Contemporary Worship; Outreach or Compromise?

Contemporary Worship:

Outreach or Compromise?

In many church bodies today, a debate rages about worship styles. Advocates of modernizing the worship of the church consider it an issue of style, a way to reach out to the culture, and not an issue of content. Meanwhile, those who favor the more traditional forms of worship see “contemporary worship” as an abandonment of heritage and a compromise of the substance of the worship of the church. How does the recent innovation of “culturally relevant worship” compare to the transcendent liturgies used by the church for ages? This paper will offer a look at both sides of the debate.

Fundamental to both sides of the discussion is the understanding of what constitutes worship. That is to say that what one believes worship to be will form one’s approach to it. Ever since the beginning of Christianity, when small groups of Christians would huddle in private homes in Jerusalem, their understanding was that God was among them[i] serving them with His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation through the Word and Sacraments. The primary actor in the worship was not man, but God. This is why those first Christians called it the Divine Liturgy. Liturgy stems from the word leitourgia, which means roughly “a responsibility for the benefit of others.” It was a citizen’s leitourgia to maintain the part of the road that ran through his property in ancient Rome. It was seen by the first Christians as God’s leitourgia, or responsibility,[ii] to keep their faith alive through Word and Sacrament, and it was the leitorgia of those Christians to ensure that this service was available to all “for the life of the world” (John 6:51)[iii]. In contrast to this view of responsibility is the contemporary idea that worship is something the participants do. While liturgical worship includes actions by the participants in response to what God has done, such as intercessory prayer, contemporary worship sees the action of the worshipper as the main event. The songs that are sung, the educational value of the sermons, the extent of the worshipper’s feeling involved in the service determines the overall value of the worship. This tilts contemporary worship heavily toward subjective experience and away from the objective truth of the Gospel.

Liturgical worship contains a structure of components that have been in use for centuries, some since the 100’s. The most fundamental of these are called the “ordinaries” because they are “ordinarily” present in the worship of the church[iv] every week. These include the Kyrie, the Sanctus, the Gloria, the Creed, and the Agnus Dei. The ordinaries are taken verbatim from the Scriptures, and their use every week aids the worshipper in memorizing Scripture. Contemporary worship, on the other hand, seems to pride itself on its variety. The components that make up contemporary worship are usually not in the same place two weeks in a row, and the ordinaries are seldom a part of the service. If they are included, they are not labeled as such, and the words are some clever contrivance of the worship planner, not the Word of God. The words also change weekly, so there is no chance at memorization occurring, which has a devastating consequence. With the liturgy repeated and memorized, should a Christian find himself in dire circumstances, isolated, or experiencing a loss of faculties, he still has a wealth of Scripture and prayers from which to draw for comfort and assurance. The contemporary worshipper may have memorized a few of their favorite songs, but the clear Word of God will not be so easily recalled from memory. This is a frightening prospect of being left totally alone in these circumstances. Another drawback of this changing worship is that it by nature excludes the very young, the old, the blind,[v] and others with certain infirmities from being able to participate in worship with the community. Where the liturgy is known and memorized by those who for whatever reason cannot read it, contemporary worship denies their participation by using foreign words that change so regularly. This is certainly no way to treat the weaker brethren.

Perhaps the most inflammatory aspect of the “worship wars” is that of music. Liturgical worship uses music that is reverent, orderly,[vi] and unobtrusive. When you hear well played hymns on an organ or perhaps the occasional brass ensemble, the music does not take the focus of the worshipper and place it on the musicians or instruments, but helps keep the focus on God. The musicians are usually located out of sight of the worshipping community (or at least out of the main line of sight into the chancel), and the music leads the worship. Too often in contemporary worship environments, the music, while trying to be “culturally relevant” carries the connotations of the culture right into the church. For example, female contemporary Christian music artists write several contemporary worship favorites. These songs can be heard on the radio, and the sound is that of a sultry woman singing a sensual love song to God. Obviously, this should not be done in church. Too often, the musicians are right up in front of the congregation, demanding the focus of attention be on them. Furthermore[vii], in the applause of the congregants, the object of worship becomes the musicians. Additionally, while the best of the time-tested hymns of the church are written for congregational singing and contain excellent theology lessons on God and what He has done for us through His Son, contemporary “praise songs” are often hijacked from popular performers. They are usually written for an individual person to sing with accompaniment and don’t go well in a large group. [viii]The theology of praise songs tends to be about the worshipper and what they have done, and how much they love God, and all manner of words that focus too much on “me” or “I.” Praise songs seem to be saying, “Look at how much I love You God. Don’t You think I’m neat?” The primary agent of subjectivity in contemporary worship is the music. The songs are short and extremely repetitive. This has an hypnotic affect on the participants, whipping their emotions to a frenzy and making them vulnerable to whatever suggestions may be forthcoming in the sermon, which carries us to the next point.

In a liturgical setting, where the Actor is God, it is understood that in His Word and the preaching on His Word, God is truly present with His people, giving them His gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation. This understanding leads to a particular approach to the sermon. Sermons in liturgical worship use the Law to expose the sinfulness of the listeners, and then liberally apply the message of the Gospel to assure the listener of their forgiven status in the eyes of God. It has been said that the Law is used as a scalpel, laying open the festering wound of sin, and the Gospel is the healing balm applied to the wound.[ix] Similarly the Law is compared to a hammer that crushes, and the Gospel then raises to new life. Contemporary worship, with its desire to be “relevant,” tends to offer instructional preaching that tells the listener how they can do things that are pleasing to God. Suggested activities for the Christian life are not bad in and of themselves, but again the important distinction lies in the focus.

Contemporary worship focuses on the “doing” of the participant and the subjectivity of emotion using the tools of popular culture; liturgical worship focuses on the completed doings of God in His effort to reconcile mankind to Himself using His Word and great hymns borne from that Word. For the reason outlined above, liturgical worship should be seen as the jewel it truly is. Those who would discard it as mere tradition of Europeans clearly do not understand the origins and objectives of the Divine Liturgy, and it is to their own detriment.