Church and Worship
An Unpopular Appeal for the Big Three
by Tim Lien
Jimmy Hopper sent me this NYT article on “praise rock.” It’s an article about larger churches spending time building a musical culture adapted specifically to the various generations reflected in their church.
You can read it here.
A quotation from the article:
“When you start a church,” said Tom Mercer, 52, the senior pastor, “you don’t decide who you’re going to reach and then pick a music style. You pick a music style, and that determines who’s going to come.”
Obvious critiques abound. If contextualization comes first, you become a slave to it. Now, I’m all for contextualization, but a church must be faithful to the historic Church’s greatest concerns: Word, prayer, and sacraments—first and foremost. Then other concerns will/should flow from this emphasis. To an extent Mr. Mercer was correct: the music style does determine who will come. And, those who come will also determine the very substance of the church. People and their beliefs matter. Churches are not abstract entities.
However, the very same critique can be leveled at those within the PCA who have emphasized another necessary component: Mercy-Ministries. If a church becomes dominated by a practical exercise of good, it often times will compromise the very things it should be emphasizing over and above everything else—so that the “mercy” can be maintained, groomed, and expanded. Mercy-ministries (or any other ministry) that do not flow from The Big Three (Word, sacraments, prayer) will not have longevity past the energized few who began them. I talk with many twenty-something Reformed people who want to choose a church based on the mercy-programs that are emanating from the church. And there are also pastors who want to “plant-an-urban-integrated-church-that-likes-mercy.” Well, ok, but how will that be fed? By the Word or by cool mercy mercy techniques. And this (in principal) is just as faulty as choosing a church for its music or building a church around its music.
Posted by Tim Lien at November 7, 2007 10:07 AM
1) This is one of the pitfalls inherent in applying business principles (demographics, in this case) to church operations. I’m not against the concept in all cases/situations, but the tendency is to let the business principles do what they are designed to do- and that is to rule the function of operations.
2) I’m a bit offended that my stylistic/worship service preferences can be assumed to be predetermined based on my age, according to the church leaders
3)The idea that you can only ‘worship if the style fits you’ is implied.
Having said all that, if a church body forms and, as it develops, determines that it will use certain tools in worship, be they organ, piano, guitars or drums, that’s fine. As long as the focus in on God and His attributes and not on the people directing that worship, I’m generally fine with it in theory. However, when more people are involved, and when the culture paints perception (as in the case of ‘rock guitars,’ et al), the potential pitfalls are multiplied.
Tim, you are exactly right- choosing a church primarily because of stylistic issues (musical, social, aesthetic/architectural, etc.) is a dicey and faulty proposition. Fads fade and people change. I wonder if in the above scenario, they have a graduation ceremony when people age out of the younger services. Does this imply that the more traditional services are ‘more mature’ than the other ones? If so, why not scrap the others and only have the traditional? If not, can geezers still come to the Headbangers for Jesus service? More on these rhetorical questions in a later post.
I believe that what we’re doing regarding worship music at RPC is faithful to the Word in content and form and reflective of God’s attributes and reflective of sacramental worship as well. Much of our music is presented as either prayer itself or supporting a time of individual prayer. Also, even the newer songs and things we bring in must be in harmony with these ideas and be agreeable with orthodox Christian beliefs. In my mind, worship music should support,amplify and, in some cases, exemplify the ‘Big Three’ to anyone caring to watch and pay attention. That’s what we strive to do every Sunday.
You know, I read the article and watched the imbedded video (which is even more revealing than the article), and one thought really came to the forefront of my mind: the outlook of folks who are reformed and the outlook of those who aren’t are radically different.
In the video, one of the pastors cites some study that was done that concluded that within the first 10 minutes or so of attending a church for the first time, a visitor will decide whether to ever come back or not. The conclusion he drew from this was that those first 10 minutes “had better be good.” Thus, the need for ever more pop-culture attuned music.
Now, to me, this is silliness, not that worship should be good, but that it’s the efforts of man and not God that ultimately determine who’s drawn to the church. Assuming the study he cites to be accurate, so what? The underlying presumption is that the church must work in the same way that the world works, something the scriptures quite clearly teach is not true. Besides, note that this doesn’t allow for the consideration of the effect of the preaching of the word. It’s all music-centric.
The works mentality on display here doesn’t stop with the music. Consider this quotation from the pastor, discussing a building project they’re undertaking:
“If I ask God’s people to give me $20 million,” Mr. Mercer said during an interview in his corner office, “when I stand before God someday, I don’t want to hear him say, ‘Dude, you wasted a ton of my money.’ I want him to say, ‘You did a good job.’
Now, leaving aside the issue of trying to imagine God using the word “dude,” the prospect of God scolding a Christian at the final judgment for “wasting a ton of my money” is just mind-boggling.
Ultimately, it brings me back to feeling a little bit sorry for folks who don’t have the comfort of knowing that their salvation is determined by someone far more faithful then they. Another quote, this one is about the music for the children:
“For the children, in both their Sunday school classes and youth group events, the music is pop-punk. The idea is to keep their attention with high energy, then to slide gradually toward contemplation.”
Can you imagine this? Trying to rev a bunch of kids up with “pop-punk” (whatever that is), then bring them around to “contemplation.” For me as a parent of small children, it would be hard to dream up something more ridiculous. Yet, if you really believe that it’s up to you and your efforts to evangelize these kids, it starts to have a bizarre logic.
I frequently say that Riverwood is an island. Articles like this one really just reinforce that notion to me, and make me very, very grateful that it’s an island I’m on.