Worship.

I thought since we are going to be studying Worship this next weekend at The Gathering that it would be appropriate to do a few posts worship. Worship is a pretty important topic, and it would be good if we took some time to think about it.

Most of you are lucky enough to have been raised at OMV and have had good preaching and good music for all of your lives. But most church-goers in America haven't been so priviliged. I grew up in the midst of what has been known as the infamous "worship wars." The big debate was "Should we sing traditional hymns?" versus "Should we sing contemporary 'praise choruses'?" And for the large part, for over a decade all churches that were asking those questions were by far asking the wrong questions.

The issues of "traditional" and "contemporary" are for the most part, irrelevant. What was contemporary in the 1950's was considered traditional in the 1970's, and that which was considered contemporary in the 70's is looked at as being outdated today. So if our standards can't be based on those standards, on what should be judge worship music?

I would suggest that our standards should be based on at least two things.

1. It must be God-glorfying, gospel-centered, with Biblical content. Does this song accurately portray God as glorious, man as sinful, and Christ as crucified? Could someone listen to this song and learn the gospel? Does this song represent accurately or misrepresent who God is? Is the song focused more on man than it is on God? Is this song theologically shallow or superficial?

2. It must be composed, arranged, and performed well. Is the music written in a way that distracts from the words and the content of the song? Does the tempo of the song lend itself to corporate or congregation singing without distraction? Does this song have words that are present because of forced rhyme or rhythm rather than for theological reasons. Does it sound like this song was written in minutes without much contemplation, or after hours of meditation on Christ and the Bible? Would you want this song-writer to also be your pastor or Bible teacher?

More posts to come on Worship . . .