A Rant from a Loser in the Worship Wars

By Chaplain Mike

UPDATE: I’m not sure if some of you did not read the post carefully or if I communicated poorly, but I want to clarify something. This post is NOT about music styles and what styles are better or worse. This post is ultimately about how today’s evangelical church has changed the definition of “church,” “pastor,” and “worship.” The so-called “Worship Wars” have been part of context for these changes, but they are not the real issue. If the comments continue to take the track they’ve taken, I will write a follow-up post and try to make myself perfectly clear.

I will admit it from the beginning: I’m on the losing side in the worship wars. As such, I feel a little like what I imagine a southerner who’s still fighting the civil war in his heart must feel, calling it “The War of Northern Aggression” and still clinging to the Confederate flag as a symbol of his rebel nation’s pride. When it comes to evangelical church culture in the United States, what we loosely call “contemporary” worship has won. Hands down. The score wasn’t even close, and it’s been over for years, decades in many places.

Oh, I know some of you will argue that there has been a publicized renewal of interest in the “ancient-future” path, a restoration of liturgy and a movement by some evangelicals back to mainline Protestant churches as well as Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Let’s not fool ourselves. This is a distinctly minority movement. Most evangelicals today know less about the history and traditions of worship than they did when I was in seminary in the 1980′s. And my highly respected evangelical seminary had never even had a class on worship before I attended!

The fact that a few of us have found a place to talk about worship here at Internet Monk merely confirms my position. It’s not being discussed in the churches in any terms other than who has written the new hot worship song and whether our band is better than the one over at Living Waters Church. To evangelicals, worship = music. And music = “praise and worship” music—from a stage, by a band, with projected words. It all follows certain rules, and with a few variations here and there, it has become the “liturgy” of the evangelical church.

And here I sit, having seceded from the evangelical Union, still whistling “Dixie.”

So, while waiting for the service to begin in my small Lutheran “word and table” congregation on Sunday, I had a discussion with a woman who identified herself not merely as a loser like me, but as a casualty of the worship wars. Confession time: this conversation set my blood a’boiling. I know I said awhile back that anger never helps, so I’ve waited until I got home, had some time to decompress, poured myself a glass of iced tea, and took a deep breath before beginning to type.

Still, I’m warning you—I’m going to rant here.

The woman I talked to today spent over 40 years of her life teaching music in public schools. She is gifted, experienced, knowledgeable, and loves to serve. I had not seen her in our services before, so my wife, who had met her, introduced me. Turns out she is at our church because she wants to sing in a choir. We are a small congregation but we have a talented choir director (also a teacher), some fine instrumentalists, and a good group of singers. She knew our director as a teaching colleague, and so decided to come and sing in our choir. And then…

And then she would return to her church later in the morning to attend their service too. They no longer have a choir, and won’t consider a choir ministry. She’s out of job. Without consulting her and others like her, the leaders simply determined choral ministry didn’t fit any longer. Not wanting to leave behind a church family she had been part of for many years, yet gifted and trained musically, she is now shuttling between congregations on Sunday morning, trying to have both.

Her church would be called a megachurch around here. It is part of the independent Christian Church denomination, which has a strong ethos of outreach and evangelism. Nothing wrong with that, but as I set forth in an earlier post, I might be tempted to call them more of a mission than a church. It’s all programs for all ages all the time, with huge facilities designed to attract the community and keep them busy. They are a family-friendly, full service Christian activity center. It perfectly represents white, middle-class American suburban culture, evangelical style.

Their “worship” is also defined by this ethos. It is a pragmatic, attractional, upbeat, performer/audience style program, the antithesis of the historical meaning of “liturgical” but just as highly scripted and consistent. Their church growth mentality has subsumed and thus changed the meaning of “worship.”

If the way we approach public “worship” services is based on a mindset of reaching out, then one principle determines everything: Know your audience. And the next step is: Conform what you do to attract that audience and satisfy them. Thus, if we are trying to reach young suburban families, then we adjust our “worship style” to suit their tastes and preferences and do things that will “speak” to them and keep them coming.

