Traditional Worship

Having overwhelmed my blog with thoughts of contemporary and alternative worship, and though that is, actually, one of my projects at hand, I wanted to say a few words about traditional worship, lest you think my work at hand is some singular focus or preference on my part.

I grew up on traditional worship, and traditional worship alone. Oh, from time to time I would be at a church with contemporary music, but never was that more than a fad. My father was involved for a short time in a new church start, but I was young enough that I can't even tell you today what the worship style was...I imagine it was contemporary (and my dad can play guitar, so he could pull it off) but I don't really remember it. What contemporary music I did hear was what I would today call old-fashioned. From time to time, at camps or other places, there would be a brief shimmer of good, on the money contemporary worship, but those moments were fleeting.

In college the Lutheran chapel at Gettysburg provided traditional worship, tinged with elements of alternative, ancient-future worship at times. The United Methodist Church I attended Sundays mornings in college was, well, your standard, mid-church, mid-Atlantic, middle-class white worship.

In seminary, I learned there are a lot of different styles, and our various worship services leapfrogged all over the worship spectrum, with an interesting mix of the high-church and contemporary/alternative. During my time at Duke, I worshipped on Sundays at various churches, from a similarly mid-everything-and-white church in the suburbs to an African-American congregation in Durham to Duke Chapel. At Duke I really learned that the biggest and most important difference between worship services is less often their style or music and more often their quality in general. Poorly done worship of any type is equally bad, and, well, heretical. Heretical was a word we really liked at Duke but rarely said out loud. Worship is supposed to glorify God. To give people a chance to rehearse, prepare to go BE followers of Christ the rest of the week. Heretical worship, most easily defined, that worship that has a charismatic leader--worship focused on a person, or a band, rather than God. You know what I mean. You've seen it. I've seen it. We've even been involved in it. And it just feels, well, wrong (usually to everyone but the person being glorified...)

Good traditional worship isn't about the best music, just as good contemporary worship isn't nearly as much about the music as we like to think. Worship shouldn't be a performance with a captive audience (though as a pastor, some Sundays, I'd be happy to AT LEAST have a captive audience :-) )

Good traditional worship can touch anyone. That our traditional worship in many churches doesn't means we have let our "tradition" overshadow our "worship." Too often, the structure and habits of our services become so stale that even (or even especially) those who come weekly are no longer moved. No longer feel they encounter God in worship. Maybe not everyone Sunday...but at least a good part of the time!

Any worship needs to get people involved in what's happening. A more than just in the cult-like mass reading of lines or repetition of memorized prayers (though Duke also instilled in me a great appreciation for the value of the ways we join together with Christians of all times at all places. I'm just saying those same old things aren't enough to make all this stuff come alive. If ever it was (and I really question any who propose some good old days when the pastor simply dictating the faith was the most effective way for people to grow as disciples) it is not today. And never will be ever(again).

The best worship is well-planned, should flow, and have a cohesiveness that is so well done that the congregation doesn't even realize all the work that went into it. The best worship accounts for all aspects of a service but recognizes that worship only really comes alive by the power of God. The thing is, a failure to plan does not make a service any more Spirit-filled (though we might like to attribute the resulting chaos to such).

As we meet God in worship, worship leaders and pastors need to remember that it's not about us. But precisely BECAUSE it's not about us, we need to do our jobs well. Whatever the worship style, people come to worship to enter into God's presence, not to be impressed by us. And if either we or they forget that, we've distorted something very precious.

Have you heard the story of the song, "The Heart of Worship"? Matt Redman was a well-acclaimed worship leader when it became clear that his worship band's music had become the draw of their services. Under the guidance of the pastor there, the congregation entered a season of discerning whether they had simply become consumers of worship rather than participants. The break that congregation had from music and the time of examination changed the way that congregation approached worship (check out more about the story here). I suspect all of our churches have those things that we too easily come to as observers, consumers, and all of us could benefit from stepping back and remembering what we're supposed to be doing when we come together in worship, and how we can do that better.

Check out a video with the song "The Heart of Worship," which was inspired by that experience:


Interestingly enough, notice how simple the chords of this song are. I'm not a guitarist myself, but my brother Jordan tells me this is a pretty easy song to play (in all honesty he says there are different ways to play it...then he offered to go get his guitar to show me...). There are four, maybe five chords. Maybe that sort of simplicity wouldn't be a bad thing to try out sometime in any of our worship services...contemporary, blended, traditional, alternative...whatever...