How Shall We Then Worship?
Is it just me, or is "worship" becoming more and more the plaything of our culture?
In the Novus Ordo Mass, there are endless lay-led committees and parish councils that meet every month to decide how they're going to spice up the liturgy. Decisions have to be made - what kind of music will be sung, whether that music will be performed by the choir, the guitar band, the children's choir, the bell choir, etc., what color banners will be hung, what kind of decorations will be used in the sanctuary - all of this is geared towards making the liturgy a fully-integrated five-sense experience.
Put another way: it's all about creating the right ambience and atmosphere, so that I - the audience - will stay interested and enjoy my liturgical experience.
In Protestant circles, much the same thing is going on. Books are being written and published on how to market your church to today's culture, lectures, seminars and weekend workshops are being given on the same subjects, and pastors everywhere are making changes to their Sunday format - do we bring in mood lighting or not? Do we use a worship band or a small choir or maybe both? Hymns or praise choruses? Longer sermons, or shorter sermons interspersed with lay-led testimonies and such? Do I wear a tie or go for the more "approachable" look of a polo with khakis?
Once again, the focus here is the same: how to shape the Sunday service so that it appeals to today's culture.
And this is right about where I get off the boat and start swimming for solid ground. Keeping up with Modern Man's tastes is an impossible task, so I really don't get why pastors are even willing to start going down that road.
I am a part of "this culture." And I have a message for pastors who are trying to keep their "worship" culturally relevant: you can't keep up, so please stop trying.
Your worship bands will never be as good as secular bands.
Your light shows and sound systems will never be the same quality as what I can find at the local bar.
Your khaki and polo gestures will never be as approachable as the friends I already have at work and on the golf course - and they're more "real" than you, because they're not putting on a show for anyone.
Your banners and decorations will never in a hundred years match what I can find at my local spas and retreat houses - if I want relaxation for my five senses, I'm going there.
I do not go to Church for any of those things - not one of them. I do not go to Church hoping that the Church has finally found a way to mimic the secular world as closely as possible. In short, I do not go to Church to seek and find a "baptized" (and greatly sub-standard) version of what I can find in the world the other six days of the week.
When I come to Church, I get one hour to recollect my thoughts and try to realign my life - six days in the world always knocks me slightly off balance. The image of the merry-go-round is appropriate: you experience less and less motion the closer you move to the center of the merry-go-round. Sunday is my day to find the Center and Source of all things, and move back towards Him.
I do not want to be entertained, and even if I did want entertainment, it is certainly not what I need. What I need - what we all need - is to escape the me-centered world I live in and learn again, if only for 60 minutes once a week, what it means to take someone (rather, Someone) else's desires into consideration.
Everything else in my life is tailored to please me - surely the Sunday liturgy, the work of the people that is offered to God, is the exception here? Surely this is the one place where I must learn that the universe does not revolve around me and my desires?
Again, everything about my life is in constant flux, always progressing and changing - this is a fact of the culture. But surely it is at Church that I can find stability? Is this not the one place I can go where I am certain I will find that which is immutable, that which transcends the culture and - precisely because it is above time - remains relevant for all people of all ages?
I want to find the mysterious here, the other-wordly, the supremely transcendent. I want to - I need to - ascend to the highest heights here, in this place, for this one hour. But how can I do that if the Church is bent on taking all that is transcendent, all that is holy, all that inspires reverence, silence, and awe, and dragging it down to my banal level?
On the contrary! Do not bring these holy mysteries down to my level, but rather, make me climb up until I have ascended to their level. Let them be fixed and immovable, and make me get beyond myself by coming to them.
I say it again: when I come into Church, it ought to be an experience unlike anything I will find anywhere else in my Monday-through-Saturday, 9-to-5 secular life.
This is where I ought to find people dressed in their best - in clothes that they don't wear on an everyday basis. I say this to my own shame, because I regularly decide that "business casual office-wear" is "good enough" for my weekly appointment with God.
This is where the music ought to be unlike anything I will find on my local radio stations during the week.
This is where language itself ought to transcend the profane, every-day speech that I hear and use with my fellows. As one writer so succinctly put it, I ought not to speak to God in the same language I use when speaking to my mailman.
