Too Much Bono in the Church? –– Part One

About ten years ago, I wrote an article called “Everything I Know about Worship Leading I Learned from an Irish Rock Star,” in which I reflected on Bono as the model for modern-day worship leaders. View all notes Because of my background in large Evangelical churches (Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, Illinois), I lauded his ability to harness the energy of a stadium upward, affirmed his understand of the nature of praise, and was inspired by his relentless call to action on behalf of the poor. These were three characteristics of the kind of community we were trying to become, and U2 offered the ultimate example of worship in this kind of church.

But after seeing U2 last summer in Chicago, I no longer agree with what I wrote. . .

As I marveled at Bono’s ability to create such an epic worship experience, it occurred to me that this anthemic, euphoric, and cathartic euphoria is the perfect model for a traveling rock show but may be a potentially unhelpful model for weekly worship. And yet so many worship leaders––myself included––have been trying to emulate this mountaintop experience every Sunday morning for years, asking, “Did people lift their hands in the air? Did they sing loudly? Did they have a deeply authentic emotional experience?” These questions, learned from traveling rock stars, have come to define much of the current Christian worship culture.

Disney World is a wonderful place to visit but would be a strange place to live. An extravagant twelve-course meal is great for an anniversary celebration, but impossible to replicate every night. In the same way, I am becoming convinced that a rock concert worship event is wonderful in small doses but dangerous when it becomes normative.

Mountaintop experiences are not the entirety of the Christian life. And if our worship experience communicates that this is what everyone should be feeling all the time, we do a huge disservice to people who are currently in the valley or will be in the valley––which is everyone. There is a reason the Psalms include celebration, lament, anger, joy, dancing, and doubt. In fact, while over 30 percent of the Psalms are lament, looking at the top 100 contemporary (or “modern”) worship songs, you see that almost none are lament. As a result, our faith can get lopsided, and we do not always know how to engage the pain and heartbreak of life if we have only chosen the top songs or failed to use a range of Psalms.

Thankfully God does not just live on the mountaintop. . .  God does not always fix the issue but does something infinitely more profound: God weeps with us, inviting us to join the work of healing.

But to become aware of this, we cannot always be shouting from the triumphant peak. And a gracious, holistic church will offer its community wise practices, clear teaching, and safe spaces to learn how to embrace God in every emotional space from the summit to the valley.

Aaron Niequist is a worship leader, songwriter, and pastor. Currently, he curates a discipleship-focused, formational, ecumenical, practice-based community called “The Practice” at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.

Aaron Niequist, “Too Much Bono in the Church?” Liturgy 32, no. 1 (2017): 42-45.

Worship Wars Revisited

Where do the so-called “worship wars” stand now? 

Guest Editor and long-time board member of The Liturgical Conference, Lester Ruth, set that question as his topic for Liturgy 32, no. 1. Ruth requested new essays from a wide range for worship leaders and scholars because it is now nearly thirty years since our churches have been experimentation with worship practices.

Here is Ruth’s description of the beginning of the conflicts over worship. 

In two weeks, I will post some of his conclusions about worship themes that have resulted from this explosion of interest in worship.

Around 1993, American Protestants declared war on each other. And they did so over worship. Although the weapons used did not inflict physical harm on the combatants, there were wounds nonetheless. Bitter disagreements, angry arguments, and political machinations spilled across the church. Pastors and musicians were fired or sometimes left on their own, shaking the dust off of their feet. Congregants voted with their feet, or their wallets, or with raised hands if the question of which worship style was right was brought to a vote. And thus were the conflicts known as the worship wars.

The most obvious front line of combat in the wars was music. Fighting occurred over instrumentation (guitar vs. organ was a common conflict), song repertoires (hymns vs. choruses), and even the role of song in corporate worship. As historian Michael Hamilton has noted, these musical issues were not simply musical but were caught up in larger issues of social identity: what music one preferred was a statement about who one was and with whom one identified.

But music was not the only grounds for conflict. Among a variety of fronts, combatants battled over preaching styles, the use of technology, the impact of popular entertainment, the relationship between the pastoral dimensions of worship (Is the service for us?) and its evangelistic ones (Is the service for others?), and even the level of informality and dress appropriate for Christian worship.

