Thoughts on Jamie Brown's "Are We Headed For A Crash?" and the Future of Worship

Jamie Brown's recent blog post "Are We Headed For A Crash? Reflections On The Current State of Evangelical Worship" has hit quite a nerve in the evangelical community and has provoked lots of discussions! Since then, two other bloggers (David Santistevan and Dan Wilt) have weighed in with their opinions, basically defending "performancism", which Jamie believes is the problem. While all three posts are interesting reads and highly thought provoking, I am adding my two cents here especially because I am from a non-evangelical church.

Is there a real problem?

If a self-confessed worship nerd like Jamie who regularly keeps up with new worship music releases is unable to participate in 'congregational' worship because most of the songs were unknown, then yeah, I think it's reasonable to conclude that there is a problem—if you believe the participation and engagement of the congregation is integral to corporate worship that is!

David Santistevan focused his post on something else: "What’s the real problem? Our hearts don’t know their need for Christ. We are not desperate. We are not broken. We don’t approach Sunday with expectant, faith-filled, repentant hearts. We aren’t hungry for Jesus."

While these are real issues in every aspect of our walk with Christ (not just Sunday worship), I cannot help asking if our hearts know their need for Christ, if we are desperate, if we are broken, if we approach Sunday with expectant, faith-filled, repentant hearts and if we are hungry for Jesus, would a bunch of new songs magically become familiar songs to sing along?

Worship leaders need to be sensitive to the fact that Sunday worship and a concert are two different things.

A place for 'performancism'

Is 'performancism' a problem at all? Dan Wilt doesn't think so. In fact, he actually makes a case that everything need not  be corporate and accessible citing the examples of Handel’s Messiah and Michelangelo’s Dome.

I agree that the church needs to encourage creativity, arts and other expressions of innovation except that inside the realm of corporate worship inside the church, we need to decide what is essential: active congregation or passive audience. Unfortunately, the latter occurs most of the time when 'performancism' is given a free license.

A Christian concert, art expo or other special events are wonderful places to unleash all our novel ideas and expressions, but Sunday worship requires a lot more restraint in the interest of the gathered community.

So when is 'performancism' a problem?

When the 'worship' band becomes so oblivious to the congregation that they have to sing stuff that people don't know all or most of the time, which was Jamie's experience at a conference.

When is 'performancism' not a problem?

When it's guided and pastored by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; when its focus is on community and engagement; when it facilitates people to see Christ and not the band.

The future of worship

So here's my non-evangelical perspective:

In my humble opinion, the future of genuine worship is in looking at the past. I mean, let's look to the early church. They didn't have time to debate lighting, sound, screens, fog etc.—probably because they were too busy living and dying for Jesus! While we are more occupied discussing which musical style best expresses our worship, they lived out their worship with sweat and blood when the odds were terribly against them!

And what was their community worship all about? “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)

Community prayer Teaching of the Word The Eucharistic meal Fellowship

Not the stage, band, record deals, fluorescent lights, music industry etc. Doesn't this give us a better perspective on what really matters and what doesn't? A little reprioritization wouldn't hurt, right?

Instead of worrying about things like whether to use in-ears/stage monitors or still/motion backgrounds, why not start (re)learning from our past? Can we put on the mind of Christ and look at bringing back the Table and the Word to the center of our worship and keep the band from getting in the way?

Then, our worship might be on to something.

Of course these are just my opinions, I am more interested in hearing yours, so why don't you leave a comment and share your thoughts?

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