Hey, thanks for articulating what I’ve been feeling for a while! I think the beauty of all of this is that God works despite us! But the word of God is exactly where it’s at! And so thanks to your videos I’m incorporating more scripture reading into the singing portion of our service’s transitions… Also, thanks for defining those three paradigms! It makes a lot of sense and helps me as a worship leader in planning for different events and different congregations…
I have a neighbor that wants a concert every Sunday and she isn’t coming to one of the churches where I lead music anymore because we no longer have a full praise band. She wants to be entertained! I think this is a problem which is certainly promoted by the professional worship teams that we see in TH-cam videos from the likes of Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation. It isn’t realistic for the average community church worship team of volunteer musicians to sound, look, or act like those professionals. Our worship music should be a response to our encounter with God’s word, for what He’s already done, and for what He’s promised to do for those that love him and follow after Jesus. We respond with love for and to Him because He’s already proven the depth of His love for us.
I love the fact that so MANY worship songs include in them the Word of God or have been taken from scripture. I have been trying to incorporate these songs,....and then sharing with everyone where they can be found or actually reading the exact scripture during the time that I have been using your style for welcoming them into the worship time. If we've gotten away, we should start using this as an extra time to share God's Word with the congregation. Blessings Spencer, your videos have been an encouragement and has helped me as a fairly new worship Leader. You're a good teacher too. 😇🙏❤️
YES! When I do worship covers I have started posting Scripture references and then the actual verse in the post! ...and at my church we always post the Scripture references on screen, and we frequently read Scripture!
I agree with you 100%. I recently had a interview for a worship leader position earlier this month and one of the questions they asked me was how else do I connect with God other than music and I told them I actually connect with God more through reading the word. And they seem kind of surprised and these were the elders of the church.
Really helpful, thank you. And I think another implication is that music is especially powerful *when* the lyrics are suffused with the scriptures, point us to the scriptures, help us to remind each other of and encourage each other with scriptural truth. And, I think, when this connection between music and scripture is made explicit in how we lead.
I have also noticed that where our songs use to be scriptural they are more about our feelings and very little about God. Based on what you have said it might be that we need to have songs that are filled with the TRUTH of who God is and His works.
To balance it I might say that encounter worship is when we sing songs of praise. Missional worship is the pastor's sermon. Formational is whatever you get out of the service
Thankyou for this. Your emphasis on scripture ensures a solid foundation for God-centered sung worship. But I think that that the problem is not unique to contemporary musical worship. High level cathedral choirs, and indeed small local church choirs, singing traditional hymns, have often become an unhealthy focus of worship in themselves, involving self-seeking choir masters and choristers, and congregants wanting to be entertained and moved emotionally by the big choirs sound.
Interesting - I'm not often in churches where choirs lead the music anymore but I could definitely see how a similar temptation would be there. Thanks for pointing that out! 👊
Yes I agree with you we have elevated music too high. There are other art forms that have been suppressed….i think art is a massive part of the puzzle piece of experiencing thinking and hearing God. I come from a heavily spiced encountering and formation grouping….we HAVE elevated music too high. Im not sure if weve let music “usurp” but we’ve seen a separation between musical worship and the preaching of the Word. I believe strongly in blending the two….ive been chasing singing the Word for a long time but there are few who do
4give me if I'm not gonna make sence. Struggling with second languidge. But I think you are spot on my brother. I'd add something to distinguish something though. When Saul was struggling with a torturing spirit David helped with music. Also when Elijah's apprentice elisee (I'm not sure on the spelling) was asked to prophesie from a threatened king I'll just paste the thing... 2Kin 3:15: "But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him.". I think that this tells us that there is intrinsic value and function of music. I would direct the problem of CCM more on the lack of knowledge and revelation of the composers. There is a clear difference from the start of CC Apple to the point we are now. And my last point is that when we are talking about churches there must be a leadership structure through which God's anointing must flow. He set 8t up. I'm referring to apostles preachers evangelists profets and teachers. Musicians need to respect that. And allow the anointing to flow through this structure. Instead we now see bands moving from church to church. If a band is subject to a church leader I think it meets its purpose. Then the music has purpose. 285 and to propel God's anointing in the congregation. That's my opinion so far. And that's why the music ministry in our church is always under the leadership of our pastor. And there is a purpose to the music.
