So, if you’ve read any of Parts I to V, you’re probably asking yourself, “What the heck do I care about any of this?”
I can’t say that I blame you. I’m not even sure I care – except that I do.
If you’ve spent any time in the church – whether in ministry or not – you have no doubt heard “sour grapes” stories. They’re nothing new- and let’s face it- if we are going to embrace the immutable fact that all human beings are imperfect and sinful by nature, and the church is run by these imperfect and sinful beings, then it stands to reason that inequity can and does exist. It’s unavoidable – but, more than that- it’s ordained by God, Himself. (Sorry- my inner Calvinist is showing here.) Simply put, if the church were perfect in every way and did nothing but the right thing, then there would be no need for Faith, and ipso facto, no need for God, either. That, too, is unavoidable. So, obviously, I’m driving at something, right? Let’s tighten that noose a bit.
I’ve been party to both the giving and receiving end of the “Sour Grape Saga” – I’ve facilitated it, and I’ve received it. I’m not proud of either, but it would be far less than obvious if I didn’t call out the fact that I’ve been a contributor. I’d like to think that in the cases where I contributed to it, that it was done for good reason, and I’d equally like to think that as a receiver of it I did nothing to warrant it- but neither of those cases is entirely true. You see, I am a sinner just like everyone else, and I am capable of committing egregious acts just as anyone else is. I don’t like it, but there it is. I do, however, seek to change that whenever and wherever possible. (And, it’s always possible, too. I won’t let myself off easily here.)
But, in the last 15 years or so, there has been a shift within ministry in dealing with these types of things. The change is that now, churches and staff, in their dealings with their congregants, are so busy trying to engender a “one size fits all” type of approach to their congregations, they can’t be bothered to actually deal with problems when they arise. They just dismiss it with a wave of the hand, and a cliché statement like, “Yeah? Well, you know those things are bound to happen,” and then go back on their way adding more and more to their own particular machines without thought as to the aftermath. Before I go much further on this, let me explain about “machines”.
Lately (within these same 15 years) part of this shift is that every single church I’m involved with has a desire to do great things- well, that’s nothing new – but there’s a new metric in town that is making this somewhat hard to keep up with. That metric is this: “We want to be like….” and then name a church like Willow Creek or Hillsong United or <insert name of mega church here>. The standard is always something grand and glorious (and there’s nothing wrong with that) but what’s lacking is the knowledge and perception to get there. And what’s worse is that when places don’t achieve it, they tout that as failure. All of these churches that I mention here – every single one of them – are doing nothing more than trying to duplicate what someone else has already done without thought or regard to what might actually be needed by their communities. They continually feed their “machines” in the hopes that if they do things a certain way it will return certain results, and if it doesn’t work (and, it often doesn’t) then they either push harder while ignoring their membership, or they just disband and slough it off as “it was God’s will, that’s all”.
What’s lacking here is deliberate thought and acquisition of knowledge. Critical thinking has gone by the wayside. It’s no longer a matter of pushing an envelope; now it’s playing it safe/don’t rock the boat/do as “they” did but don’t ask too many questions. The church now views things like folks like me who push that envelope as liabilities, or worse- expendable. We get pushed into the machine, but because we don’t react the way that their already-ascribed-to metric would have us act, we are literally chewed up and spit out of the same machine – and then waived off with the aforementioned “Yeah? Well, you know that those things are bound to happen” statement, and the blindness continues.
Let me say what this is, and be very, very clear: This is bad; this is not what the church is supposed to be; it is dangerous; it is short-sighted; it is not of God. It’s also not of Satan. It is of men.
Now, most of my experience has been in music and the facilitation of music. Either performance or creation, so that is but a microcosm of what I’m talking about, but it’s the one that I am most qualified to speak about – so I will.
In 1995, I moved my family to Seattle, Washington. One day, while perusing the internet, I found a mailing list called Churchbass- a community of Christian bass players who sought to commune about a shared topic- unimaginatively enough about playing bass in church. I signed up and start participating right away. (I’ve made some really cool and lasting, close relationships with that list, too.) Almost immediately upon joining, a topic came up about “performance in worship” and how paying attention to performance was a bad thing. It should really be about the heart and nothing else. I said it then, and I’ll say it now: that’s bullshit. Performance is part of worship- they are NOT mutually exclusive.
