The other day I was asked to write my thought's by a friend for a project he was doing on where worship music is heading. I knew this would be a very private page that not many people other than a professor would see, so I wrote it to that audience not expecting it to go any further. But now, I found it, and decided post it for all to see, mainly to stir the waters and get us talking about stuff we might be afraid to talk about. Yes that was a run-on sentence possibly, maybe, just maybe, but get off my back english majors.
If you disagree, sweet, tell me.
"Worship is heading to a simple place....again, but not for long. We're at a place in time that you could walk into many churches in a America, and predict that the worship leader will be backed by a high dynamic service, with every light, fog machine, special song, solos, and dancers available, and of course with the 'back in action' glockenspiel to make sure the hipsters(myself included) feel spoken to. This done in church used to be rebellious and ground-breakingly fresh, but now, its expected, atleast in Southern California. So, where is it heading? We can compare it in the way that different trends of clothing go back and forth. Culture changes with its desires. For example, everyone wants to be different and make their mark in a new distinct way. In the 60’s, the popular thing that everyone was wearing were suits. To be different and rebellious, you wore a t-shirt with jeans, and that made you stand out. As time goes on, we are now in a period where everyone is wearing jeans and t-shirts and the way to stand out is to wear something classy like JT of course. This is a great example of what is happening in worship. As the high dynamics of a worship service continues, the way to stand out now and for a while to come is to have simple worship, as it was before. Then, once the norm becomes simple worship again, the high dynamics will be desired and come back into play to stand out. This pattern I believe will go back and forth for quite some time, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is OK to change the format, as long as the content stays the same- that it is our act of Surrender to Jesus Christ. What I’m looking for is what is outside of all of this? Can it only be this back and forth pattern? Is there an era coming where we wont even be using music to worship in the church service? Time will tell."
If my thoughts pan out, I of course would then not be employed ever again, but I'm cool with that. I dig vans down by rivers, and am more than willing to live in one if it means the way we worship doesn't stay stagnant.