Jeff Ling

Just had to repost some of the material from Tullian Tchividjian’s post via the Gospel Coalition blog. Excellent!

“Most churches would agree that any segregation arising from racial or economic bigotry runs contrary to the nature of the gospel and should not be tolerated. But there’s another kind of segregation, perhaps more subtle, that many churches today have unapologetically embraced.

Following the lead of the advertising world, many churches and worship services target specific age groups to the exclusion of others. They forget that, according to the Bible, the church is an all-age community, and instead they organize themselves around distinctives dividing the generations: Busters, Boomers, Millennials, Generations X, Y, and Z. Many churches offer a traditional service for the tribe who prefer older music and a contemporary service for the tribe who prefer newer music. The truth is, however, that if the only type of music you employ in a worship service is old, you inadvertently communicate that God was more active in the past than he is in the present. On the other hand, if the only type of music you employ in a worship service is new, you inadvertently communicate that God is more active in the present than he was in the past.

The only way to musically communicate God’s timeless activity in the life of the church is to blend the best of the past with the best of the present. In other words, we must remember in our worship that while “contemporary only” people operate with their heads fixed frontwards, never looking over their shoulder at the stock from which they have come, and “traditional only” people operate with their heads on backwards, romanticizing about the past and always wanting to go back, the Church, in contrast from both extremes, is called upon to be a people with swiveling heads: learning from the past, living in the present, and looking to the future. That’s the only way to avoid in worship what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.”

You see, when we separate people according to something as trivial as musical preferences, we evidence a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the gospel. We’re not only feeding toxic tribalism; we’re also saying the gospel can’t successfully bring these two different groups together. It’s a declaration of doubt about the unifying power of God’s gospel. Generational appeal in worship is an admission that the gospel is powerless to join together what man has separated.

Building the church on stylistic preferences or age appeal (whether old or young) is just as contrary to the reconciling effect of the gospel as building it on class, race, or gender distinctions. In a recent interview J. I. Packer said, “If worship services are so fixed that what’s being offered fits the expectations, the hopes, even the prejudices, of any one of these groups as opposed to the others, I don’t believe the worship style glorifies God.” One of the leading ways the church can testify to God’s unifying power before our segregated world is to establish and maintain congregations and worship services that transcend cultural barriers, including age and musical styles.”

This article was triggered by a couple of things. First, Trevin Wax released a post on his blog entitled  “Steak on a Paper Plate: A Reflection on Worship”.  In it, Trevin questioned the forms of our worship and whether or not those forms (i.e. paper plates) were appropriate for celebrating and acknowledging the glory of God.  It was a great analogy and a fresh one for a discussion that has been going on for quite some time.  Content and form, style and substance. One statement by Trevin especially caught my eye:

But 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. (emphasis mine)

Reading Trevin’s article reminded me of some other things I had read in my studies, particularly arguments put forward by Marva J. Dawn, Michael Horton, Robert Webber and others. A work by Dr. Allen P. Ross is what I feature here and base my comments on.  In his book: Recalling the Hope of Glory, Dr. Ross discusses the danger of our worship becoming “imbalanced if not deformed.” How does that happen? By ignoring what he refers to as the “four basic senses of the human spirit as it responds to God.”

What are those four basic senses?

The Intellectual Sense. This relates to our fundamental need of understanding what we do and the reasons for it. We have a huge responsibility as worship leaders to prepare carefully and present with clarity. Dr. Ross suggests that the effect of understanding is two-fold:  First, it keeps the acts of worship safe from the stagnation of routine and or the infusion of superstition.  Secondly,  it helps to ensure that the worship experience does not come untethered from the everyday of living.

The Aesthetic Sense. We were created in the context of beauty and have the capacity for creating beautiful, although flawed, offerings. The wide variety of artistic expressions that exist should serve the purpose  not only of adding color to the world as a measure of common grace but extol and magnify the glory of God before the world. The fact is that there is very little creating that goes on in most worship settings. We often allot people the role of marginally involved observers who may sing a few songs (when not just watching the band) and little else. Ross points to the fact that worship is intended to be a dramatic reenactment of the gospel each week that invites people to participate by song, symbol, prayer, gestures, responses, etc..  This serves not only to draw the heart of the worshipper to God but into a deeper sense of community by shared acts of praise.

The Corporate Sense. Ross stresses that “ private worship or personal devotions, which are essential for the spiritual life, must lead into and find full expression in the assembly of the righteous, for private meditations must benefit others. “  In other words, our individual experience of worship is intended to fuel the worship of the community and help it take flight. It is a sad reality that multitudes of worship leaders look into the eyes of empty people each week; people who are relying on the band, the music, the charisma of the leader, to drag them from the grip of empty devotional lives into a momentary experience that caters more to the needs of people than magnifying the glory of God. Am I suggesting that our worship times should not bring comfort and encouragement to those attending? Certainly not. What I do mean to say is that if we help our people to understand the responsibility of bringing to the corporate worship a heart overflowing from private worship, we would see a greater depth of God-centered worship and less of a need to be pumped or propped up.