So, to get back to my friend, in her church, choirs are out. Singing hymns is out, except for the occasional contemporary adaptation. Style of music is limited to a narrow range of “praise band” tunes and sounds that may be folk-rock, light jazz, contemporary pop, alternative, or some such style that represents whatever church leaders and the high priests of the music ministry decide will have “impact.” In a lot of churches like hers, having people on the stage who are past their 30′s (with the possible exception of a pastor) is rare.
Apparently, these leaders assume there is no need to “reach” the older generations anymore. They must think they are already there. Except, in reality, they are not—I can’t tell you how many people from 50-80 years of age I visit every day as a chaplain who are not in church—what makes them any less important to reach than young families? And since many of today’s leaders grew up in the a-historical, non-traditional, nondenominational, “Bible only,” parachurch-influenced, children and youth-focused, pop-culture saturated churches of the past 30-40 years, they don’t know anything else. They know what they like. They know what other young people like them like. And the only thing they can imagine might possibly be better than what they like would be something even newer and more “cutting edge.”

So here’s a woman, immensely talented, gifted, and eager to serve, who has always delighted in using her musical expertise and ability to serve God and encourage the church, and there is simply no place for her in that role any longer in her congregation.

In corporate terms, the company has withdrawn support for her department, because it no longer contributes to the company’s revised business plan. The leadership has decided to go another direction. Her job was eliminated when the corporation restructured. She is collateral damage.

It really is as heartless as that. She told us the leaders said to her and others like her that decisions had been made, the style of the worship service was set, and if they did not like it, they should find another congregation.

This is how the church treats faithful, gifted people. Cutting edge? Or cut-throat?

So, here are the questions by which I rant against this anti-Christian way of treating people (yes, you read that correctly). Even if you don’t share my exact perspective on worship, these questions still apply:
Where is a proper understanding of the church? If the church is God’s family, made up of all different kinds of people, all ages, all generations, all backgrounds, all ethnic groups, all social classes, then why do we insist on this narrow, mission-focused emphasis targeting particular groups and building our ministries around them? The church growth ethos has completely overwhelmed the way church leaders approach ministry and I for one utterly reject it as in any way representing a sound NT ecclesiology.

If the church is a family, why do we tolerate practices that dishonor our elders? If the church is the Body of Christ, why do we restrict the gifts God has distributed and think we can retire some of the Body’s members? Who set an age limit for priests in the priesthood of all believers? If our God is a God of infinite variety and creativity, why are our imaginations so limited that we cannot figure out ways to include the contributions of others who may not fit into our narrow little models of “worship”?

I would argue that we ought to find ways that people of all ages could be included and represented in a variety of ways in our worship services. When people come to worship they ought to see the whole family of God in action. They should not see a group of people that fills a market niche. That includes children, teens, college age young people, singles and family members of all ages, and adults from every available generation. We ought to learn to appreciate music that reflects what has been spiritually meaningful to people down through the years, as well as learning new songs of praise. Our church leaders should be courageous to challenge their congregations to obey the Scriptures and “accept one another” in these matters. We ought to see people from all generations “up front” and involved in the public ministry of the church.

Programs and specific ways of doing things will change, but no one should be left behind in the name of pursuing the church’s mission.

Where is the creativity to find ways of including all people? Are you telling me that in a congregation of two or three thousand people, you couldn’t find some exciting ways to make use of a choir and other forms of more traditional music ministry? I’m not a big fan of split services, where some are traditional and others contemporary, so I don’t think that’s a long-term answer. I’ve got to believe with all our emphasis on “creativity” and “innovation” today, we could easily imagine ways to include the older folks and the ones who appreciate more traditional forms in our worship services and in other important ministries where their gifts could be honored and used.

Where is the courage to be counter-cultural? Last Friday’s post on the Epistle to Diognetus quoted a strong challenge to today’s church. “Christians are recognized when they are in the world, but their religion remains unseen,” its author wrote. It seems the evangelical approach in this culture is exactly the opposite. Our religion is recognized in the world, but we remain hidden. The attractional philosophy tries to make our religious services and practices enticing to our culture, while we fail to teach people how to actually live in the world day after day as followers of Christ.

You will find little, if anything, in the NT about attracting people to the faith through the gathered worship of the church. That is simply not what worship is about. Worship is an activity for God’s people. We should certainly be hospitable and welcoming to those who may come among us, but the NT church is not a “temple” designed to draw people in. The NT church is a community of people, who worship together and then scatter, in order to penetrate the world by fulfilling our various vocations in the world, testifying to the Good News face to face, person to person in all the contexts of daily life in the world.

