Brandon Van’t Land
Theological & Ethical Issues
4/20/12
Reason/Experience Assessment
We can infer that contemporary worship is better than traditional worship because
traditional worship is old and boring and doesn’t mean as much anymore. For many people,
especially those of younger age have a disagreement when it comes to traditional worship.
They don’t know how to relate to it, and it becomes a going through the motions deal for them,
and they don’t end up really worshiping. Others in the same boat just don’t like it because it’s
boring, old, doesn’t relate, and is not the right style of music. Hodges in his book A Call to
Worship he says, “No doubt, worship leaders are responsible to keep worship God-centered.
But, even so; if worship is to connect, it must also be person-oriented” (63). This is important to
remember I believe because as years go by people continue to change, and if people are
changing, worship will be changing to accompany the people’s new life styles without losing the
God center. Another idea of Hodges that I think is important that agree with this argument is,
“We need to know what our culture is like because understanding our society will enable us to
communicate the truths of God more effectively” (83). It’s the year 2012 and it’s good to make
sure that as worship goes it’s not relating more to those from the 1900s and before because
that doesn’t always translate as well to people today. Lastly in my opinion when we look at the
scriptures the way they talk about most worship and styles, it tends to not to reject either style
as long as it God centered which people use in order to move into more and more different
styles of worship.
When it comes to the other side of this argument I think it’s important to look at how
the “contemporary” worship started and if certain style worship is working, why does it need to
change? Terry York quotes a passage in his book America’s Worship Wars that says,
“Contemporary Christian music may not have started in the church, But its profound impact on
the church is undeniable,” (42). People can view contemporary worship in the way that it never
really started in the church and was based largely off of the outside influence of musical artists
singing similar concepts and truths the church was and making a job out of it. It seem to be
viewed as more popular and therefore took in by the church and used, moving away from the
traditional worship they had originally. The idea of contemporary worship just moving into the
church was viewed by some as bad, because it didn’t originate from inside the church, and
therefore there might be more flaws not seen. Another factor that in my opinion plays a deal in
worship not changing in staying tradition is those who grew up on it and believe that is the right
way to worship. In our generation the “old” blame the young and the new trends on imposing a
new way of worship that is not good.
In my home church the way traditional and contemporary worship is dealt with is based
off of many different things. A lot of the time depending on who is playing for the worship
service changes the style of music a little, along with what the pastors want with their topic that
they are teaching. Overall my church overlaps both styles leaning towards contemporary with
some tradition thrown in as well. Throughout my experiences helping out and seeing how my
worship director did things for my home church I learned that when it comes to worship there
are basic principles that he took into consideration before letting certain music to be played in
the church service. One principle was the message of the song and whether or not it seemed to
follow what scripture had to say. In some circumstances if my worship leader didn’t know the
song and did not have time to go over the lyrics and listen to it he would feel safer to not use it
and give it more time to look at it. Another principle my worship leader did when it came to
different worship styles was what could people play and what people were comfortable doing
on stage. If he needed to lead he might be more comfortable playing and older hymn, and if it
was me leading I would feel more comfortable leading a more contemporary song. Since there
was such a variety of musicians that helped out it really depended what they could do the best.
Lastly one of his principles was being flexible and being open to both styles and incorporating
both sides. If it wasn’t a service that had both traditional worship and contemporary in it he
usually would play more traditional worship one week and then the next he would balance it
out with more contemporary, depending on his team that week. Overall balancing the
different styles were one of his stronger qualities which are something I believe is good for a lot
of churches.
Therefore in my opinion these principles can apply very well to my case study. When
looking at the battle between traditional and contemporary worship I think as Christians we
need to look at a deeper underlying factor or fundamentals that worship stands on, especially
biblical knowledge and truths. Early on I talked about worship being God centered and I believe
that is one of the most important qualities that worship needs to have, if it’s not God centered,
it’s not worship. When looking at each of them separately I think both follow this idea and for
the most part are scripture based. The main principle from my experience that can relate is
being flexible or balancing when it comes to worship. Knowing that both types of worship are
good and are glorifying God, it comes down to preference and which style of worship works
better for you. For a lot of people contemporary works really well and it seems to be growing
more and more these days, but it’s good to know that traditional worship glorifies God just as
much and for the people who like that style, then that is how they are going to worship is gone.
When it comes to being a worship leader it’s good to be flexible because you can see what the
people in your congregation like and what styles seem dominate, along with being able to
balance both styles if there are different preferences throughout the church. Another principle
that I take form my experiences is that after the worship is God centered how can it best be
related or person oriented because as much as we would like to say it doesn’t matter because
its God centered, we want people to have the best worship experience they can have and
without directing attention toward what they want or what styles help them worship best the
worship can only be so impacting. Lastly a principle that I took from my experiences with the
youth group worship team is when worshiping be a lead worshiper. A lead worshiper is not only
someone who leads worship for those around them, but shows the people what it looks like to
worship. A quality of someone who is a lead worshiper is that there is others around you
worshiping with you, but remember that most importantly that you are worshiping God
personally. This comes back to the fact that worship is God centered and knowing that leading
worship is not about looking good or playing good, but giving it all to God no matter how you
lead worship, because that’s who worship is about and for.
In conclusion when putting everything I’ve talked about together and looking at my case
of worship wars there really isn’t a style that is better than the other one. As Christians we need
to realize that in worship there is going to be a lot of transitions, and a lot of new styles that are
looked at. The worship music now will gradually get old and new styles will become more
popular or viewed as better. There is always going to be certain styles or fundamentals of
worship that are carried throughout and kept, even if there are not used because they hold key
truths to them. In the end style of worship seems to come down to the individual as long as it
upholds and is agreement with scripture, so even when we don’t necessarily like a style it
shouldn’t just be thrown away.