“If only we had …” — the empty promise of better worship

Published on June 27, 2007
by Jimmy Shaw

There is a good conversation (in three six eight parts — start here or work backwards) going on over at Patrick Mead’s blog about the ‘instrumental music’ questions in the history of Churches of Christ and Christian Churches/Disciples of Christ. I say ‘good conversation’ to mean that I like very much the tone and nature of what Patrick is offering and the responses that others are providing.

But I will openly admit to a deep ambivalence about the subject matter itself. I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with what Chris Gonzalez says :

I have spent 20 years having this conversation and still the same conversation is being had. Maybe I am impatient. Perhaps I am disloyal. Maybe I am just a wimp. Whatever the case, I am glad to be, for the first time ever, an outsider to this conversation.

Piano Keyboard (by walker_M)I also feel like an outsider to this conversation even though I am still embedded in the Church of Christ communities I have always known as my heritage. I just have no motivation or interest in this subject. It frequently feels for me a subject entirely beside the point.

That said, I think there is something even deeper about my mild consternation.

Recently, I have begun to sense a growing tide of opinion among a fairly good-sized number of my Church of Christ friends that embodies a kind of unspoken “if only…” regard for instrumental music in worship. At times it appears almost as a glazed-eyes fascination with all things christian musicky. I think there are a number of influences in play here.

    – The rising popularity of mainstream christian music groups among Church of Christ folks.

    – A kind of post-Acappella experience in which a lot of folks just realized that if the dominant a cappella singing groups were going to expend a lot of effort aping the sounds of instruments maybe it would be okay if the music we listen to had actual musical instruments.

    – An increased comfort with a kind of “for entertainment purposes only” orientation to Christian music that made it increasingly okay for young people to attend concerts, buy CDs or downloads, etc of Christian artists as long as that music stayed off the sacred stage of the Sunday Morning Assembly.

    – And perhaps the dramatic rise in a cappella arrangements of popular worship songs so that the stuff heard on radio, iPod, and in concerts could be sung in the typical vocal-only Sunday Morning Assembly of Churches of Christ.

It could be any, all, none, or more than these. And to talk about the influences more than this would lead me to do the very thing I have no interest in doing — focus on instrumental music. And worse still, I run the risk of suggesting that I think these influences or trends are bad (which I don’t). I’ve already said too much about it.

So, back to my actual point. Where was I?

It seems to me a quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) revolution is underway in our fellowship that is focused on improving, enhancing, deepening, innovating the worship assembly of our churches. This has been an ongoing process for more than a decade now and a project in which I have actively participated with enthusiasm and in good conscience.

(There’s a big “but” coming.)

I sense all around me a growing chorus of friends who long ago cast aside the hermeneutical framework and specific arguments against instrumental music in worship and now regard it as something of a pesky issue which needs to be resolved once and for all, dispensed with as a nuisance, and ultimately removed as a mark of distinction among us. To many, it seems silly in a way, to continue maintaining this unnecessary, arcane, statutory difference between us and the larger community of evangelical believers with whom we feel a growing, if uncertain, kinship.

(The big “but” is just around the corner.)

This really isn’t surprising. It’s the natural outgrowth of a long progression away from our more sectarian impulses and toward a kind of denominational identity which sees us as “one among many” in the great tribal groupings of God’s holy people.

(Wait for it…)

There is much in this hermeneutical and sociological transition that is good as it represents a formation of grace among the people I know as Churches of Christ. In a way, I’m encouraged by it and find that I mostly agree with the conclusions they draw, even though I am very little interested in the actual issue of instrumental vs. a capella worship.

But …

There is a danger lurking here, a seductive lie that we can easily begin to tell ourselves. A starry-eyed optimism which makes us willing to believe the naive promise of “better worship” as the path to a “deeper” spiritual experience, a “closer connection” to God. Pretty soon we start thinking that getting the instrument question settled or improving our worship is the key, the one thing we’ve been missing.

    Guitarra Electrica 3 (by felilopez)“If only we had instrumental music … ”

    “If only going to church was like going to a Casting Crowns concert …”

    “If only we had more passion … more enthusiasm … more lively worship …
    more _________ …”

    “If only we had more worship variety … ”

    “If only we had a whole menu of different worship services all weekend long with a selection of styles for each demographic grouping … “

It’s the longstanding allure of the “if only ….” It’s the promise of having the IT-thing. The promise of finally “getting there.” IT will always make that promise. IT can be a program or an evangelism plan. IT can be a new minister. IT can be a new building. And still the elusive goal which the IT-thing promised will remain just out of reach.

Fifteen years ago in Churches of Christ IT was hand-clapping and hand-raising and contemporary singing. “If only worship was more like bible camp ….” And in an amazing historical shift large swaths of our churches completely overturned the canon of worship songs in a matter of ten short years. And to what end?

In the last ten years IT became a purpose-driven strategy and attractional marketing and strong leadership teams that ad-minister, plan, program, manage, and have vision. “If only we had that kind of leader ….”

And now sitting on the horizon is the new IT: an eagerness to resolve the instrumental worship question. “If only this was behind us and we could use it if we wanted ….” Soon, it will be resolved sufficiently for some churches and we’ll have a trickle (not a flood by any stretch) of congregations adding services, reconfiguring space, attracting congregants to accommodate this change. And then what?

It feels like a big deal.
It seems like a significant thing.
It’s presented as a subject we should be focused on.

But it’s not.

It’s a ginormous distraction. A colossal exercise in missing the point. It is a petty internecine squabble not remotely related to the mission that God has given us. But like all effective distractions it seems important, it appears fetching and attractive, and it promises more than it can provide.

Certainly it would seem to us that “worship” is very important to God. But it probably isn’t quite as important as we think or as important as the worship industry would have us think.

Concert (by jatakuck)And so we keep trying to improve or fix or enhance the Sunday Worship Assembly. We search for all the things that will make it seem deeper, more passionate, more spiritual, more attractive to outsiders. Increasingly, we want the feel of a dynamic christian music concert every weekend. But a concert isn’t the church. A concert is just several thousand strangers watching a bunch of performers for two hours then fighting to get through traffic afterwards.

No, fixing or improving the Big Sunday Assembly is too small a thing. Solving the instrumental music question keeps us focused on ourselves, our assemblies, and our tribal identity, instead of helping us to launch out as the people of God living our mission in the world. It promises so much more than it can give.

Worship: The Event keeps calling to us and enticing us with the alluring promise of “intimacy with God” while injustice reigns in the world. And while we stand and sing, sway and clap, while we pray and prepare the ideal worship experience, while we sit and discuss all our worship issues, while we wait for worship to draw us up into mansions of glory,

Lazarus sits outside the gate …

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