Too Much Bono in the Church? –– Part Two

Is it possible that one of the unintended consequences of spectacular worship is that it teaches us we cannot truly worship God without the lights, band, and sound system? For all the good it can offer, might our programs accidentally reinforce the belief that people can only fully encounter God in a rocking church? This is worth considering.

Instead of putting all our resources into providing “amazing worship experiences” every Sunday, what if we spent an equal amount of energy teaching people how to have eyes to see God all week long? Yes, God can be experienced powerfully as we sing at the top of our lungs, and I hope we keep doing that. But God can also be experienced in our conversation with the stressed-out cashier at Target, if we have eyes to see. And God can be found while cutting the lawn, riding the subway, giving our kids a bath, weeping with a broken-hearted friend, and taking that first glorious sip of coffee in the morning. The question is not, “Is God in all those moments?” God is fully everywhere, for it is in God we live, move, and have our being. The question is whether we have eyes to see.

Thus a gracious, holistic church will offer its community wise practices, clear teaching, and safe spaces in which to cultivate eyes to see and worship God every moment from the sanctuary to the soccer field to the dinner table. . .

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. Or lament. Or lectio divina (reading scripture in order to pray). 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.

A gracious, holistic church will offer its community wise practices, clear teaching, and safe spaces to discern the questions driving us and allow God to give birth to new, deeper, and more life-bringing questions.

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.

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.

Emerging Themes from Recent Worship Wars

Lester Ruth’s essay in Liturgy 32, no. 1, begins with these words: “Around 1993, American Protestants declared war on each other. And they did so over worship.” He then explains the parameters of this war and, finally, as laid out below, draws some conclusions about what we have learned.

The challenges churches have faced in recent years brought about a vigorous engagement with liturgical questions that engendered experimentation with new and even old forms of worship.

Where are we now?

Have the wars ended or has the fighting, at least, subsided? Twenty years after the emergence of contemporary worship by that name in mainline congregations, there is some indication that things have changed. If nothing else, contemporary worship is no longer novel, and a myriad of congregations have appropriated and adapted worship practices from the arsenal of contemporary. Indeed, no less than the editor of Christianity Today has suggested that there is a “tense truce,” if not an outright cessation of hostilities. After this truce, as the dust continues to settle, can we tell what will be the new status quo in American Protestant worship? Some things are clear in this time of liturgical reconstruction; others, less so. Here are some of the themes that are more certain as we worship today:

·      Past histories about the rise of contemporary worship were too simplistic: they focused primarily on the perceived threat to mainline denominations from a few megachurches, overlooking influences from within mainline traditions as well as important developments within Pentecostalism.

·      It was never just about the music: while music was a critical element in the rise of contemporary worship, the proliferation of worship styles has brought a ripple effect of other changes.

·      The rise of an important new lay liturgical office (the worship leader) is one such change.

·      The growing importance of technology to plan and conduct worship is another.

·      Recent liturgical developments reinforced a trend toward informality and colloquialism in worship, trajectories also found more generally in American culture.

·      Notwithstanding other changes, the presumed sound of worship music, brought about by changes in instruments and songs, indeed has expanded and all denominations must deal with this new breadth.

·      Historically based liturgical traditions are still attractive, including to some who grew up in a contemporary worship world; the liturgical iconoclasm that drove some of the original implementers of contemporary worship was not passed down to their children.

·      The worship wars were more earth-shattering for some than for others: the emergence of contemporary worship has brought complete overhauls to congregational and liturgical life for some, especially Pentecostals and nondenominational Evangelicals, whereas for others, including many mainline congregations, its emergence usually has meant the multiplying of services to offer worshipers a range of choices.

In retrospect one other critical point has become clear: contemporary worship itself was never a monolithic, static liturgical phenomenon. It arose in different places; it had multiple strands of development and various modes of expression. That variety was true in the past and remains true today. And so the wars fought over its emergence were of various sorts, too. That variety also means that the contemporary state of liturgical reconstruction is likewise fluid and ongoing. If the church is always being reformed, then its current worship is always being reconstructed.

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