The Church Question .3

2008 December 03

by Tyler

On Monday answered the question of what is most important for the local church: discipleship or evangelism? (HERE)

Yesterday I shared my answer (HERE).

Today I want to look at how discipleship and evangelism affect the worship ministries of local churches.

Every Sunday a church should desire that their music would reach the faithful followers of Christ and be relevant enough to inspire unbelievers towards Christ. To state the obvious, this is NOT an easy thing to do.

Even when people can agree that part of music in church is about being relevant, then the debate becomes about what is truly relevant.

Relevant for me is probably a lot different than what is relevant for my grandparents. And relevant for me shouldn’t be given more value simply because I’m young.

This is what I see happening in most churches. They throw out the hymns and bring in the praise choruses as if they are more relevant to young people.

I’ve talked a lot about Dan Kimball and the new network he is starting along with Scot McKnight and Erwin McManus and a few others. It is called The Origins Project. Their tagline is “Ancient Text. Present Context. Future Textures.” This is what I see happening that encourages me greatly:

We can value the past within our present context to produce a future texture. In music this means hymns done with modern instrumentation, bringing the electric guitar out, singing songs that people enjoy singing together, expanding what worship means within daily living, and it means being more creative with what it means to worship as a church. It means valuing what is relevant for me and for you.

Within worship music, what does being relevant mean to you?

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http://www.aworshipfulheart.typepad.com janowen

I suppose I look at this differently than some. I first of all think we should use music people actually would want to listen to – that speaks their language. It took me a while to figure this out with our congregation and it doesn’t stay the same, it flexes and moves.

I think a more important aspect of relevant would be that we talk about and communicate about (via our songs and creative elements or what have you) things that are REAL in our lives. If we never talk about suffering we’re doing the church a grave injustice since – surprise! – we’ll all experience suffering.

I think being relevant has alot to do with being real…..style is included perhaps, but I think it has more to do with the context of people’s lives and helping them to connect the dots and take a step. If we never talk or sing about real life or help people connect worship to what they are living, we are not relevant.
http://manofdepravity.com Tyler

Jan- I think everyone will look at this differently. Sure there will be similarities. This is exactly why I said pleasing everyone is so difficult. Relevancy is so different for each person. This is probably why there are a jillion denominations and churches.
http://www.aworshipfulheart.typepad.com janowen

and why it’s so hard to pin relevancy to “style” – although i’ll honestly say there are styles of worship and music i relate to more…..

it’s like asking what color you like best – we may all have a different answer. Although that does lead me to another thought – that church is not just for us, but for the body, so allowing ourselves to be stretched, being mature enough to worship in ways that are not our first choice etc are all importatnt too. Perhaps I can learn something from things that are not relevant to me as i see someone else engage with God? is that a valuable thing? i think so.

good question tyler.
Yonas

I maybe speaking out of my ‘electric guitar envy’. In my opinion, playing a song on piano doesn’t make it less modern or contemporary. At this time, I’m so used to this subtle idea that ‘electric guitar/guitar is cool/contemporary/upbeat/modern/hip/young and piano is so old lady-ish/subdued/mellow that I was actually surprised to hear a couple people at work told me that piano is an awesome and classy instrument. Piano player can be upbeat and happy too…look at Little Richard! (ok..bad example)

I had a discussion with another person (pianist/singer) that I wonder at what point piano will be considered ‘obsolete’ in certain young/contemporary churches. Just like pipe organ now is pretty much non-existent in a lot of our current churches. It will be a while before that happens though.
Yonas

Forgot to add: I shouldn’t be envious, cause envy is a sin . I couldn’t find a different word for it..and ‘guitar jealousy’ doesn’t have a nice ring to it.
Yonas

*crickets*

Must be something i said.