Any gifted showman can attract a crowd. Any gifted program director can design and run an organization that will get and keep people involved in activities. It is being done all over the country. But who is forming the community in which Christ is central and spiritual roots sink deep, where people are being encouraged to have quiet hearts that pay attention to what God is doing, sensitive hearts that pick up on subtle signs that a brother or sister needs attention, thoughtful hearts devoted to study, meditation, prayer, and contemplation, hospitable hearts that welcome the neighbor and are open to the stranger? Who is encouraging the kind of worship that forms such hearts? Who is providing the grace and space, the otium sanctum—the holy leisure—the silence and intimate conversation by which they are formed?
Church leaders have traded their calling as pastors for jobs as showmen and program directors, and that is the essence of our culture, not counter-cultural. The people we are trying to win should be getting to know us, not our religion. But we wear our religion on our sleeves and hide ourselves from the world. We have rejected the kind of worship that would include someone like my friend because she’s of no use in the show anymore. She is like the aging Hollywood starlet who can’t find good roles because the producer thinks people won’t want to look at her wrinkles. She’s not marketable any longer. She has become an outmoded commodity, not a respected elder who can speak and sing and serve with credibility and gravitas in God’s family.

Where is the wisdom and love of Christ in relating to people? For my friend, years of involvement, friendship, and service in a local congregation were summarily dismissed in a single sentence: “This is the way things are now; if you don’t like it, you should find another church.”

Now, I am fully aware that I am only reflecting on her report, so don’t jump on me for that. I have heard enough similar stories over the years; have heard pastors themselves tell about such conversations, to conclude her report accurately represents what happened. Those who have won the worship wars are not going back to the way things were before, and they have little imagination for other possibilities. In their view, the “old ways” of my friend were ineffective in reaching the world for Christ back then, and they certainly wouldn’t be effective now. If we’ve learned anything, it is “change or die.” Besides (here comes the theological justification), isn’t the Holy Spirit always doing new things? Isn’t it our job as church leaders to spot the next good wave and catch it?

And I would say, no. No. No. Your “job” is to love God and love people. And if you are entrusted with leadership in God’s family, that includes paying attention to what God is doing in the lives of the specific people God has brought your way. Your job is to work with God to create an environment through which the Spirit can form Christ in them. That does not happen by “catching waves.” And it doesn’t happen by this or that particular program or method. It happens by listening, having conversations, and being with people in the context of their lives—”walking” with them through life. It happens through spiritual friendship which, multiplied, is community.

If you find you have to change something in the church that affects people, you work with them personally in a spirit of forbearance and patience. You don’t dismiss them. You don’t treat them like consumers who might just find the product they are looking for somewhere else. If you want a congregation full of ‘em—consumers that is—that’s the way to do it.

Before you complain that this post is one-sided, let me save you some trouble. I know that. I have been around awhile and have seen most every permutation of the “worship wars” since the mid-1970′s. I realize that churches did not always act with imagination and grace toward those who wanted to introduce contemporary music and other elements into the church’s worship. Certain traditionalists fought long and hard to resist change. In the process, they dismissed people with different views, and sometimes looked down on younger people and did not honor what God was doing in their lives. I’m sure it’s still going on in some persistent enclaves of resistance. At times older generations did not act Christianly, and I am not here to defend them. Even my friend, in the midst of our conversation, acknowledged that she has the responsibility to be forbearing of the changes in her church. She is trying, but I know from talking with her that she also feels she got slapped in the face. I hope she’s asking God to help her turn the other cheek.
But this is today and I am speaking to today; and I am speaking especially to church leaders and music directors and worship leaders. This is not ultimately about music styles or technology or architecture. It is not about choirs vs. praise bands. We can talk about all those things and never get the root of what’s going on here. I am concerned that our ecclesiological foundations are being washed away in a tidal wave of capitulation to culture.

The bottom line for me involves what it means to be the church, what it means to be a pastor, and what it means for God’s people to gather for worship. Through the years of skirmishes and battles, I have tried to approach the worship wars and guide churches through them from those three perspectives. And my conversation with the woman in my church on Sunday brought all these issues to the fore for me again. Her testimony shows me that many evangelicals have forgotten what it means to be a church for everybody. Many of their pastors have perverted their callings into something other than pastoral ministry. And many have no clue at all regarding worship, who and what it’s for.

Lacking a rich Biblical, historical, and theological imagination, we have surrendered unwittingly to our culture and followed its lead in all three areas. I may be on the losing side of the worship wars, but it is the church that is truly losing, as well as a world that needs more than another place to entertain them and keep them busy.

In the short term, I’m not optimistic.

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