkest places in my heart, where I let Him in to shine His light on all my broken humanity. And when I leave a service like that, or my bedroom, or prayer closet, or wherever, I want to be more like Him. And I want to do the things that please Him and I see people like He may see them.
But since my church decided to change the worship music to be more like the music one might hear out in the street, ie rock, with lyrics that might be addressing God and might not be about or even to God at all, becuase we want to attract the unchurched, and they think this is the way to do it…..I don’t leave refreshed, I don’t leave refocused. I leave exhausted, like I’ve done spiritual battle. And I feel sad for God, because I see a room full of people rock out in the name of God…but I wonder if they’ve ministered to God or even know how to.
Don’t get me wrong, rock out in the name of God, no problem, do all things to the glory of God but don’t neglect the “good part”, “worshipping” at His feet. Doesn’t the Father seek those who are true worshippers? Isn’t the church leadership missing the opportunity to teach this every week?
Sorry this is so long…thanks for listening. And I apologize for waisting your time if I’ve totally missed your point.
JD
Comment by Paul
11.37 am on 23 Oct 2007
Thanks JD, i don’t think you are missing the point just making a very good one. I’d hate people to read this post and think worship must therefore equal one way of doing so – it’s quite the opposite to what i’m trying to say. We need all kinds of worship style for all kinds of different people. Clearly you and i have a preferred style – it probably won’t be the same but we recognise it, it feels right, it leaves us challenged, changed, connected.
However, I wonder what happens if i start insisting that everyone worships in the way I want? That’s what challenges me – when it become more important that i get my how of worshipping rather than The Who that i am worshipping?
Taking myself out of my worshipping comfort zone exposes me to facing that sort of question. I’m not suggesting that we be masochistic about it just aware of it and how easy it is to become about me and my preferences as the creation rather than the Creator.
Comment by CJ
5.39 am on 8 Jan 2008
Hi – I got so wrapped up reading this that I forgot what I was even searching for when I accidentally found your post. I have only been a Christian for less than 3 years and have only attended one church. I felt God led me to become a member of the worship team or the praise team as we are called. As a vocalist member, I am often looking out at the congregation while singing and thinking that more than half of them are missing the purpose of the worship time. It is not about what others are thinking of you or whether or not you can sing. To God all worship sounds wonderful I’m sure. That time though is a chance for us as a group to praise Him and basically express our love and gratitude for what He did for us. We are a contemporary church according to our Pastor and we do sing some contemporary songs as well as some hymns. All of the music we sing though is a form of praise to Jesus. I have often wished that more of the congregation would just let go and either sing or even just say the words to the songs. I can’t imagine not singing worship and have heard some recently saved state that it was a particular song that touched them and led them to the decision to receive Christ. Of course I know that it was God who gave them the desire, but sometimes I’m honored to know that he uses some of the music we sing to do so. I do occasionally listen to a Christian radio station in our area that plays alot of more modern CCM songs. I usually just change the station. I definitely see what you mean about some of the songs being focused on the wrong thing. I guess my point is that it’s not about us and when people get that, they tend to enjoy the worship time more. After all it is and always should be about HIM!
Thanks and I guess this is really a late comment but oh well.
Comment by Paul
11.22 pm on 8 Jan 2008
Thanks CJ, great to have your comment and a very good reminder of the heart of worship isn’t about us at all.
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