The Moral Sense. Frankly, I was disappointed that Dr. Ross used the word moral to describe this. I do understand his point: worship that is genuine should lead to transformed living. Our ethic should reflect the righteousness of the One whose face we behold. That said, I would have preferred the term the transcendent sense. My reason for this is that I firmly believe that our goal should not be to become more moral or ethical. I don’t believe that our goal in worship should be the transformation of people into a more virtuous morality. Where that has been emphasized, legalism tends to rule the day. Our deepest need is to be touched by the transcendent display of His holiness as we worship Him. When we worship “in the beauty of holiness” and behold “as in a mirror, the glory of God.” We find that the holiness we long for and the hatred of sin we experience is the genuine transformative work of the Spirit in our lives. Worship births love and love is the motivation we need to live out of.  I think Dr. Ross would agree with that and I certainly agree with his assessment of what happens when Holy God is not the focal point of our worship:

“Worship must develop this sense otherwise the intellectual sense will become arrogance, the aesthetic sense will be entertainment, and the corporate sense an unguided assembly.“

I don’t think any other statement captures so perfectly the dangers we face today if not humbled by God’s holiness. It is no secret that the reformed that have an emphasis on the intellectual sense are often found to be arrogant, that everyone from the seekers to the charismatics often fall head long into the lure of entertainment, and that emergents and house churches take the form of unguided assemblies in the name of community.

The question I face is the same one that Ralph Martin asks at the end of his masterful treatment of worship in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley):

“What is the pattern of worship that best conveys the richness of divine grace, faithfully interprets the gospel in our modern world and helpfully consolidates the body of Christ?”

Unless we are asking all of those questions then the warning of Dr. Ross concerning entertainment, arrogance and unguided assemblies is what we will contend with.

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.’”

The Lamb Has Conquered

An outstanding collection of new music for the church, The Lamb Has Conquered has been released by Vineyard Records UK. The music was birthed out of Mercy Vineyard, Southampton and all of the songs were lyrically penned by the team of Mike & Jamie Pearson and Kate Cooke. A group of musicians from the church helped to create the melodies and the result is stellar. Elevation Music are currently offering a free download track from the album on their website.

Much of what is released today in “worship music” seems very removed from the church. Songs are often too difficult to learn for average people or pitched too high for them to sing comfortably. The Lamb Has Conquered reflects the reality of having been written in a church and for the church. The songs are accessible, lyrically devotional but with theological depth, and largely cross generational.

Vineyard Music UK describes the CD this way:

“The Lamb Has Conquered offers 12 dynamic new worship songs of truth, courage, empowerment and hope for believers worldwide”, says Vineyard Records.“The songs focus on the redemptive power of the incarnate Jesus raised to life for us. There is a strong declaration of the love and sacrifice of Jesus through songs which are sometimes very personal and reflective, and other times powerful and victorious. These ‘sung prayers’ are dynamically, passionately and sensitively supported musically.”

Preview the CD here!

One of the most profound views of worship that has shaped me over the years, first came via Ralph P. Martin in his book; “Worship in the Early Church.”  In conclusion concerning the factors that shaped worship in the early Church, Martin states:

“Christian worship, as a distinctive, indigenous thing, arose from the fusion, in the crucible of Christian experience, of the synagogue and the Upper Room…. The typical worship of the Church is to be found to this day in the union of the worship of the synagogue and the sacramental experience of the Upper Room; and that union dates from New Testament times.”

I have made the statement many times over the years when teaching on worship that the early disciples would not recognize most of what the contemporary church engages in as worship. For them, the core of worship was “word and table.” For the church today it’s “music and word” with the table thrown in periodically.

It’s why I’m a “three streamer” and will remain one.

I’m in Nashville this week for the Messenger Summit. Messenger Fellowship is my ordaining body and filled with friends that are long time and close to my heart. The purpose of this summit is addressing the issues that divide the church in our day. There’s a particular focus here as it relates to the streams that seem to be polarized – particularly the missional vs revivalist (charismatic) elements within the Body of Christ. Think Andy Stanley vs. Mike Bickle.  (Their example) To me, this is a very narrow way of identifying the issue. It seems to me the issues dividing the church involve polarization and division but it’s hardly a simple issue to define.  It exists on different levels, almost like those multiple level chess boards you’d see on Star Trek. It’s not “evangelicals vs charismatics.”  What do those labels mean? Most of the people at this summit would agree that Andy Stanley and Bill Hybles are evangelical but I’m aware of a large swath of the Body that would question that. Is Brian McClaren and other emergent leaders in his stream evangelical? Would Mark Dever, John Piper and Sinclair Ferguson agree to share that label with them? On the other end, Mike Bickle is probably not a good starting point for the charismatic stream. There are more conservative starting points! But IHOP and Bickle are hardly the extreme. On the fringe are the Patricia Kings and John Crowders. So the issues as I see it revolve around at least three critical components

Gospel/Authority – the church faces a strong surge of renewed liberalism riding the white horse of justice and inclusiveness. The authority of scripture is being undermined while the gospel of God’s wrath propitiated by the atoning work of Jesus is being dismantled. As Brian McClaren himself as said – “that’s not a God worth believing in.” Where do we draw the lines that allow us to fellowship or require us to separate?

Revivalism – At what point does the church risk becoming either a gnostic community formed around ever increasing mystical experience or like the New York of post -Finney revivalism, a burned over district? How do we pursue the empowering grace of the Spirit and His gifting without creating a culture defined by the experiences we have instead of the gospel we proclaim in word and power. It seems to me that in the extremes, you can pick your entertainment: the skits and comedians of the seeker variety or the “toking the Holy Ghost” variety of John Crowder. Both means lead to ends that are self-serving for those wanting the entertainment whether they prefer the darkened auditorium of  anonymous observation or the spotlight of narcissistic outdoing of the other in goofiness.

Worship/Government – I’ll save comment on these for later. The governmental issues are less urgent for me as I do think there is latitude for understanding how church leadership functions but we do have to note an increased anti-authoritarian spirit on the loose. I’m anti-authoritarian as well when it comes to shepherds who would rather be served than serve. But leaders who are godly, responsible and loving in their leadership will always be needed. Worship requires a long hard look. Something seems askew to me. I fear we’ve laid upon music and “worship leaders” a burden that is going to be unsustainable in the years to come. I’ll save that for another time.