Dont take away a persons favourite song. Or three songs or ten. But when our faith is dependent entirely on hundreds of songs or even entirely on music beware. If we are going stand fast as Gods people in these last days we need Gods word, prayer and even judgement. Music plays its part but a smaller part. As God frees us from too much music we need to be filled more with the Word and prayer and pureness of the Holy Spirit. Its not the easiest thing. Its the road we must walk. I am the owner or some fifteen guitars, writer of some fifty songs. Since my hair turned grey Im not asked to play that much any more. No problem. Im selling most of my stuff now. There is some sadness but all the more great joy coming. God bless you all
Hey Spencer! Thanks for the shout out! I like a lot of what you are getting at here. I think there are a couple points I would want to push on a little: 1. This was is small but I think generally in those different paradigms that baptists actually have most often gravitated towards mission and Anglicans towards encounter. You put them both in the formation camp and I think there are certainly churches in every denomination that lean towards each of them but I just wanted to say generally that’s what I see more broadly. 2. I think you are drawing harder distinctions between music and the word than what is most representative. I agree that music in and of itself cannot form us fully in the way that God wants. But I might argue that reading in and of itself can also not form us fully in the way that God wants. Our music should be fill with the Word of God (Col. 3:16) in a way where our musical worship is both praise, ministry of the Word, and the ministry of prayer all at the same time. I see less distinction here in this way. In fact in Bryan Chapell’s book Christ-Centered Worship he talks about what Gospel shaped liturgies can and should look like.. he mentions that many parts of the liturgy can be accomplished by scripture readings, corporate prayers, or songs because the content matters more than the form. It seems that much of this video is dealing with extremes like 20 minute spontaneous worship which is pretty rare among even charismatic churches. My tweak would be this: I would say music isn’t the only way God is forming us. But I think it is more than okay that half of our service involves singing given the overwhelming number of times it is mentioned in scripture and based on the fact that singing gives the most people the largest opportunity to be active participants. We pray when we sing, we teach one another when we sing, the Word dwells in us when we sing, and we are filled with the Spirit when we sing (Eph. 5) I think a lot of what you are saying here is still good, but I would put more of the focus on the content rather than the form.
Always appreciate your balanced thoughts Dalton! Thanks man! 1. You're right! I misspoke in the video. Thanks for the correction. 2. I think you're onto something - thanks for that insight. I'll think about that more. I appreciate you man! 👊
My thoughts are this, music as worship is to lead people into a place, personally, where they are prepared to hear the Word of God preached. There is many ways that this can happen, of course. Another aspect is that we should be choosing and singing songs that are theologically sound, in church. Not every song that is played on Christian radio is proper for corporate worship. I believe it was MacArthur who made a challenge of sorts, where he said to turn off all the lights, turn off all the video, turn off the fog machine and no worship team for one service. Just preach the Word and see how many people stay and see how many complaints you get. I don't know if anyone has done that, but it would be interesting to see the results of that experiment.
You deserve commendation for seeing past the normal collection of elements that comprise current-day worship. If you can stay with me, our collective thoughts might cause us both to reflect constructively. The sacred assembly is meant to be a place of transition. We cross a threshold from the profane into the sacred. We permit eternity to envelop our occupation of time. It is hard to achieve this with music that is of a species no different from that which blares out of radios and other listening tech at any time. (The matter of hymns having been contemporary in the days of their composition is a bit oversimplified, so we can address that another time.) The very word "contemporary" reveals problems. One, it means "with the time," yet we are commanded to be true to the truth of the Gospel "whether in season or out of season." Two, it focuses upon time much more than eternity. A third problem causes the whole contemporary church setting to suggest an aim to spark a horizontal rather than a vertical activity. It is a production-often including stages, stage lighting, band equipment, the absence of architecture, no insistence on formal dress, and more-all designed to stimulate the emotions rather than summon the entirety of the human person up to God. And perhaps worst of all, the contemporary movement takes libraries worth of beautiful, worshipful compositions (hymns which were often the products of faith and joy amidst immense suffering) and simply shoves them off a cliff. That which each prior generation handed down as a precious legacy has been thoughtlessly disposed of-largely because we like the way recent tunes have caused us to feel. It's hard to conclude that these things are making the church stronger. It seems to be setting up one generation's preferences for replacement by those of the next.
