Worship as Counter Cultural Narrative (1): Introduction

Just recently, there have been a number of critical articles on the Contemporary Worship Movement that have had a wide social media presence. Yet almost without exception, the frustration is expressed through the lens of experience and preference. I wrote a short response on one such article here.

Yes, I have gone down that route once or twice. I think when you believe in something as passionately as I do then to do this is a temptation rooted in good intentions. But I personally have been challenged to try and address my frustrations, not through the lenses of experience and preference, but through the lens of Biblical Theology and Ecclesiology.

My view is that the frustrations I, and others, have expressed ultimately seem to have their roots in a number of cultural narratives that are finding their way — rightly or wrongly — into our gathered worship, particularly those narratives of consumerism, celebrity and performance. In some ways these are 21st century issues, fuelled initially by television, and exacerbated more recently by social media. This means finding a biblical response involves digging underneath the way those narratives express themselves in our culture to find the underlying values and possibly unchecked temptations that have given rise to them.

I am no expert, and I am sure that I will only scratch the surface in this series, but it seems to me important for the future health of the Contemporary Worship Movement that we start to ask some different questions and seek a Biblical response, not just an emotional or sociological one.

So this is my first, stuttering contribution to the conversation.

In this first article I will look at some of the Kingdom advances that the Contemporary Worship Movement has made. In the second article, I will look at some of the areas that these advances bring things that I think need addressing. And then in the subsequent articles I will zoom in on the cultural narratives of consumerism, celebrity and performance.

By way of introduction, though, it is worth recognising that the journey of the Contemporary Worship Movement may have spanned 35–40 years, yet in terms of the history of the people of God, it is comparatively recent.

If I were to talk for an hour about the worship of the people of God from Genesis to the current day (depending on how you view some of those texts) I would talk for 59 minutes and 30 seconds about other things, and only start to talk about the Contemporary Worship Movement for the last 30 seconds. This puts it into some perspective. We are young.

Yet in that relatively short span of time, I think there are a number of huge Kingdom advances we can be thankful for.

1. We have discovered that there are no sacred styles of worship, only helpful ones.

Actually, drums and electric guitars are not the instrument of Satan. Young people can worship to pop music beats without it driving them to acts of sexual depravity. For those who weren’t around when the Contemporary Worship Movement started — yes, these were genuine fears expressed by some in the church. The song Why should the Devil have all the Good Music was not primarily a pop song: it was a protest song written by Larry Norman. Here is his explanation of why he wrote the song.

Since then, despite arguably a slightly arrogant start, the Contemporary Worship Movement has learned itself that choirs and liturgy and ritual are not to be despised: they are beautiful and helpful and its not just old people who say so.

Every book I have read that has tried to establish a biblical precedent for different styles has pretty much failed (and I’ve read lots of them). Most were written with good intent — to try and build bridges and avoid splits — which is honourable.

All to say, this has led us to the place where unity through diversity is possible, and we can (hopefully) stop trying to squeeze out a biblical justification for different musical styles, and just recognise that we all like different things.

2. We have found a style of (musical) worship that is generally very accessible to younger generations.

Having said all of that, I don’t think we can under-estimate this: I think the church is growing in many demographics because of contemporary worship music.

You can’t watch thousands of young people at Soul Survivor, or thousands of children at New Wine singing and worshipping without acknowledging how important this has been.

Some of the language about young leaders and the church has not always been helpful, because for me the biblical model for church is primarily family where all ages have their part and their voice in the story of the church.

Yet it is almost certainly true that the Contemporary Worship Movement has made that family stronger by drawing younger generations into that shared story.

3. We have raised up a number of songwriters who have gifted the church with songs that will last for many generations to come.

There are now some exceptional modern-day songwriters that are writing some very good songs. This, too, is undeniably a good thing.

I am sure that we can all find bad examples of songwriting. But let’s celebrate those who have provided us with a rich, poetic legacy of modern day songs, some of which I am sure the Church will still be singing for many more generations.

4. We have made connections between what we sing when we gather and the ministry of the Spirit when we gather.

This is part of the Kingdom mindset: that as we have sung these worship songs, and tuned in to what the Spirit is doing, we have seen His Kingdom Come.

I think that this Kingdom mindset in worship became particularly evident through the ministry of John Wimber and the Vineyard. I don’t think it is rocket science. When we ‘worship’ we intentionally focus on Jesus, become more aware of His nearness, we can more clearly see what the Spirit is doing, and so surrender to (join in with & share in) His life.

Alongside this I think we have reconnected with issues of intimacy and emotion in worship. These things may not be the be-all and end-all of worship, but I think we are not so afraid of them these days. This, too, is good.

5. We have developed shared leadership of ‘worship’ gatherings.

Previously the Vicar was the worship leader, choose the hymns and lead the liturgy ad well as preached the sermon and gave the notices. You get the picture. The organist & choir provided the music — valuable in itself — which necessitated a certain training and coaching. However, now a significant part of the leadership of our worship gatherings is delegated to a worship leader and band.

For me, leadership is not about being the best at everything, but about bring the best out of everyone. So the more we see others share in leadership feels like progress to me — although not without challenges.

6. The Contemporary Worship Movement has (arguably) been a champion of unity in the Church

Certainly from my experience, most worship leaders are relatively unconcerned with traditional denominational boundaries. It’s not to say that we aren’t proud of our respective heritages or families, or that we don’t have theological convictions about the nature of the church that determine our place of belonging. Although from time to time it possibly feels that unhealthy competition is bubbling away in the background between worship movements, we are a generation that tends to go where the favour is, and focus on friendship and relationship first. All of which I think has contributed to the unity of the church.

I am sure there are more things we could celebrate, but for me these are some of the most significant, and things to be truly grateful for.

Yet the relative new-ness of this worship movement, and the Kingdom advances that have been made bring with them their own particular challenges, which I will focus on in the next post.