Godzone Worship

What on earth are we doing in worship?

More importantly, what is God (insert your favorite set of assumptions/experiences/images here) doing in worship?

Despite my ongoing conversations with thirty-somethings who describe church as "toxic," I think good things are going on in worship, as worship leaders and minsters and priests all over the place struggle each week to lead their congregations authentically and with integrity.

A couple of weeks ago a deputation from one of my congregations met with the music team to complain about the music in worship. Too many contemporary songs. Not enough hymns. But, I pointed out, there were two hymns in most services, a classic hymn (pre-twentieth century) and a modern hymn. No, we want the hymns we know from our childhood.

So, the question for today is the extent to which we indulge this exercise in nostalgia. There is as much real danger, I think, of manipulating people with classic hymns, as there is in contemporary songs. I could craft a service that would include their favorites, but the cost is high.

Firstly, worship leaders always run the risk of making worship or the music an idol, something that replaces or is given the credit for the presence of God. I have found that many people lack the ability to express what they clearly sense in a particular service in anything but practical or secular terms. The reasons differ. In part, I've worked in mainline Presbyterian congregations, and as a rule, we don't live in the charismatic end of the worship spectrum.

Secondly, our task as worship leaders is not to craft services that people like or make people feel good. Not is it our task to upset them unduly. Our task is to be responsive to what we sense the Spirit of God doing.

Thirdly, the feedback that we take on board has to weighed carefully. Perhaps I have genuinely erred, and this is God's way of telling me I screwed up. There is a dimension of pastoral care that I take seriously. But there are also other voices in that meeting who tell me that the mix is about right, and we need to craft services that are not completely alien for visitors from our highly secularized culture.

I think the mix is about right; I have thrown too much new music at this congregation in part because I am new, and their list of what they thought they knew has turned out to be inaccurate. Like any worship leader, when I'm under pressure I tend to head for where I am comfortable. But we also need to hang in there with the new songs. Many of the songs I currently find most useful I didn't like on first, second or third hearing.