That's some really good food for thought. I'm going to have to let that marinate. I definitely could do a better job of implementing scripture into our worship services.
I think you could stretch this out even further. Well done, i often feel crazy too. Personally in my world, you are describing the symptom more than the problem. I think the church is slowly moving away from the word, and providing more digestibly content to complete with our modern attention spans. You get a service that is unwittingly providing more than it is designed to do with well curated competitive content. And an audience that is outsourcing it's Christianity to the nice people on the stage. Maybe it's a consequence of modern culture too? Anyways... i get worked up about it
To expound, I think the problem is that churches value their program above all, and the elements of the worship service are engineered to serve that program rather than to proclaim the worth of Christ. In conjunction with that, “worship” is identified with an emotional state rather than by a proclamation, and so whatever the focus of the service is (be it music or preaching) is engineered to manufacture that emotional state in the congregation. Music is viewed merely as a tool in this construct. It is devalued generally because it is only valued for its utility in achieving the emotional state and/or the goal of the program. Music (and other art forms) which cannot be utilized in this way have no value for the Church at all.
Good Spence. As pastor I use music as a vessel surrounding scripture and the sermons. The Word comes first and foremost. Here is a question for you…do you utilize songs as a response to confession? I have a couple formulas I regularly use. The last six years has taught me a wealth of wisdom that works a long cry from our early days together. Blessings to your ministry
Look at the words to this hymn and tell me of one contemporary worship song that can even come close to the majesty that is in this hymn. Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary. Mercy there was great, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty, At Calvary. 2 By God’s Word at last my sin I learned; Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned, Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary. 3 Now I’ve giv’n to Jesus everything, Now I gladly own Him as my King, Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary. 4 Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan! Oh, the grace that brought it down to man! Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span
EASY Living Hope by Phil Wickham Thank You Jesus For The Blood by Charity Gale Hallelujah For The Cross by Chris McClarney God So Loved by We The Kingdom Forever Reign by Hillsong
@@mrnoedahl Then please listen to them. He is quite right, there is some wonderful theologically sound modern church music. Not al of it is flashing lights and heavy rock. Listen to Matt Redman, Graham Kendrick, Dave Bilbrough. Sing to the Lord a new song.
I have an idea that I call “in with the new, and out with the old”. We sing contemporary worship first then have the service, and lastly have traditional worship. Whata ya think?
We live in the entertainment age. Everything has to be entertaining or the vast majority of people will ignore you. So the church has made music, lights, fog machines, sensual music, rock music, rap music, or whatever it takes to bring and keep people in the church. Many think that’s OK; whatever it takes as long as they are able to hear the Word. What say ye?
I think the three paradigms you noted at the beginning entirely miss the purpose of P&W. CCM is full of me and I. P&W may have some of those benefits and end up with rewards to us. But, above all it is not for us, but to give P&W to the Lord. If we do P&W and feel nothing, get nothing, no one gets saved from our poor singing or playing even, no one says we played well or says you messed it up, or what ever, its just not not important. If we don't feel like doing P&W then do it anyway; a sacrifice of praise. If you make it unto the Lord then everything else should fall into place and even musicians and singers should want to play better and their best in humility.
I respect what you do and mean no offense by my take here. The problem with worship simply boils down to this: People on stage are trying way to hard to be Blink 182. The tone is in contemporary rock, leading to the congregation not being able to sing along. I wish worship would be more like it was in 2008. You can have electric guitars, drums, bass, etc. It worked well before. But now the songs are too fast paced and not written/sung in a corporate tone.
In many churches in England, the music from the late 20th and early 21st century was never given a chance to be heard in church. Some wonderful music by modern composers was frowned upon by the traditionalists. There is a need for both and a need to move forward in grace.
In the church I attend / support I think we're out of balance in the other direction. Preaching of the word carries the full load and the music is just sort of a filler.
When the church gathers together it is by believers and for believers. It is a gathering of brothers and sisters. The mission field is outside of the church. The worship is for the Lord only. It has nothing to do with missions and this is the main problem with contemporary “worship”. Contemporary worship is trying to please non Christians by being as close to worldly music as possible, and is more concerned with entertaining the people then worshiping the Lord. Which is exactly what a non Christian wants. Entertainment. There are plenty of places to be entertained at; church is not one of them. Someone once said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”. Not a house of entertainment. We have a lot of lights and comedy at our churches and very little if any prayer. The true Christian has lost the worship wars to the non Christian. It is truly tragic. Great video my friend.
