Hope For The Future, Part I

In a post over at worshipnotes (which you all should still be reading!) I talked a bit about connecting with young worship leaders as I occasionally travel to lead worship at various church events. Granted, I'm not "on the road" a lot, but I have been blessed that my limited gigging often puts me in contact with students and young adults that also share my passion for worship.

Lately, I have come into contact with some young worship leaders that, through our meetings/discussions/meals, have blessed me as they've talked about what they're learning about worship. It truly does inspire hope...

Let me first explain my thoughts on the general idea of "worship." There are essentially two perspectives that people think of when worship, and specifically musical worship, is mentioned.

The first perspective is that of the local church. In other words, when you talk about worship time, I imagine my own church and my experiences as both congregant and leader.

The second perspective is entirely different, because many many many people across the world will think of worship in large-event terms. They might think of the music of Joel Osteen's church or the Passion conference or some other distributed CD/DVD.

While both types of worship have their place, I think that the advent of the 2nd perspective (the "event" worship) has often proved itself to be detrimental to the growth and maturity of young worship leaders.

Event worship has slowly, but surely, taught us some things. Now, we didn't necessarily think we were being "taught" - we were just enjoying worship. But some ideas and concepts have seeped into our minds and hearts. I come across lots of worship leaders that exhibit signs of this "programming" rather frequently. (Truth be told - I exhibit these signs frequently. Although I'm trying to kill them.)

For example, event worship has killed the importance of the lyric. (At this point, all of my friends who read this thing are thinking, Here he goes about linear lyrics again. So, if you've heard me preach on this before, shut down the blog and go read a book.) Regardless of my soapbox tendencies, the issue is very true. You see, event worship has promoted songs that are so excellent in so many ways - arrangement, musicianship, crowd response, recording technique - yet failed lyrically. Because of that, we have worship leaders now who have grown up with this music who have no idea what a well-written lyric is supposed to be. I'm not going to pick on particular songs, but in many successful "modern worship" recordings you'll hear changes of tense, multiple thematic ideas with no connection between them, and numerous cliches, all in one song! Now, we have young worship leaders who are picking songs for their individual churches and youth groups simply based on the "cool factor," rather than what the songs are actually saying. Songs that are putting prayers into the mouths of their people!

Secondly, event worship has completely ignored the beauty and wisdom regarding flow of worship. Unless you attend one of these events, every song hear starts and ends with thunderous applause. I don't know about you, but my church doesn't act like that. My musicians and I work hard to make sure that our songs connect, not just lyrically, but musically as well. We try to make sure that the music feels like a journey, rather than 6 solo performances. I realize that the concept of flow is primarily a "contemporary worship" concept, but it has merit. Instead, now have young worship leaders who end up playing jerky, odd, sets filled with long pauses in between songs wherein the crowd often disengages from the discipline of worship to talk, chat, closely examine the band member, etc.

Thirdly, event worship has elevated the "show" aspect. When's the last time you saw a live worship DVD done in a building lit by flourescent lights, full on? Listen, I dig cool lighting, I love it, but why, all of sudden, does every worship product I watch have laser-light shows, motion backgrounds (often on auxiliary screens seperated from lyric screens,) smoke machines and boom cameras. Why does every "live" CD have seventeen guitar tracks, three loops and orchestra programming? Listen, I like CDs/DVDs that are produced. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that. But when you hold that idea up as "worship," you're getting into dangerous territory. It's a worship-concert...call it what it is. So, our young worship leaders are now being conditioned to turn their little stages into nightclubs or auditorium setup or tons of other concert-style settings.

So, before we carry on....what do you think about what we've been saying? Do you think event worship is dangerous? Do you totally disagree with what I'm saying?

I realize I've typed a ton of stuff, and believe me, there's more in my head, but let's stop here and see how everybody feels about event worship. Does it have a place? Is it as dangerous as I've made it out to be?