Contemporary Worship?

[The Fall Guy]

Do you prefer contemporary worship? If so, why? If not, why not?

 

[Radman]

Devine service, it's not about us but about God

 

[Hammster]

My congregation probably falls into the contemporary category. But that would mainly be because of the instruments. The pastors make sure that the songs we sing are very gospel centered. So there are hymns mixed with more recent songs. But you'll never here a "Jesus is my boyfriend" song, or a 7/11 song.


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[psalms 91]

I love all styles of worship music be it a hymn or a contemporary song

 

[George]

I'm more of a Liturgical worshipper.

 

[psalms 91]

I love it all, one favorite contemporary of mine is Shout to the Lord

 

[Romanos]

I can go either way to be honest, it shouldn't be that much about the style, but the reason why we are there.

 

[psalms 91]

Exactly! God just loves the heart of true worship

 

[ctayus]

A liturgy servive

 

[Alithis]

worship is a consistent state of being . singing songs for 39 minutes on a Sunday is an expression of love praise adoration etc in unity with others .. but worship is a way of life .
some sing songs on a Sunday (or Saturday if they are so inclined) but if they do do live the reality of the words they sing then it hardly maters what they are singing - just imo

 

[psalms 91]

If you are not at least trying to live the words then your heart is not into the worship and it is just singing and repition. We are told that we must worship in spirit and in truth so we are called to a higher level of worship just as we are called to a higher level of accountability for sin

 

[MoreCoffee]

Do you prefer contemporary worship? If so, why? If not, why not?

Nope. I don't like all those choruses and all the entertainment.

I found worship for the first time, real worship, in the liturgy.

 

[tango]

Do you prefer contemporary worship? If so, why? If not, why not?

A lot would depend on what counts as "contemporary".

If you mean the endlessly repetitive songs from places like Bethel and IHOP that sing the same line or two repeatedly for 5-10 minutes, then switch to another line or two, then I can't stand it. The repetition they use is something I find literally mind-numbing - I walked out of the last church service I attended where they used Bethel-style worship after 10 minutes and went home feeling contaminated by it all. As a rule hypnotic repetition is a bad thing, unless you're trying to enter into some kind of New Age style trance.

If you mean shorter, less formal songs then I'd tend to express a slight preference for them. I can't say I care much for hymns played on a church organ, slowly enough that you wonder whether the organist is still alive but not quite slowly enough that you go to find out.

Whatever form the music in church takes I like to be able to see what the church actually believes in. The traditional hymns tend to be better for that, more modern songs often (not always!) lack the theological depth of hymns, and the relentless drivel coming out of some churches today is so thin as to be comical.

Compare and contrast

Traditional: "Praise my soul the King of heaven, to his feet thy tribute bring, ransomed healed restored forgiven, who like me his praise should sing?"
Contemporary: "You laid aside your majesty, gave up everything for me, suffered at the hands of those you had created. You took all my guilt and shame when you died and rose again, now today you reign in heaven and earth exalted"
Bethel: "And if he goes to the left then we go to the left, and if he goes to the right then we go to the right, we're going to jump jump jump jump in the river, jump jump jump jump everybody"

 

[tango]

One overall concern I have with music in church is that it can very easily turn into little more than a sing-song that happens to mention this guy named Jesus.

A song I'm particularly aware of is "In Christ Alone". I don't have any particular issues with the words, just the musical accompaniment.

During the verse that starts out "There in the ground his body lay, light of the world by darkness slain" the instruments tend to fade out to almost nothing, then as the words continue "then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again" all the instruments ramp up the volume. At the next line, "And as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me" I can usually predict to within a second or two when all the hands are going to go up.

When I see that I do encourage people to ask whether they are truly responding to the God described in the song, or just responding to a good sing-song and confusing an emotional response with a spiritual response. I know I've been there, and found it very damaging to my faith to realise that my "spiritual responses" never lasted more than a couple of hours before I came back down. For me the reason was simple - there was no spiritual response and the "coming down" was the perfectly predictable event that follows an emotional high.

 

[Alithis]

One overall concern I have with music in church is that it can very easily turn into little more than a sing-song that happens to mention this guy named Jesus.

A song I'm particularly aware of is "In Christ Alone". I don't have any particular issues with the words, just the musical accompaniment.

During the verse that starts out "There in the ground his body lay, light of the world by darkness slain" the instruments tend to fade out to almost nothing, then as the words continue "then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again" all the instruments ramp up the volume. At the next line, "And as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me" I can usually predict to within a second or two when all the hands are going to go up.

When I see that I do encourage people to ask whether they are truly responding to the God described in the song, or just responding to a good sing-song and confusing an emotional response with a spiritual response. I know I've been there, and found it very damaging to my faith to realise that my "spiritual responses" never lasted more than a couple of hours before I came back down. For me the reason was simple - there was no spiritual response and the "coming down" was the perfectly predictable event that follows an emotional high.

i can see your concern .however expressions of praise (& worship) are an intermingled act of both emotion and will . as the psalmist says so soften yet "will" i praise the lord .. i "will' praise .. i "will' give thanks .. the will to do so is driven by the emotion and the emotion is generated by the will. we are complex creations

 

[tango]

i can see your concern .however expressions of praise (& worship) are an intermingled act of both emotion and will . as the psalmist says so soften yet "will" i praise the lord .. i "will' praise .. i "will' give thanks .. the will to do so is driven by the emotion and the emotion is generated by the will. we are complex creations

That's a really good point - true worship should involve at least some level of emotion. When we see Habakkuk and his declaration which, paraphrased, might say "Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, the world is coming apart around me, yet still I will worship God", we see the sense of praise even if we don't feel like it at the time. The problem comes when music generates an emotional response (which it usually does, and it's not difficult to create an emotional response using music) and that emotional response is taken to be a spiritual response because it happened in church. You get the kind of situation where people get on a real high thanks to some seriously upbeat music and the next thing to happen is the "worship leader" (who might be better described as the service leader or lead musician) is expected to "recreate this great move of God". Not only does it put impossible pressure on a single human but it also becomes rather presumptuous in thinking that God moves according to our bidding.