I disagree that worship always falls into these three paradigms. All three of these paradigms are variations of the same thing - they are about using music to create an experience, to influence the listeners in some way. But what about worship where the primary purpose is to sing and perform music together, like singing in a choir or playing in an orchestra?
I disagree substantially, but my thoughts are frankly way too long for this forum. (I absolutely agree that worship is not just music, but I disagree on the nature of the problem otherwise) Now, we do have different experiences. While I have been to services with tons of music, predominantly what I’ve seen is 10-15 minutes of music in a service dominated almost entirely by preaching. Many people only bother coming for the sermon and don’t even bother showing up for the music. More generally, I would say that in contemporary worship services, music is actually devalued. It is reduced to a utilitarian thing, and as an art form it is heavily diminished. I feel like the Church doesn’t really care about music very much at all, but only *what they can do with it*. This plays out in a wide variety of ways but this comment thread seems like the wrong forum for such a massive discussion. I would actually love to discuss with you in some means which is friendlier to more long-form dialogue.
Hey, thanks for articulating what I’ve been feeling for a while! I think the beauty of all of this is that God works despite us! But the word of God is exactly where it’s at! And so thanks to your videos I’m incorporating more scripture reading into the singing portion of our service’s transitions… Also, thanks for defining those three paradigms! It makes a lot of sense and helps me as a worship leader in planning for different events and different congregations…
I have a neighbor that wants a concert every Sunday and she isn’t coming to one of the churches where I lead music anymore because we no longer have a full praise band. She wants to be entertained! I think this is a problem which is certainly promoted by the professional worship teams that we see in TH-cam videos from the likes of Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation. It isn’t realistic for the average community church worship team of volunteer musicians to sound, look, or act like those professionals.
Our worship music should be a response to our encounter with God’s word, for what He’s already done, and for what He’s promised to do for those that love him and follow after Jesus. We respond with love for and to Him because He’s already proven the depth of His love for us.
Bro i believe what you saying WELL SAID, We elevate the the means (music ,a great voice. etc ) instead the END.
I love the fact that so MANY worship songs include in them the Word of God or have been taken from scripture. I have been trying to incorporate these songs,....and then sharing with everyone where they can be found or actually reading the exact scripture during the time that I have been using your style for welcoming them into the worship time. If we've gotten away, we should start using this as an extra time to share God's Word with the congregation. Blessings Spencer, your videos have been an encouragement and has helped me as a fairly new worship Leader. You're a good teacher too. 😇🙏❤️
YES! When I do worship covers I have started posting Scripture references and then the actual verse in the post! ...and at my church we always post the Scripture references on screen, and we frequently read Scripture!
@@hiptoalieu Great Idea! 🙏🏼
Right on. God Bless you. Yes it's all about God's Word
I agree with you 100%. I recently had a interview for a worship leader position earlier this month and one of the questions they asked me was how else do I connect with God other than music and I told them I actually connect with God more through reading the word. And they seem kind of surprised and these were the elders of the church.
The Elders? 😮
Very good discussion Spencer. Youre a good thinker. We all see in part…
Really helpful, thank you. And I think another implication is that music is especially powerful *when* the lyrics are suffused with the scriptures, point us to the scriptures, help us to remind each other of and encourage each other with scriptural truth. And, I think, when this connection between music and scripture is made explicit in how we lead.
Good thought! Keep leading well Richard! 👊
Absolutely spot on.
This is spot on, and i address this frequently in my sunday school class. Well put.
I have also noticed that where our songs use to be scriptural they are more about our feelings and very little about God. Based on what you have said it might be that we need to have songs that are filled with the TRUTH of who God is and His works.
To balance it I might say that encounter worship is when we sing songs of praise. Missional worship is the pastor's sermon. Formational is whatever you get out of the service
Amen, Spencer!
Thankyou for this. Your emphasis on scripture ensures a solid foundation for God-centered sung worship. But I think that that the problem is not unique to contemporary musical worship. High level cathedral choirs, and indeed small local church choirs, singing traditional hymns, have often become an unhealthy focus of worship in themselves, involving self-seeking choir masters and choristers, and congregants wanting to be entertained and moved emotionally by the big choirs sound.
