Reflection on Trevin Wax’s “Steak on a Paper Plate”

Trevin Wax posted some great comments on worship at his Kingdom People blog. He brings into focus the issue of how form and content in worship impact one another. The blog title “Steak on a Paper Plate” highlights the tendency we have in contemporary worship to consistently serve up the content of God’s glory (steak) in forms that treat majesty with a casualness that can rob it of its transcendence. He writes:

“… in worship today, there is a tendency toward casualness. The emphasis on feeling God’s closeness in worship may short-circuit the possibility of being transformed by a glimpse of the Transcendent One. There’s hardly any room for feeling awe in worship, and I can’t help but think that part of our problem is the form.”

Spot on Trevin.
I appreciated the article. It brought to mind a discussion in Marva J. Dawn’s “A Royal ‘Waste’ of Time” in which she discusses the tendency of the church to serve up fast food rather than gourmet meals because the masses prefer the fast food.

Trevin hit the nail on the head concerning the “casualness” of our approach. He comments, “Form and content mirror one another.” I would add that when form becomes the primary concern, content always suffers. Let me offer this comment from Marva Dawn:

“Far too many churches are not doing a good job of sorting what they use from ‘contemporary’ music because they choose it primarily for its style, and the result is worship filled with stuff that trivializes God and forms narcissistic people.” – Marva J. Dawn, A Royal “Waste” of Time: the Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World

This is an issue that responsible worship leaders must deal with. We have the responsibility to facilitate singing “unto the Lord (Eph. 5:18-20)but also to be theologians who understand the power of song to ground people in Biblical truth (Col. 3:16).My challenge is finding a synthesis between worship for the head and for the heart. Worship that, as you said, embraces the transcendence of God as well as His nearness.

There are signs of some really healthy songwriting out there. (Matthew Smith, Stuart Townend, Sovereign Grace) Songs with great theological content in a contemporary vein are emerging but the danger is always for the pendulum to swing to far. Just as we have suffered from a “thinness” by focusing primarily on intimacy in worship, it would be a mistake to discard the intimate for only the intellectual. As a wise man once said: “The Spirit alone and you blow up. The Word alone and you dry up. The Spirit and the Word together, and you grow up.” There is some wisdom there.

At the church I pastor we have made it a point to be “ancient/future” in our approach. We use music from sources like Chris Tomlin and Indelible Grace. We want to encounter the living God. We’re hand raisers, vocal praisers, even known to lift up a shout now and then. We kneel, we weep, we pour our hearts out. We read the scriptures publicly, recite the Apostles Creed (usually over a song instrumental that leads back into singing)and the Lord’s prayer, pass the peace and share communion every week. The charismatics tell us that we’re “too liturgical” for them and the liturgists say we’re “too charismatic” for them. Probably why we remain a small church – we don’t appeal to anyone!

It’s rich though. Truly.

There’s something oddly wonderful about embracing current styles while remembering on whose shoulders we stand and using those ancient words and symbols to enrich our expressions. Recently we began doing somethings during communion that have been very positive. First, the band has quit leading songs during the communion time. We used to sing though the time while people were going forward to receive but it eventually became clear that the band was often providing a cover for people to disengage by just watching the musicians or striking up personal conversations. We’ve begun to use some very quiet recorded music – keyboard/acoustic guitar – nothing familiar to avoid distraction – and the result has been a remarkable change of focus and increased reverence. The other item is we have incorporated is one of the oldest confessions of the Church:

Leader:
Therefore we proclaim the mystery of our faith!
All:
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again!

It’s a significant moment and it once again removes people from the role of spectators and involves them in the celebration.

Trevin’s closing paragraph was excellent:

“Christians need to sense the weight of God’s glory, the truths of God’s Word, the reality of coming judgment, and the gloriousness of God’s grace. Trying to package the bigness of this God into most casual worship services is like trying to eat steak on a paper plate. You can do it for awhile, but at some point, people will start saying, ‘I want a dish.’”