This is where decoration and ambience should be light years beyond what I will find in my home, or - for the love of God - in my dentist's office. If the best the Church can put together is a few white-washed walls and some potted houseplants, this is a sure sign that we have entered an age of crisis. The only periods in the history of the Church when people settled for minimalism were those periods when Christians were being persecuted and needed to be able to get in and out of their services quickly. A plant here, a table there, that will do when the Roman soldiers might be at the door in a moment; but when there is no danger, is this all we will offer to God?
I listen to my radio all week (actually, I don't, not personally) and I hear banal, 4-chord pop songs that lack originality or creativity; must I be subjected to this same drivel on God's own Holy Day, in His own Holy Place?
Ah, but this is what the culture has come to accept, so mustn't we meet them where they are? Not at all! Show them something better! Show them something that is transcendent and not bound by a given period of time of cultural preference! Do not the Psalms encourage us to "go up" to the Holy Place? Is this not why Jerusalem's Temple was built on a high mountain? God's worshippers were taught by the terrain itself: you must ascend if you desire to worship God - but we tell Modern Man, "no, you stay right where you are - we'll bring this down to your level."
The problem is, as I stated already, that the Church was never meant for this, and She fails miserably at trying to mimic the world. Christian rock music is inevitably three years behind the current secular trend, and always severely inferior in its quality; Christian novels are always below par when it comes to creativity and writing style; the Christian sub-culture is just embarrassingly pathetic when it tries to compete with the world.
The same goes for the world, by the way: when the world tries to provide what only the Church can offer, it's usually a terribly substandard imitation - laughable, in fact.
So, give it up already. I don't need your worship bands - the musicians are amateurish, and the music is insipid; I don't need your mood lighting and decorations - I find my own four walls at home far more inspiring than this sterile "waiting room" you've concocted; and I don't need your polo-and-khaki approachability or your small-group settings - my golf buddies, friends at work, and occasional therapy sessions are far more effective.
What I do need is transcendence; I need to see that you take God so seriously that you reserve certain things for His House alone; my local museum insists on silence - the Church should do no less; I need to see things at Church that are not duplicated outside of Church: incense, candles, chants, the administration of the Sacraments, gold vessels, ornate altars, breath-taking beauty in the architecture, vestments of the finest quality - something that tells me that you have saved your absolute best (in every respect) for this day, for this hour, for this God.
Otherwise ... why do I need you?
In the Novus Ordo Mass, there are endless lay-led committees and parish councils that meet every month to decide how they're going to spice up the liturgy. Decisions have to be made - what kind of music will be sung, whether that music will be performed by the choir, the guitar band, the children's choir, the bell choir, etc., what color banners will be hung, what kind of decorations will be used in the sanctuary - all of this is geared towards making the liturgy a fully-integrated five-sense experience.
Put another way: it's all about creating the right ambience and atmosphere, so that I - the audience - will stay interested and enjoy my liturgical experience.
In Protestant circles, much the same thing is going on. Books are being written and published on how to market your church to today's culture, lectures, seminars and weekend workshops are being given on the same subjects, and pastors everywhere are making changes to their Sunday format - do we bring in mood lighting or not? Do we use a worship band or a small choir or maybe both? Hymns or praise choruses? Longer sermons, or shorter sermons interspersed with lay-led testimonies and such? Do I wear a tie or go for the more "approachable" look of a polo with khakis?
Once again, the focus here is the same: how to shape the Sunday service so that it appeals to today's culture.
And this is right about where I get off the boat and start swimming for solid ground. Keeping up with Modern Man's tastes is an impossible task, so I really don't get why pastors are even willing to start going down that road.
I am a part of "this culture." And I have a message for pastors who are trying to keep their "worship" culturally relevant: you can't keep up, so please stop trying.
Your worship bands will never be as good as secular bands.
Your light shows and sound systems will never be the same quality as what I can find at the local bar.
Your khaki and polo gestures will never be as approachable as the friends I already have at work and on the golf course - and they're more "real" than you, because they're not putting on a show for anyone.
Your banners and decorations will never in a hundred years match what I can find at my local spas and retreat houses - if I want relaxation for my five senses, I'm going there.
I do not go to Church for any of those things - not one of them. I do not go to Church hoping that the Church has finally found a way to mimic the secular world as closely as possible. In short, I do not go to Church to seek and find a "baptized" (and greatly sub-standard) version of what I can find in the world the other six days of the week.