Interesting - I'm not often in churches where choirs lead the music anymore but I could definitely see how a similar temptation would be there. Thanks for pointing that out! 👊
Yes I agree with you we have elevated music too high. There are other art forms that have been suppressed….i think art is a massive part of the puzzle piece of experiencing thinking and hearing God. I come from a heavily spiced encountering and formation grouping….we HAVE elevated music too high. Im not sure if weve let music “usurp” but we’ve seen a separation between musical worship and the preaching of the Word. I believe strongly in blending the two….ive been chasing singing the Word for a long time but there are few who do
4give me if I'm not gonna make sence. Struggling with second languidge. But I think you are spot on my brother. I'd add something to distinguish something though. When Saul was struggling with a torturing spirit David helped with music. Also when Elijah's apprentice elisee (I'm not sure on the spelling) was asked to prophesie from a threatened king I'll just paste the thing... 2Kin 3:15: "But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him.". I think that this tells us that there is intrinsic value and function of music. I would direct the problem of CCM more on the lack of knowledge and revelation of the composers. There is a clear difference from the start of CC Apple to the point we are now. And my last point is that when we are talking about churches there must be a leadership structure through which God's anointing must flow. He set 8t up. I'm referring to apostles preachers evangelists profets and teachers. Musicians need to respect that. And allow the anointing to flow through this structure. Instead we now see bands moving from church to church. If a band is subject to a church leader I think it meets its purpose. Then the music has purpose. 285 and to propel God's anointing in the congregation. That's my opinion so far. And that's why the music ministry in our church is always under the leadership of our pastor. And there is a purpose to the music.
Dont take away a persons favourite song. Or three songs or ten. But when our faith is dependent entirely on hundreds of songs or even entirely on music beware. If we are going stand fast as Gods people in these last days we need Gods word, prayer and even judgement. Music plays its part but a smaller part. As God frees us from too much music we need to be filled more with the Word and prayer and pureness of the Holy Spirit. Its not the easiest thing. Its the road we must walk.
I am the owner or some fifteen guitars, writer of some fifty songs. Since my hair turned grey Im not asked to play that much any more. No problem. Im selling most of my stuff now. There is some sadness but all the more great joy coming.
God bless you all
Hey Spencer! Thanks for the shout out! I like a lot of what you are getting at here. I think there are a couple points I would want to push on a little:
1. This was is small but I think generally in those different paradigms that baptists actually have most often gravitated towards mission and Anglicans towards encounter. You put them both in the formation camp and I think there are certainly churches in every denomination that lean towards each of them but I just wanted to say generally that’s what I see more broadly.
2. I think you are drawing harder distinctions between music and the word than what is most representative. I agree that music in and of itself cannot form us fully in the way that God wants. But I might argue that reading in and of itself can also not form us fully in the way that God wants. Our music should be fill with the Word of God (Col. 3:16) in a way where our musical worship is both praise, ministry of the Word, and the ministry of prayer all at the same time. I see less distinction here in this way. In fact in Bryan Chapell’s book Christ-Centered Worship he talks about what Gospel shaped liturgies can and should look like.. he mentions that many parts of the liturgy can be accomplished by scripture readings, corporate prayers, or songs because the content matters more than the form.
It seems that much of this video is dealing with extremes like 20 minute spontaneous worship which is pretty rare among even charismatic churches.
My tweak would be this: I would say music isn’t the only way God is forming us. But I think it is more than okay that half of our service involves singing given the overwhelming number of times it is mentioned in scripture and based on the fact that singing gives the most people the largest opportunity to be active participants. We pray when we sing, we teach one another when we sing, the Word dwells in us when we sing, and we are filled with the Spirit when we sing (Eph. 5)
I think a lot of what you are saying here is still good, but I would put more of the focus on the content rather than the form.
Always appreciate your balanced thoughts Dalton! Thanks man!
1. You're right! I misspoke in the video. Thanks for the correction.
2. I think you're onto something - thanks for that insight. I'll think about that more.
I appreciate you man! 👊
My thoughts are this, music as worship is to lead people into a place, personally, where they are prepared to hear the Word of God preached. There is many ways that this can happen, of course.
