What Happens When The Music Fades Back In?
I was talking with my dad the other day about some ideas I have about worship. He’s been in worship ministry my whole life, and I’ve been at for ten years. In the past, we’d talk about how to maximize the praise and worship movement for the glory of God. We’d toss back ideas, experiences, and methodologies that would help us stay in the presence and keep the church chasing God’s glory.
This time, I had something else on my mind: how can I pull away from the praise and worship movement, and what would motivate others in the church to break up with CCM?
At one point, I wanted to stand on the biggest stage with the best songs, the brightest lights, and the best cameras. And despite being in a lifelong battle with pride, I wanted to do it because I believed that would be the best way to give God glory in worship. I ran after that artistic and dynamic gathering of worshippers in song.
I still have that vision… sort of. I still want to bring God glory through music. I still want to be a part of helping the church go deeper in their experience of God’s power and presence. But I’m realizing that concert-like worship experiences have an aftereffect.
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My concern is not necessarily with the thing that happens in a concert worship experience. I believe that most worship leaders and church creatives have a prophetic vision to use their talents and skills to help the church grow in worship.
I still believe that the praise band model of worship can be powerful and effective. I, and so many others, have had radical encounters with God through modern worship music.
Still, I feel like I’ve watched a plant grow that I wasn’t expecting. Like I planted an apple tree and got pears.
What It Takes To Have The Right Heart
This conversation has been going on for a long time. I’m just chiming in. There has been sustained tension within the body of Christ around what it means to worship God through music. It’s been that way my entire life, and probably yours.
We’ve had to respond to the emergence of an entirely fresh way of worshipping God through new songs, rock bands, and record labels. While it’s produced a unique culture of expression, it’s also made Christian perceptions of worship shift toward performance and entertainment.
More than that, the commercialization of worship has let bad-faith actors blend in. At times, surging emotionalistic worship has downplayed or made obsolete any form of sincere liturgy. The largeness of the Christian worship industry (an interesting phrase alone) promises glory and transformation, but it opens the door for a coexistence of commercial industry with sacrament.
While all the worship leaders I’ve met have such amazing hearts for true worship, I’m deeply pondering the efficacy of mixing the stuff of concerts with the worship of the church. Too many times, there has been at best throne-room glory on the platform and entertainment-seeking in the seats.
Without proper explanation, it might seem like a concert to watch is the whole point (and for many churches, it may be exactly that). At the very least, those in the band are usually much more engaged in worship than those who gather with them.
Sometimes, this is not the case, and that’s when I think the culture of worship has been cultivated correctly.
When those gathered understand that everything used to enhance worship is meant to point our attention to Christ (of course, many times it is not used this way), then we can achieve “true worship” with whatever artistic instruments are employed.
I’ve always just taken it as a given—to worship God will require some intentional posturing. As long as I have the right heart, I’ll keep my attention on Christ and not get distracted or sidetracked. Better yet, I’ll be able to bring a few more believers into the vision of focus.
Now I’m wondering, does this have to be the case?
Consider for a moment how strange it would be for a holy God to prescribe a form of worship that would in any way encourage us to focus on something other than his glory. So often, we justify the form and format of worship by overlaying theological principles on the way we do things. But if in my practice of worship I have to intentionally right the ship to stay focused on Christ, then we have a problem.
Shouldn’t participation in worship innately draw my attention to Christ? Even if it is at the expense of my comfort, preference, or satisfaction?
Why should I have to take intentional measures to posture myself against the distractions in worship?
I want a liturgy that makes worshipping God easier, not harder.
Timeline Shock
The prominence of the prasie and worship movement has changed how we think about worship, but sometimes we get a glimpse of what we’re missing. I have an example that can help frame this idea.
Recording Music
At the beginning of the 20th century, no one had ever heard a recording. I used to take my students through a mental exercise, trying to get them to conceptualize what music would have been like without the ability to record and play back a performance. It can be a bit of a challenge because most of us experience music primarily through headphones and speakers. But for most of human history, music was made by people, and it was different every time.
Some technologies become so intertwined with an activity that they change how we perceive that thing in the first place. Music was a thing that happened in a place with people. Now music is an asset that can be shared or sold to a consumer. The shift was gradual, but we can thank record players, tape decks, CD players, and MP3s for the metamorphosis of the cultural perception of music.
Émile Berliner working on a gramophone disc, circa 1910. Credit: Archives du Musée des ondes Émile-Berliner
Concert Worship
A similar comparison could be made with how the church thinks about worship.
Imagine another timeline where some devastating event set the world back 500 years. The internet was obliterated, manufacturing vanished, and communication technology went offline.
How much would your idea of worship have to change?
It would be ridiculous to think that we would have to wait to bring back all the technology we lost to worship again. But we might have a hard time imagining worship without all the usual tools.
Without the impact and influence of all the things that enhance the experience of a worship concert, it would be pretty unsatisfying. The absence of that technology would result in the absence of the product. We might see clearly that our dependence on what could really be described as a commercial art has drastically shifted what we expect from Christian worship.
Commercial art isn’t anti-Christian. It’s useful for doing what it does best—getting high-quality songs to a mass audience. I can visit a church for the first time and know most of the songs.
But it’s not required to worship God.
If we were set back technologically 500 years, we might actually get better at worshiping God because we wouldn’t be so distracted and captivated by chasing an image of worship. We’d have no more celebrities and conferences. We’d just have his word, a prayer, a meal, and maybe an acoustic guitar.
When The Music Fades
Of course, we aren’t going back 500 years. The praise and worship movement doesn’t seem to be slowing, so I’m wrestling what how to respond.
Maybe if I can jog your memory, you’ll get what I’m thinking.
You might remember when Matt Redman wrote, “The Heart of Worship,” so his church could strip away the noise and focus on Christ. So many Christians responded to the message with relief. They discovered a new awareness that God’s presence was already in the simplicity of the gathering of believers.
“When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come…”
I don’t think anyone thought that was a bad idea.
We revved the engines down. Maybe for a few Sundays, we had an acoustic band on stage. I’ve seen this happen at different times in the churches I’ve worked with. But if the way we’ve been doing worship was so distracting and prone to temptation that we had to intentionally back off to see Christ, then why were we compelled to build it back up again?
If, in stripping away the noise, we saw Christ more clearly, then why would we raise the walls again? I’m not sure.
Here’s the question I want to answer: if something is gained when the music fades, then what is lost when the music fades back in?
As much as I love the praise and worship movement, giving my heart and passion to the vision, I’ve become increasingly aware of how narrowly it focuses my attention. I’m getting glimpses of alternative liturgies that pull my heart to Christ, and it’s convicting me of the walls I’ve put around God’s presence.
Lately, I’m trying to take “worship music” out of the center of my view, set it to the side as a form of expression, and start asking myself where I see Christ most clearly. If the answers fit into the mold of the praise and worship movement, I’ll keep pursuing it. If not, I’m ready to lay it down.
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