When I come to Church, I get one hour to recollect my thoughts and try to realign my life - six days in the world always knocks me slightly off balance. The image of the merry-go-round is appropriate: you experience less and less motion the closer you move to the center of the merry-go-round. Sunday is my day to find the Center and Source of all things, and move back towards Him.
I do not want to be entertained, and even if I did want entertainment, it is certainly not what I need. What I need - what we all need - is to escape the me-centered world I live in and learn again, if only for 60 minutes once a week, what it means to take someone (rather, Someone) else's desires into consideration.
Everything else in my life is tailored to please me - surely the Sunday liturgy, the work of the people that is offered to God, is the exception here? Surely this is the one place where I must learn that the universe does not revolve around me and my desires?
Again, everything about my life is in constant flux, always progressing and changing - this is a fact of the culture. But surely it is at Church that I can find stability? Is this not the one place I can go where I am certain I will find that which is immutable, that which transcends the culture and - precisely because it is above time - remains relevant for all people of all ages?
I want to find the mysterious here, the other-wordly, the supremely transcendent. I want to - I need to - ascend to the highest heights here, in this place, for this one hour. But how can I do that if the Church is bent on taking all that is transcendent, all that is holy, all that inspires reverence, silence, and awe, and dragging it down to my banal level?
On the contrary! Do not bring these holy mysteries down to my level, but rather, make me climb up until I have ascended to their level. Let them be fixed and immovable, and make me get beyond myself by coming to them.
I say it again: when I come into Church, it ought to be an experience unlike anything I will find anywhere else in my Monday-through-Saturday, 9-to-5 secular life.
This is where I ought to find people dressed in their best - in clothes that they don't wear on an everyday basis. I say this to my own shame, because I regularly decide that "business casual office-wear" is "good enough" for my weekly appointment with God.
This is where the music ought to be unlike anything I will find on my local radio stations during the week.
This is where language itself ought to transcend the profane, every-day speech that I hear and use with my fellows. As one writer so succinctly put it, I ought not to speak to God in the same language I use when speaking to my mailman.
This is where decoration and ambience should be light years beyond what I will find in my home, or - for the love of God - in my dentist's office. If the best the Church can put together is a few white-washed walls and some potted houseplants, this is a sure sign that we have entered an age of crisis. The only periods in the history of the Church when people settled for minimalism were those periods when Christians were being persecuted and needed to be able to get in and out of their services quickly. A plant here, a table there, that will do when the Roman soldiers might be at the door in a moment; but when there is no danger, is this all we will offer to God?
I listen to my radio all week (actually, I don't, not personally) and I hear banal, 4-chord pop songs that lack originality or creativity; must I be subjected to this same drivel on God's own Holy Day, in His own Holy Place?
Ah, but this is what the culture has come to accept, so mustn't we meet them where they are? Not at all! Show them something better! Show them something that is transcendent and not bound by a given period of time of cultural preference! Do not the Psalms encourage us to "go up" to the Holy Place? Is this not why Jerusalem's Temple was built on a high mountain? God's worshippers were taught by the terrain itself: you must ascend if you desire to worship God - but we tell Modern Man, "no, you stay right where you are - we'll bring this down to your level."
The problem is, as I stated already, that the Church was never meant for this, and She fails miserably at trying to mimic the world. Christian rock music is inevitably three years behind the current secular trend, and always severely inferior in its quality; Christian novels are always below par when it comes to creativity and writing style; the Christian sub-culture is just embarrassingly pathetic when it tries to compete with the world.
The same goes for the world, by the way: when the world tries to provide what only the Church can offer, it's usually a terribly substandard imitation - laughable, in fact.
So, give it up already. I don't need your worship bands - the musicians are amateurish, and the music is insipid; I don't need your mood lighting and decorations - I find my own four walls at home far more inspiring than this sterile "waiting room" you've concocted; and I don't need your polo-and-khaki approachability or your small-group settings - my golf buddies, friends at work, and occasional therapy sessions are far more effective.
What I do need is transcendence; I need to see that you take God so seriously that you reserve certain things for His House alone; my local museum insists on silence - the Church should do no less; I need to see things at Church that are not duplicated outside of Church: incense, candles, chants, the administration of the Sacraments, gold vessels, ornate altars, breath-taking beauty in the architecture, vestments of the finest quality - something that tells me that you have saved your absolute best (in every respect) for this day, for this hour, for this God.
Otherwise ... why do I need you?
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