Another aspect is that we should be choosing and singing songs that are theologically sound, in church. Not every song that is played on Christian radio is proper for corporate worship.
I believe it was MacArthur who made a challenge of sorts, where he said to turn off all the lights, turn off all the video, turn off the fog machine and no worship team for one service. Just preach the Word and see how many people stay and see how many complaints you get.
I don't know if anyone has done that, but it would be interesting to see the results of that experiment.
“Usurp the word of God”. So true.
“Turn on Christian radio instead.” So true.
You deserve commendation for seeing past the normal collection of elements that comprise current-day worship. If you can stay with me, our collective thoughts might cause us both to reflect constructively.
The sacred assembly is meant to be a place of transition. We cross a threshold from the profane into the sacred. We permit eternity to envelop our occupation of time. It is hard to achieve this with music that is of a species no different from that which blares out of radios and other listening tech at any time. (The matter of hymns having been contemporary in the days of their composition is a bit oversimplified, so we can address that another time.)
The very word "contemporary" reveals problems. One, it means "with the time," yet we are commanded to be true to the truth of the Gospel "whether in season or out of season." Two, it focuses upon time much more than eternity. A third problem causes the whole contemporary church setting to suggest an aim to spark a horizontal rather than a vertical activity. It is a production-often including stages, stage lighting, band equipment, the absence of architecture, no insistence on formal dress, and more-all designed to stimulate the emotions rather than summon the entirety of the human person up to God. And perhaps worst of all, the contemporary movement takes libraries worth of beautiful, worshipful compositions (hymns which were often the products of faith and joy amidst immense suffering) and simply shoves them off a cliff. That which each prior generation handed down as a precious legacy has been thoughtlessly disposed of-largely because we like the way recent tunes have caused us to feel.
It's hard to conclude that these things are making the church stronger. It seems to be setting up one generation's preferences for replacement by those of the next.
That's some really good food for thought. I'm going to have to let that marinate. I definitely could do a better job of implementing scripture into our worship services.
I think you could stretch this out even further. Well done, i often feel crazy too. Personally in my world, you are describing the symptom more than the problem. I think the church is slowly moving away from the word, and providing more digestibly content to complete with our modern attention spans. You get a service that is unwittingly providing more than it is designed to do with well curated competitive content. And an audience that is outsourcing it's Christianity to the nice people on the stage. Maybe it's a consequence of modern culture too? Anyways... i get worked up about it
To expound, I think the problem is that churches value their program above all, and the elements of the worship service are engineered to serve that program rather than to proclaim the worth of Christ. In conjunction with that, “worship” is identified with an emotional state rather than by a proclamation, and so whatever the focus of the service is (be it music or preaching) is engineered to manufacture that emotional state in the congregation.
Music is viewed merely as a tool in this construct. It is devalued generally because it is only valued for its utility in achieving the emotional state and/or the goal of the program. Music (and other art forms) which cannot be utilized in this way have no value for the Church at all.
❤
Good Spence. As pastor I use music as a vessel surrounding scripture and the sermons. The Word comes first and foremost. Here is a question for you…do you utilize songs as a response to confession? I have a couple formulas I regularly use. The last six years has taught me a wealth of wisdom that works a long cry from our early days together. Blessings to your ministry
Look at the words to this hymn and tell me of one contemporary worship song that can even come close to the majesty that is in this hymn.
Years I spent in vanity and pride,
Caring not my Lord was crucified,
Knowing not it was for me He died
On Calvary.
Mercy there was great, and grace was free;
Pardon there was multiplied to me;
There my burdened soul found liberty,
At Calvary.
2
By God’s Word at last my sin I learned;
Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned,
Till my guilty soul imploring turned
To Calvary.
3
Now I’ve giv’n to Jesus everything,
Now I gladly own Him as my King,
Now my raptured soul can only sing
Of Calvary.
4
Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan!
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span
EASY
Living Hope by Phil Wickham
Thank You Jesus For The Blood by Charity Gale
Hallelujah For The Cross by Chris McClarney
God So Loved by We The Kingdom
Forever Reign by Hillsong
@@hiptoalieu Sorry I don’t know any of those.
