Worship as Counter Cultural Narrative (2) : Imagining the Future

In the Introduction (part 1) of this series, I considered the kingdom advances that have been made through the contemporary worship movement. I now turn to three particular areas that I think will help define the future health of this movement.

A Deeper Engagement with Biblical Theology

This is especially true in the Charismatic church where we tend to lean into the things of the Spirit, but not theologically reflect on such experience. One of my friends said to me recently: “I love it when you start reading the bible because we start to talk the same language”.

Part of the challenge as I perceive it, is that questions on theology have been understood by some as disloyalty, attitudes that will “quench the work of the Spirit”.

We are afraid of theological disagreement, of asking hard theological questions, of being wrong. This needs to change.

And as those engaging with these theological issues, we need to not only seek out those who tend to agree with us, but those who have different views. This will sharpen us.

Formation of Worship Leaders

In my view, we have not matched the sharing of worship leadership from vicar to worship leader with sufficient training and formation of those worship leaders.

Many training ministries have focused on more technical and creative dimensions of the Contemporary Worship Movement. As testament to this, many churches can produce great music. This is something to be truly thankful for.

But I don’t think we have really begun to train worship leaders sufficiently theologically, pastorally and spiritually.

For example, Pastors need to love their church, and love the people in their church. They are, as some say, caretakers. How are we equipping worship leaders — who tend by nature to be creative and inspirational and progressive, to take care of their congregations more than they take care of their own personal profile?

In terms of training, church leaders (at least in the church of England) get 2 years where they test their call, 3 years theological training and maybe 3 years coaching in a curacy. Worship leaders may get a year out course, are then handed a guitar and told ‘now become one of the most influential people in our church’.

I am not saying that worship pastors need 10 years training before we let them lead worship in church. What I am saying is that we need to get better in providing the type of formation for worship pastors that matches their emerging role in the church.

One of the issues is this: most senior worship leaders in the UK end up leading churches, pursuing their own albums and tours, or for one or two — retiring on their royalties. Yet the emerging generation of worship leaders need the wisdom of those who have gone before, more than ever before. They are looking for fathers in worship. Where are they?

Cultural Narratives

We have not worked out how to relate our gathered worship to the strong cultural narratives present in our world at the moment. In particular I m not sure we have addressed properly how the powerful cultural narratives of Performance, Consumerism, Celebrity are impacting worship in our churches.

A lot of these things are a bit like lying back in the bath with the hot tap running. It’s only when you start to move that you realise how hot it’s got, and how painful it is to change things.

In my view we seem to be more focused on being culturally relevant, rather than culturally distinctive. I know these terms can mean different things to different people, and so (as future posts will attempt to do) it is always important to define carefully what we are talking about before we talk about them. But it seems to me that we need to be salt, not sponges, when it comes to our culture.

Part of this conversation about cultural narratives needs to engage in prophetic imagination of the future. We talk a lot about prophetic worship in the charismatic church. And rightly so. But what about those are willing to imagine a different culture of worship, and are prepared to speak up for it? I’m not saying I’m a prophet. But what I am doing at this moment in time trying to imagine a different, better worship than the one these cultural narratives present us.

Imagining the Future

So I think what I am trying to do at the moment with these issues is to do some imagining for the future of the Contemporary Worship Movement. I know this will probably put me at odds with some people! And I am sure that along the way I will make mistakes. But… here goes….