The Ken Johnson Group / November 23, 2005 Featured Article

Worship Wars – are they still around?
It's my way or the highway.
It's my way or the church will die and I don't care!

by Ken Johnson

Let’s blow a trumpet and shake those frozen people out of their padded pews.

Is the church behind in how we worship? Is worship something that has become so stilted that we can never do anything different? Are churches that are doing worship differently than us wrong and we are right? If I use contemporary music and worship ideas in my service am I a “circus” church? What is the right kind of worship, yours or mine, or both of ours?

If you don’t like the worship style then you need to find another church that uses the style that you prefer. It doesn’t matter whether you have gone to this church your whole life; if the congregation has approved a pastor and their leadership, then you need to either go along or leave. There is nothing wrong with finding another church but there is something wrong with starting a fight over worship style or anything else for that matter. If by some chance the majority of the congregation has decided, after prayer and soul searching, that the current pastor is not the right one, then they need to let him/her go and hire another person.

Here is what I expect when I go to worship: A joyous celebration which includes laughter, quiet time, teaching, getting to know other people, participation—mine and others—affirmation, challenge, something new and creative every time, …, the list could go on and on.

What do you expect in worship?

Paul said to the church he started in Philippians when he was trying to get them to move forward “...But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3: 13 & 14).

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.

I love that sentence because it has so much meaning. Why is it that some Christians are always behind the rest of the world? Why do we have to worship the same way that they did 30, 40, or 50 years ago? Why can’t we realize that when God created the Heavens and the earth he continued and created man and woman and gave them brains so they could be creative and produce new things? When the first wheel was created He didn’t say, “That’s good, now don’t build anything better.” He allowed us freedom; He even encouraged us to continue in our inventive ways. Yes, I know, sometimes we go a little too far in some of our creations, but He also gave us a brain and a conscience to know when to stop. Yes, sometimes we don’t listen to our conscience and we go overboard, but that is the reason he allows us freedom to make our own choices and to hopefully learn from our mistakes. Our one and only purpose as Christians is to win people for Christ. Are we doing that when we are fighting?

Why do some churches say, “We are not going to change our worship style even if the church dies. If people want to come to this church they will have to accept what we do. If they don’t then they need to go to another church.” Our culture has changed just like the cultures before us. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact it is important that we transform what we do as our culture changes or the church will die.

In the middle to late ‘60s we began using choruses in worship and the contemporary Christian music phenomenon began which for the “worship purists” was a difficult pill to swallow. In the ‘70s we began developing many different products like models and colors of cars, literally thousands of different kinds of light bulbs, a wide variety of magazines, and at the same time an amazing evolution in worship began. We became creative in our worship, much to the chagrin of the mainline church.

Worship service length is an area of contention. I haven’t found anywhere in the Bible or in any historical writings where it gives the length of the service. So how long should the service be? Is there a magical time limit of 60 minutes?

Bobby Sanderson, minister of music at the First Baptist Church, Columbus, Mississippi, asks himself and us some hard questions about worship:

1. Is worship about God or is it about what I like?

2. Do I seek God’s presence or the comfort of being with friends and doing what is familiar?

3. When is the last time God “blind-sided” me and spoke in a way I did not expect?

4. Am I so contemporary I lose the transcendence of God?

5. Am I so traditional that I forget God’s relevance?

6. Do I see myself as part of an audience giving approval/disapproval to worship leaders?

7. Can God use what I don’t like?

8. Am I more into music than the spoken word?

9. Do I ignore the command to sing just to get to the “message?”

10. Do I leave worship with a clear sense of what I’m supposed to do?

11. Is the style of worship more important to me than the object of worship?

12. Do I love His presence as much as the songs I sing and play?

13. Can I worship Him when it’s hard work and my joy is running low?

(From Evangel, the weekly newsletter of the First Baptist Church, Columbus, Mississippi, October 3, 2001 (Vol. 69, No. 40)The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, November 11, 2001.)

Do any of these apply to you?

If we are worshiping God and Jesus is the center of our lives then we should unite, not fight. A church needs to hire the Pastor that they feel is right for them and trust him/her to lead them in the right direction. This simple strategy would preclude fighting. Worship, especially corporate worship, is a main ingredient of the Christian faith. Worship time usually includes many different people, each one as important as the other, so the church needs to find ways to minister to each of them. We need to minister to all of the people some of the time, because we won’t be able to minister to all of the people all of the time which calls for variety in our worship.

Why are there different denominations and styles of worship? Are they there so people can choose how they want to worship? The variety makes that choice simple.

I believe that every time Christians worship God speaks to those people that He wants to hear so you need to provide a wide variety of music and worship experiences to meet as many needs as possible. Go to worship this week with an open mind looking for God to speak to you and you will go home wanting to go to church again next Sunday.

November 23 , 2005 Featured Article