Is Everything About Contemporary Worship Good?
Author: worship180 / Category: UncategorizedWell, I’m doing my best to continue writing my thoughts about worship styles and how I see them. In response, to my friend Charlie, I’m making sure to write about worship from a contemporary viewpoint today. I may take a break tomorrow and write about another on Monday. With all that being said…
So my answer to this question will be the same as the answer to the previous blog’s question…NO! I will step out on a limb and say that everything about contemporary worship is not good. We have gotten some great songs over the years from some great musicians and writers. We have also seen this music be something that has brought up some new musicians. We think about songs like “How Great is Our God” and “Your Grace is Enough” and you wonder how anything about contemporary music can be bad. But here is what I feel has been the BIGGEST issue with the world of contemporary music. Surprisingly enough, it won’t have anything to do with Chris Tomlin or Steve Fee. It has to do with the people in our churches…
People who have contemporary worship services tend to be alienating of other worship styles. Most of my experiences with people who sing contemporary music has been where the singers have negative thoughts about hymns of the past. Now I know that to some degree this is an overgeneralization, but I’m just speaking for arguement sake. I feel that sometimes we can get so excited about something new that we just blast whatever was old. That is something that hurts harmony within the body. Then we start seeing seperate services for traditional and contemporary in the same morning. Although I’m not a huge fan of separate services because of differences in style, I’ll take it over the other thing that tends to happen.
Some churches will attempt to update music and do things in a new way, but with people who don’t understand the music. When musicians try to do things they aren’t familiar with without the help of someone who IS familiar with it, that is really frustrating to me. I will try my best not to run off on a tangent, because I’m sure that’s not helpful to anyone. I think at this point I’m going to stop and leave this up for discussion…
Tags: community, corporate, distractions, style, worship
June 13th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Nice post. I am totally in line with you on the blessing that people like Christ Tomlin and Reuben Morgan have brought to Christian Worship. I also agree that the answer to the separatists is not a Sunday morning traditional service and a Sunday night contemporary service. I believe that puts both sets of people in a mind set that says they don’t need to understand those “other” people. I personally don’t think you cater to congregation. If it all is in line with truth and you have a problem with it I don’t think the church is the one that needs to change.
Jesus meant to shake up the traditionalists and tell them that there was more to God’s glory in so many ways, and if they would open their eyes and ears they would see and hear what the Father wanted them to know. God’s glory is revealed in new ways to us everyday if we shut our minds to it because we don’t understand or it’s different than it used to be, then we potentially shut out the truth or blessing that God had in store for us.
I ain’t touchin your last paragraph…..
June 13th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Nice post. I believe it was Chris Tomlin who did an awesome arrangement of “Amazing Grace”, which was a song that in it’s day was seen as contemporary. I think the issue is not contemporary or traditional I think the issue is, is there worship, or is there a concert? We can worship God in many ways but we must make sure that He is party to the worship. Worship cannot exist where God is not the focus.
“Jesus meant to shake up the traditionalists and tell them that there was more to God’s glory in so many ways, and if they would open their eyes and ears they would see and hear what the Father wanted them to know. God’s glory is revealed in new ways to us everyday if we shut our minds to it because we don’t understand or it’s different than it used to be, then we potentially shut out the truth or blessing that God had in store for us”.
I’m not sure this is 100% accurate. I think Jesus stated exactly why He came and never once did He say He was here to “shake things up. I believe His point was that He was the Son of God and they need not wait for the Light because the LIght is here, and they should know that because they where educated. See John 8.
I must say this was a god post. I enjoy both forms of worship. I have seen both at MBU and have found that the issue tends tobe the heart of the leader and less in regards to the music chosen..
June 17th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I agree with you Scott in that the determination is in the heart of worship not the genre of the music.
I think however you misunderstood what I was saying. I never stated Jesus came to shake things up, he came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10) I also never stated that Jesus said that he meant to shake things up. I implied by his actions it is a safe assumption that those were his intentions. By the scripture you mentioned in John 8, in addition to the numerous occasions Jesus chastised the Pharisees for their traditional way of thinking; I believe we can state that Jesus was not supportive of closed hearts and ears, and meant to challenge (shake up) their way of thinking.
My point is not only in reference to worship but our spiritual condition as a whole. If our hearts and minds are not open to hear the voice of the bridegroom we won’t hear Him.