Images, media, lights, sound, movement; modern worship has become a highly involved experience connecting almost every sense at once.
Knowing that there is an amazing power in music, and understanding its capacity to open hearts and minds to seek God, it is no doubt that many worship leaders are actively seeking ways in which to further enhance the experience. Picking key points in which to raise the volume, dictating moments of awed silence, and coordinating images with lyrics, the average worship session can quickly become nothing short of a full-scale production.
But, what happens when this push for higher, greater, wider, and intense worship creates a backlash?
As a creative mind, in the middle of a church plant embracing skeptical and “recovering” Christians, I’ve found myself at an interesting crossroads. Many people I’ve recently encountered come from churches with extensive resources with which to create creative worship environments.
Some left due to leadership conflicts, others just out of changing life paths. But, many left because they grew tired of the showy worship norm and cautious about allowing emotion and musical persuasion to define worship. What was once seen as creating an atmosphere, is now interpreted as manipulation.
In conjunction with this, a quest for seeking authentic, transparent relationships with Christ has pushed some ‘recovering’ Christians to the point of refusing all external input in worship. In this scenario, even simple, acoustic, no-frills music is viewed as swaying the emotions, and therefore creating a false sense of encounter with Christ.
With this in mind, what can be done? How can one embrace creativity and arts, and still maintain a sense of authentic, transparent, and raw worship? How can the church pursue inspired worship that creates an atmosphere of celebratory, corporate praise, and shun experiences that are programmed, manufactured, and manipulative?
Over at Ragamuffinsoul.com, I’ve enjoyed reading the ideas that challenge my artful mind and stir my creative soul. But, how can experiences like these be lived out in environments that are much less accepting of traditional Christianity and highly sensitive to suggestion?
How can we truly introduce people to the originator of all things creative, without causing them to distrust that creativity?
I believe God gives us our gifts and talents to glorify Him…We are to worship in spirit and in truth ..He tells us to make a joyful noise unto The Lord….Maybe the worship team could pray 15, 20 min.before practice .Do a bible study on worship together .See how God leads .Then be confident in what He spoke to your heart and proceed.Pray for unity…but remember the old saying .”You can’t please all the people all the time “….God gave you your creativity dont hide it !!!!Those are my thoughts anyway …God bless
I understand the feeling of having been manipulated in church. (in one way or the other) After getting out of the situation, for a time I pushed away any emotion in connection to God, in order to sort out my own thoughts and understanding. But when it came down to me choosing to have an experience with God despite what others were doing. I had to submit to allowing God to touch my emotions, because it was partly my emotions that held onto the hurt or mistrust. How could God heal that part of me without my feeling and RESPONDING to his touch in that area? All through scripture God shows his emotions, and so do God’s people. That’s how we were created.
There is a difference in creating an environment of Praise, then to Manipulating praise. Even in scripture, there are times that it was required to make preparations to a place for worship. But to explain that to someone in the midst of their search… I’m not sure how to do that.
OK, I’m firmly in the camp of skeptics but, it sounds like you answered yer own question: “truly introduce people to the originator of all things creative”. (grin)
This issue goes well beyond previous worship issues (at church services). Years ago the tension arose around the various styles of music, lights or no, and before that was electric guitar or the god-inspired acoustic. And this issue is much deeper, and central to the core of worship.
I think the real issue here is, “What is worship?”
If woship is just music and a show at church-time, then we’re in trouble. But if it involves every aspect of our lives, all the time, then we’re doing it right. Aren’t we to love God with ALL our heart, soul, mind and strength and others as ourselves? This seems to involve every aspect of our being.
So what we do when we gather together, should it reflect who we are the rest of the time?
OK, for me it would help for the worship leader(s) to talk about what’s going-on during the worship time to set people’s expectations. I feel manipulated when a worship leader asks for/tries to get a particular emotional response to a song… I think it would be better for someone to just be honest with the congregation and tell them, “Hey, we’re going to worship through music now. Everyone is going to have a different kind of experience, some will feel emotional, some will feel unemotional. Some of you will experience God in different ways than others. Don’t feel like you have to have the same response as the person next to you. Just open your heart for wherever God is leading you and what the Spirit is saying. Wherever that takes you is ok.” If someone SAYS something like that and lets their music playing follow along with that, then I don’t see how anyone can think they’re being manipulative. I think manipulation is when a certain emotional response is expected, and if you give the congregation complete freedom from expectation, then there can be no manipulation.
emily, thanks for the perspective. one of the amazing aspects of God that I love and cherish, is the gift of individuality. not only does he create us uniquely designed, but our worship and response to him is also unique and individualistic. what a generous God…
thanks for sharing your thoughts.
we are in a bit of the same dilemma, experimenting with a wide variety of ways to worship because for some, just singing songs just doesn’t cut it and honestly, some of the words don’t really feel that true in different ways because of the shifts some are making. i know we can’t accomodate everyone but i have noticed how much “assumption” language we can tend to make related to worship and when people are undergoing huge shifts in theology & connection to God, we need to be careful and at the same time not water down worship/praise/thanksgiving for who God is. but at the same time understanding not everyone is feeling happy/clappy when it comes to their relationship with God at the moment. it is a beautifully tricky dance. one thing we have done is wean everyone from only music…
I really agree with the comments of Willow and Toby. I do believe that a variety of worship should occur because each of us will respond to a different type. We will know the “sort” of worship that reaches us – we will feel God…
you can never please everyone. i think a large portion of this is the fact that few people tend to worship in their own private time. then they expect the church to supply all their spiritual needs; really, they should be getting what they need in their own prayer closet.
Wow! Am I ever glad I found your blog! Lots of thought-provoking stuff here.
hmm…this was a popular one.
what if we just threw out the cookie cutters and gave genuine worship as unique as the body we belong to is?
[...] thought this blog was a very interesting blog about worship. As someone who was once involved in leading worship in [...]