@@mrnoedahl Then please listen to them. He is quite right, there is some wonderful theologically sound modern church music. Not al of it is flashing lights and heavy rock. Listen to Matt Redman, Graham Kendrick, Dave Bilbrough. Sing to the Lord a new song.
I have an idea that I call “in with the new, and out with the old”. We sing contemporary worship first then have the service, and lastly have traditional worship.
Whata ya think?
There is room for traditional and contemporary music in church. People should respect each others choice of music. All music was new at some time.
@@davidhart7792 Agree agree
We live in the entertainment age. Everything has to be entertaining or the vast majority of people will ignore you. So the church has made music, lights, fog machines, sensual music, rock music, rap music, or whatever it takes to bring and keep people in the church. Many think that’s OK; whatever it takes as long as they are able to hear the Word. What say ye?
I say whatever brings people to Jesus. Not all modern worship groups have fog machines and flashing lights, but choose their music very thoughtfully.
I think the three paradigms you noted at the beginning entirely miss the purpose of P&W. CCM is full of me and I. P&W may have some of those benefits and end up with rewards to us. But, above all it is not for us, but to give P&W to the Lord. If we do P&W and feel nothing, get nothing, no one gets saved from our poor singing or playing even, no one says we played well or says you messed it up, or what ever, its just not not important. If we don't feel like doing P&W then do it anyway; a sacrifice of praise. If you make it unto the Lord then everything else should fall into place and even musicians and singers should want to play better and their best in humility.
I respect what you do and mean no offense by my take here.
The problem with worship simply boils down to this: People on stage are trying way to hard to be Blink 182. The tone is in contemporary rock, leading to the congregation not being able to sing along. I wish worship would be more like it was in 2008.
You can have electric guitars, drums, bass, etc. It worked well before. But now the songs are too fast paced and not written/sung in a corporate tone.
In many churches in England, the music from the late 20th and early 21st century was never given a chance to be heard in church. Some wonderful music by modern composers was frowned upon by the traditionalists. There is a need for both and a need to move forward in grace.
In the church I attend / support I think we're out of balance in the other direction. Preaching of the word carries the full load and the music is just sort of a filler.
Yes!!! And not only that, the “worship music” is self centered!!! It’s been taken off of God and put on us.
Not all of it.
HOW CAN WE WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH IF WE DON'T KNOW THE TRUTH THE WORD OF GOD.
When the church gathers together it is by believers and for believers. It is a gathering of brothers and sisters. The mission field is outside of the church. The worship is for the Lord only. It has nothing to do with missions and this is the main problem with contemporary “worship”. Contemporary worship is trying to please non Christians by being as close to worldly music as possible, and is more concerned with entertaining the people then worshiping the Lord. Which is exactly what a non Christian wants. Entertainment. There are plenty of places to be entertained at; church is not one of them. Someone once said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”. Not a house of entertainment. We have a lot of lights and comedy at our churches and very little if any prayer. The true Christian has lost the worship wars to the non Christian. It is truly tragic.
Great video my friend.
I disagree that worship always falls into these three paradigms. All three of these paradigms are variations of the same thing - they are about using music to create an experience, to influence the listeners in some way. But what about worship where the primary purpose is to sing and perform music together, like singing in a choir or playing in an orchestra?
Praise to God should never be a performance, whether traditional or modern.
@@davidhart7792 Music is always a performance. People who perform music while believing they are not performing, are hypocrites.
@@danielgould5530 Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but please do not refer to someone who writes and worships through their music a hypocrite.
I'm disappointed you didn't trash the contemporary worship music scene :(
Open mind, open heart.
I disagree substantially, but my thoughts are frankly way too long for this forum. (I absolutely agree that worship is not just music, but I disagree on the nature of the problem otherwise)
Now, we do have different experiences. While I have been to services with tons of music, predominantly what I’ve seen is 10-15 minutes of music in a service dominated almost entirely by preaching. Many people only bother coming for the sermon and don’t even bother showing up for the music.
More generally, I would say that in contemporary worship services, music is actually devalued. It is reduced to a utilitarian thing, and as an art form it is heavily diminished. I feel like the Church doesn’t really care about music very much at all, but only *what they can do with it*. This plays out in a wide variety of ways but this comment thread seems like the wrong forum for such a massive discussion. I would actually love to discuss with you in some means which is friendlier to more long-form dialogue.
Bullseye.