There is a quiet but often strongly-felt division among Christians in the area of worship music. .
With the upsurge of worship/pop bands---many of whom have taken the concept of crossover music to new lows---some worshipers (especially those over 50) have turned away from the whole concept of contemporary worship music and elevated anything written before 1800 to holy status.
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On the opposite side are the younger people who cannot relate to antiquated verses and plodding tempos and leave the church altogether in search of something that speaks into their lives.
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. Really? Is it as cut-and-dried as that?
. If it were, I think a whole lot of us would flock to her side. . In the early '70's when contemporary Christian music first tiptoed onto the scene, it was as shallow as a summer puddle.
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That was about it.
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But in recent years, praise and worship music has exploded with a variety rivaling that of secular. The choice of current praise songs is unending and high quality, both Scripturally and musically. Many are Scripture passages set to music and you can hardly be more Biblical than that.
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I remember as a child, standing in the pew with hymnbook in hand, some of the mental images that flitted through my mind as we sang all five verses of a song I didn't understand were not remotely spiritual.
- "Raising my Ebenezer" always sounded slightly pornographic and it certainly wasn't something I wanted to do in church.
- I had no clue where Beulah Land was, but was certain I didn't want to go there, and as for marching to Zion, it wasn't even lunchtime yet.
- The Balm in Gilead reminded me of war and I wondered who we were blowing up.
Now before you get any hotter under the collar, let me assure you I love the old hymns too. Many were written by stellar heroes of faith under the most adverse of circumstances. A study of the history of some of those songs gives them all the more meaning.
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However, why must we make everything an either/or situation? Hymns were once the "new songs" of their time and many people objected to them as well.
. The answer is clearly compromise. It won't hurt the under-25 set to learn some of those comforting hymns, and those of us past a certain age can learn a lot from the new music as well.
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Times change, people change, customs change. What is appreciated by one generation is often discarded by the next. The key is what's in the heart. If the goal is to show off your new electric guitar and the key changes you've mastered, then it doesn't matter what you're playing. It isn't worship music.
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Likewise, if you insist on leading all five verses of a Gregorian chant, you're going to lose the majority of your congregation to boredom. Pretending we're all still living in the 1600's just won't cut it with the Nintendo-crowd. Outdated concepts and terms don't speak into the lives of the ones singing them and leave the impression that God is also out-of-date and out-of-touch.
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So what's the answer? Many churches have gone to two or more services to try to appease the different tastes, but I hate to see that. If we're all worshipping the same God, there's no reason we can't do it together. If the younger crowd can't worship without blaring synthesizers and screaming vocals, there's something wrong there. It begs the question: Exactly what or who is being worshipped?
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On the flip side, if the older folks get their hackles up because some of tonight's songs will be sung with guitars, they need to loosen up. Where does Scripture dictate a piano and organ? If you want to really rile some feathers, mention that Psalms also instructs us to "praise Him with the dance!"
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The bottom line is that worship is a personal thing between you and God. Jesus said it must be done in "Spirit and in truth." Without that, you may as well be singing "Boomer Sooner."
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When we start dictating how another must worship the Lord, we've just gone legalistic. King David's wife, Michal, was mortified to see him dancing before the Lord.
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I wonder what some of us would think if we saw the same thing?
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