Wednesday, March 14, 2007
YES!...YES!...YES!
The Presbyterian blog "Odyssey" has written two remarkable posts on music and worship. In the first he makes the interesting, and I think, true assesment that music now hold worship hostage.
I know how incredibly important music is to so many Christians out there, and it is not music per se to which I often object. Rather, it is how the music is presented, and what it takes to accomplish the music. Let me give you but one example - singing a praise chorus during the service of the Elements. I work hard to prepare myself for taking Communion. I enter into deep prayer and try to focus on God as I take the symbols of His sacrifice. Music intrudes and pulls me back into this world, Now I have to remember the words, or read them, or work to shut out the extraneous noise. Or, heaven forbid, it's a performance piece, now instead of focusing on God, I must focus on the performer.
Consider the presentation of performed music, lights, sound systems, etc. Do these put me in mind of God, or do these keep me firmly planted in the here and now focusing as they aim and wish? Oh how I long for the organist, hidden behind the rail and but the soft music of the instrument setting a mood and a tone instead of saying "LOOK AND LISTEN TO ME!"
Worhsip shojld be about an encounter with the supernatural, and yet we work so hard to insert the natural in it. The supernatural is not alien or unattractive, but rather it is the answer to the longing of our hearts.
I won't even bring up allocation of resources....
Related Tags: music, worship, attraction, supernatural
There is a growing sense to me that the church's worship has tilted so heavily toward performance music so as to be driven by it. This seems especially true as churches try to navigate their way through the choppy seas of contemporary worship. Worship is driven by the concerns of music, rather than being driven by scripture, sacrament, sermon, prayer ; it's these things that drive worship and are augmented by musical expression (not the other way around).In the second post he asserts that worship that isn't detectably different than the world misses the mark.
Worship isn't entertainment. It is neither merely for this age nor of this age. It is eternal and involves us in the eternal. And it's therefore not about being "good" but being infused with a sense of the holy. And if the Incarnation teaches us anything about this, the holy just might not be all that interesting or obvious or glorious to those looking on (Isaiah 53.2-3). Worship is about culture, but it doesn't stop there, it transcends culture even while being expressive of culture. So it must always be at least a little strange, a tad unworldly, pressing us to a new edge.The retort to these ideas are usually along the lines of the need to "attract." To this I respond that if our worship is not attractive, it is not because it is too "strange" or different, but because we are not doing it right.
I know how incredibly important music is to so many Christians out there, and it is not music per se to which I often object. Rather, it is how the music is presented, and what it takes to accomplish the music. Let me give you but one example - singing a praise chorus during the service of the Elements. I work hard to prepare myself for taking Communion. I enter into deep prayer and try to focus on God as I take the symbols of His sacrifice. Music intrudes and pulls me back into this world, Now I have to remember the words, or read them, or work to shut out the extraneous noise. Or, heaven forbid, it's a performance piece, now instead of focusing on God, I must focus on the performer.
Consider the presentation of performed music, lights, sound systems, etc. Do these put me in mind of God, or do these keep me firmly planted in the here and now focusing as they aim and wish? Oh how I long for the organist, hidden behind the rail and but the soft music of the instrument setting a mood and a tone instead of saying "LOOK AND LISTEN TO ME!"
Worhsip shojld be about an encounter with the supernatural, and yet we work so hard to insert the natural in it. The supernatural is not alien or unattractive, but rather it is the answer to the longing of our hearts.
I won't even bring up allocation of resources....
Related Tags: music, worship, attraction, supernatural