If you read the last sentence and you’re wondering where I might get off making a statement like that, then quite simply, you might be part of the problem. (I didn’t say you were- I said “might”) We’ve all heard the old adage that more people leave a church over the music than any other reason (which is statistically true, btw), so I ask you- if a worship team gets on stage and stands there like deer in headlights while singing or playing like they’re on Prozac, how "into it" can you expect people to be? If you were a new attendee and saw that, would you come back? Of course not. The same is true of the pastor- when he gives his sermon, he is “performing” it- do you really want something that is just delivered like it came straight out of an M. Night Shymalan movie? No- you want/expect something dynamic and thought provoking; you want your worship music to be the same way – and all of this REQUIRES performance.
From a musical perspective, being able to know how to harness and replicate “performance” requires time and study, and there are many, many facets to it. Musically, this usually starts with “dynamics” – loud or soft – and then goes into pacing – fast or slow – and eventually extends into……uh-oh. I actually need to know how to play. And, that’s where it gets personal- because if you don’t know how to play your instrument, there’s bound to be problems. And, I feel compelled to mention that 99% of the measure of how well someone can play their instrument is their ability to communicate what they are doing to others, either by playing or by talking. (Yes, that’s right. 99%. It’s actually only about 1% what you actually play, and 99% how it’s communicated to others who are playing with you. Sorry to burst your bubble here.)
The ability to communicate effectively is the key. Communication, in order to be effective, requires a common shared language that contains all the necessary information in order to convey the message. “Common” is the operative word- if I tell you to “mambo dogface to the banana plant” – what do you mean you don’t understand? I used English, right? You have to have some point of reference to understand that, or I’m just making noise. The same is true when dealing with worship team members and music is concerned. And, like English, your command of it gets better over time, although sometimes it requires special explanation from someone with a better command than you might have in order to understand. (Daddy? What does ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ mean?)
In Parts I thru V, I think I demonstrated that I have some – certainly not all or even close to all – of the knowledge by virtue of time and trial to be able to make these cases. I’ve also demonstrated that while I have participated successfully, I have failed in many areas –but yet, God has seen fit to continually mold and shape me, educate and humble me, and my desire has been to do just that, but…….
….now I’m told I am no longer relevant. This is where this age old argument – “you sound like your parents did” – really starts to fall apart, especially given the wave of the hand sentiment that I and others have seen happen more and more often.
I have many, many friends my age who have played at least as much a part in the shaping of the contemporary praise and worship field – and in a lot of cases, they MUCH more so than I – and all of us are, one by one, being cast aside in favor of merely duplicating other’s efforts with this expected metric – and NOTHING else – in mind. This has never happened before in the history of the church that an entire generation is being passively driven away in this fashion.
Now, here’s the deal: it’s very easy for you to dismiss me and my arguments as just one man’s viewpoint. You would be partially correct in that- this is my view – but, folks, I’m tellin’ ya- you’d do well not to dismiss it. It’s not Generation Y (the generation after mine) that is going to feel this, it’s the one after that that will, because if you dismiss the ability to critically think and learn, you’ll have no way to teach the next generation how to do what it is you do. They’ll just be duplicating YOU instead of your metric- the larger, more “successful” churches – and what I’m trying to say (and taking a long darned time saying it) is that duplication eventually breeds nothing more than non-relevance. Stagnation. Loss of message. People leaving. Loss of topicality.
Loss of the ability to know how to bring people to redemption in Jesus.
And, yes, music is a big, big part of this. The excellence of how that music is delivered has an undeniably tremendous part. The ability to do things from an original standpoint; to say things in a way that have not been said before; to portray God in an unvoiced but real and meaningful way through the organization of sound cannot be underestimated. Music is a universal language, and it was designed and given to us by God in order to move people in a way that mere words cannot, and by losing the ability to know how to facilitate and perform that language means that we are giving away that universal language.
(And if you want proof that what is lost like this cannot be regained, ask yourself why it requires years and years of Latin classes to learn a language that was the native language for most of the world for almost 1,000 years.)
Please understand that I am not saying that for people to be able to play in a worship band that they need to be able to recite the first 3 chapters of Slonimsky’s “Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns” from memory. But what I am saying is that if challenged to do something like that, they should be willing to do the work and not say something profoundly stupid like “that’s performance and we’re here to worship, so I won’t” and expect to just stay on the team – or worse – influence it so that no one else is required to do anything to excel at what they do.
In Part VII, I’ll start really driving to my final points.
(BTW- although the Slonimsky book is great, it’s even better at curing insomnia, so really- don’t bother. And, yes, I’ve read it, and no, I can’t quote it.)
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