The latest swing in the worship wars

As a worship leader and campus pastor, I’ve followed the so-called “worship wars” with some interest over the years. You could read one of the latest salvos at my friend Anthony’s blog. These conversations get heated because they not only involve our personal preferences, but have huge implications for how we “do church;” how we pursue our God-given mission and how we express it in corporate worship. These conversations usually lack adequate historical context, and devolve into name-calling or silly absolutizing of personal preferences. So while recognizing that I have my own preferences, let me try and give a quick and over-generalized take on the current worship scene. If you accept the thesis that history is made by people acting & then reacting–that we’re always somewhere on a pendulum swing–my take is that we’re at the end of one pendulum swing, and need to start heading the other way. (BTW, things aren’t great at the extremes). Up until the mid-90s, most of the worship songs (non-hymns) being sung in churches were ’70s Jesus People stuff (very simple bible choruses) and ’80s Graham Kendrick type stuff (Shine Jesus Shine, Lord I Lift Your Name on High). These were more catchy than hymns but were not as personal or emotive as what followed: Hillsongs (Shout to the Lord), then the UK (Matt Redman, delirious, Tim Hughes) and Passion (Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall, David Crowder) stuff. (IMO Vineyard was no longer a pacesetter at this point, but following the trends above).As someone who started leading worship in the mid-90s, it’s hard to express how refreshing those first few albums from the UK and Passion were. Much of what came before was more removed, much more in the 3rd person. Singing ABOUT God. What came later was more intimate, more the 2nd person, singing TO God. Those songs were a needed reaction against some REALLY stale stuff. They injected warmth and life into worship again. But over the past decade, the pendulum has swung too far that way, so that in some circles it’s hard to AVOID “prom songs to Jesus” as Mark Driscoll says. By the way, this trend has happened before in church worship: have you ever heard or sung “In the Garden”? These pendulum swings tend to repeat themselves.  One fallout from this trend is that guys–many of whom already have a hard time with singing in church–are even more alienated by singing songs to Jesus whose lyrics they would never say to another man. This is a problem. I’ve talked with more than a few young men who would be happy if church or campus ministry didn’t include musical worship at all for the next year. The Church has gathered that “the market” wants emotionally cathartic, therapeutic songs and worship experiences.  Hmm, is this why we gather and do music? The “service” in “worship service” is meant to be our service to God–not self-service.I don’t think this vindicates the traditionalists who chortle that their hymns-with-organ-only approach has once again been proven right.  They have their own issues, and like it or not, they’re merely catering to their own market segment. I don’t think the answer is as easy as blending everything to achieve a mythical balance. I don’t think the answer is as easy as taking old hymns and putting them to new (folk, rock, or folk-rock) tunes.   The questions ought to be: 1) what is biblical? and 2) what is missional?   A biblical take will correct the tendency to sing about Jesus as your boyfriend. Like the psalms, we shouldn’t sing about intimacy all the time–though it should be in there sometimes.  We’ll sing much more about God and to God, and less about ourselves. We’ll sing much more about what He’s done, and much less about what we’ve done or how we feel about it. God is a missionary God, so thoroughly biblical reflection will lead us to missional considerations. We’ll consider what musical forms will be conducive to expressing eternal, biblical truth in forms that unchurched people will be able to enter into.  For example, I have a couple friends who are planting a church among urban African-Americans, and they are deep into the hip-hop scene. They’re reaching a hip-hop generation through…hip-hop. What a concept! Solid, biblical truth in hip-hop form.  Deep reflection on biblical & missional issues should deliver us from the stale worship that many of us experience week after week. It should lead to urgency and vitality in our worship ministries. We won’t just settle for songs we did 20 years, 10 years, 5 years, or 1 year ago, for the sake of tradition. We’ll always be on the lookout for new songs and very likely writing our own. We won’t unthinkingly import songs from elsewhere (be that 18th century England, Australia, or Nashville). And we will very likely do songs that we ourselves aren’t that into, for the sake of the mission. Personally, much of the UK & Passion style worship doesn’t “do it” for me like it used to, but that’s not the point. Perhaps the next pendulum swing will. I don’t know. I can’t say where the next pendulum swing will take us, but I know it’s needed. Let’s hope it’s both biblically and missionally informed.Your thoughts?