It appears that we can date the beginning of the worship wars—if the term’s emergence in publications is any indication—to the year when commentators began using the term to describe the fight over worship styles. The contentious issues quickly got subsumed under the large categories of “traditional” versus “contemporary.” This dichotomy became the verbal topography for identifying the front lines of conflict. . . .

The simple dichotomy was erroneous, too, in that “contemporary” worship was never a monolithic entity. While much of the ink spilled over the worship wars by mainline observers came from those concerned about the influence of a few megachurches advocating an approach that reshaped worship for evangelistic purposes (Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois being the most prominent), other forms of contemporary worship were emerging at the same time. This emergence occurred in both older Pentecostal denominations, like the Assemblies of God, and in upstart Pentecostal renewal, like the churches influenced by the mid-century Latter Rain revival in Canada. The emergence happened, too, in “new paradigm” churches (to use the language of sociologist Donald E. Miller) like the Vineyard Fellowships, Calvary Chapels, or Hope Chapels. A wide variety of congregations even felt the liturgical influence of transdenominational movements like Promise Keepers. New worship impulses arose even in mainline congregations usually associated with youth or young adult ministry or with renewal movements like United Methodism’s Walk to Emmaus program. If we factor in developments among different ethnic groups, the result is an amazing hodgepodge of new forms of Protestant worship emerging decades after the 1960s. “Contemporary” worship had never been a single thing.

Lester Ruth, “The Eruption of Worship Wars: The Coming of Conflict,” Liturgy 32, no. 1 (2017): 3-6.

Being Spectacular isn’t Necessarily Faithful

Aaron Niequist, a worship leader at Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, writes about his movement from focusing on offering emotional highs each Sunday to the throngs that come to the large churches he has served. Writing in the most recent issue of Liturgy, he explains what, instead, seems to him now most crucial for people of faith.

Pressure to be spectacular can crush worship leaders, pastors, and anyone involved. Every Sunday cannot be the Super Bowl. Trying to create epic experiences every week—where everything needs to be bigger and better than last time—often leads to burnout and disappointment. No church has the resources of U2, and Sundays keep showing up with surprising regularity.

My friend, the writer and Episcopal priest Ian Morgan Cron, observes that many worship leaders feel weekly pressure to “go grab God and bring Him down … so that everyone can have a seismic experience, because that’s what they came for.” And if the experience was an 8.5 this week, the pressure is on to “up the production value” so that next week is an 8.75! (Can I get an “amen” from any of my worship leader friends? Or maybe a “Lord, have mercy”?)

Church communities are not consumers to be entertained or donors to be appeased. They are instead God’s deeply loved daughters and sons who need to be lovingly pastored. How can we make sure we are pastoring them well? Get clear about the question you ask that drives your worship choices. The question we ask will direct the outcome. If the driving (functional) question is, “How do we get the room pumped up in the first thirty minutes of the church service?” the answer will never be, “Corporate confession.” Or prayer for the world. Or silence. Or blessing our enemies. Or an extended reading from scripture. . . .

But if the question is, “How do we form each person into Christlikeness for the sake of the world?” then all of the above will be deeply necessary and healing. And such a gift to all who are on the treadmill of figuring out how to top last Sunday.

I recommend that each ministry team try to name the question driving what you do. (Not the question you know you should be asking and answering, but the actual question framing your church and ministry.) Very little can change until this question changes. . . .

Even though I have grown up in Evangelical churches, I have been deeply moved while learning about and experiencing the historic liturgy. While I do not yet connect with every part (or understand it fully), I cannot shake the conviction that we need to find a way to integrate the ancient with the modern. . . .  

While trying to explain my interest in the liturgy to my wife, she offered a fascinating reflection: “It sounds like you basically want to offer the church a well-balanced meal every Sunday.” . . . For twenty years as a worship leader, I have offered one kind of meal every Sunday to my community. . .  Although strong on celebration, energy, gratitude, and earnest passion, it has been quite weak on introspection, lament, and concern for the world. . . I have learned to desire deeply offering my faith community a well-balanced worship meal over the course of a month.

Aaron Niequist is a worship leader, songwriter, and pastor. Currently, he curates a discipleship-focused, formational, ecumenical, practice-based community called “The Practice” at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. 

Aaron Niequist, “Too Much Bono in the Church?” Liturgy 32, no. 1 (2017): 42-45.