Title: When Popular Culture walks into your church
Author Sara Horne
Source: Union University
Date Of publication: June 2002
Ability: Inclusion-Advanced
URL: http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/summer00/popculture.htm
Purpose: This CISM will work on critical thinking and analysis, while understanding issues
concerning contemporary worship services.
Enduring Question: Is progress always a good thing?
Essential Question: Is contemporary ideas ok in a traditional setting?
CCGPS:
ELACC11-12RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the
text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where
the text leaves matters uncertain.
ELACC11-12RI2: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their
development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one
another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
Vocabulary: adage, heretical, indigenous, substantive, transcendent, dichotomy, imminent,
tendency, Generation X
Suggested Coding for: Ballet is not a sport, it’s an art.
*T- Threat
*H-Hopeful
*M=Much Impact
*-Neutral
*L= Little Impact
(OR)
*C=Cause *E=Effect
Materials:
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The Article: When popular culture walks into your church
Graphic Organizers: directed note taking guide, and writing assignment sheet.
Title: When Popular Culture walks into your church
Author Sara Horne
Source: Union University
Date Of publication: June 2002
Ability: Inclusion-Advanced
URL: http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/summer00/popculture.htm
Procedure
Suggested Time
0-10 minutes
Teacher Will
Facilitate discussion on
the enduring question.
Student will
Breakup into small groups to discuss
the question then come together for
group discussion.
10-20
Teacher will front load
the article’s vocabulary
20-40
Students will define the vocabulary
terms either through context clues or
searching for the words definition. This
may be done via internet search, smartphone, or dictionary.
Students will take notes and mark
coding. Stopping for group discussion
on why they choose any given code.
Teacher will read the text
and model the text coding
through paragraph 6.
After paragraph 6, teacher
will read orally stopping
(students may practice fluency)
at the bold subtitles to
discuss coding.
(Optional popcorn read
with students)
Students will fill out their DirectedNote-Taking graphic organizer.
40-50
Students will create “I wonder
questions” from the text.
50-55
60-75
Teacher will facilitate
answering and discussion
activities.
*Deposit/Withdrawal
*The Lottery
*Stand and Whip
*Popcorn
80
Closing activity teacher
will post a multiple
choice question for the
final group discussion
Teacher will assign final
responses
85
Students will choose the BEST possible
answer and discuss.
Take home for homework, or do as a
warm-up next class. `
Title: When Popular Culture walks into your church
Author Sara Horne
Source: Union University
Date Of publication: June 2002
Ability: Inclusion-Advanced
URL: http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/summer00/popculture.htm
Using the information from the text to support your answer, which of the following
best describes the author’s purpose?
a. The best way to worship is the traditional way.
b. The best way to experience worship is a contemporary way
c. It doesn’t matter as long as there is a even amount of both styles of worship
d. It doesn’t matter, as long as the participates are praising.
Extended Writing:
RAFT Writing assignment:
Role: Preacher
Audience congregation
Format: Sermon
Topic: The different ways to praise.
Extended Writing:
RAFT Writing assignment:
Role: Youth Musician
Audience: Elders
Format: persuavice essay
Topic: How contemporary music could be
used as a mission tool.
Title: When Popular Culture walks into your church
Author Sara Horne
Source: Union University
Date Of publication: June 2002
Ability: Inclusion-Advanced
URL: http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/summer00/popculture.htm
MAIN IDEAS
Main idea
Details
Title: When Popular Culture walks into your church
Author Sara Horne
Source: Union University
Date Of publication: June 2002
Ability: Inclusion-Advanced
URL: http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/summer00/popculture.htm
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There’s an old adage that says, “music can soothe the savage beast.” In the churches of today,
another adage is emerging: “music can divide a church.” Can something as glorious and
heavenly as God-created music be the cause of such debate – even conflict – in America’s places
of worship? With the introduction of new musical styles, new technology and the formation of
post-modern culture, the use of music in worship has become a heated topic of discussion. Is it
simply a difference of generations or a matter of individual taste?
According to Dr. Andrew Roby, chair of Union’s Department of Music and current interim
music minister of Englewood Baptist Church in Jackson, Tenn., music has been a source of
change in the church for several centuries, going back to the days of Martin Luther.
“We credit contemporary Christian music singer Larry Norman with coining the phrase ‘Why
should the devil have all the good music?’ but it was Martin Luther who actually said it 400
years before,” says Roby.
Luther used some of the most popular
musical styles of the day in his music for
the church, and according to Roby, put
several of today’s well-known hymns to
upbeat dance-rhythms. For more than a
thousand years before, the church had
forbidden people to sing hymns. Luther
changed all that by involving the
congregation and writing hymns in the
people’s own language, something that
was considered heretical at the time.
With the addition of praise choruses to the church’s musical palate, some of the same objections
raised back then are being raised now.
“I have a problem with the view that hymns and our traditional style of Baptist worship is the
only cultural expression that is valid,” says Dr. George Guthrie, Perry Professor of Biblical
Studies and chair of Union’s Department of Christian Studies.
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“Even in modern mission settings, indigenous people who sing about their faith sing in different
styles.”
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Guthrie is quick to add, though, that there’s also a great
value in hymns because of “the grounding that tradition
offers us. The hymn gives us a voice to the faith that is
old and substantive.”
Title: When Popular Culture walks into your church
Author Sara Horne
Source: Union University
Date Of publication: June 2002
Ability: Inclusion-Advanced
URL: http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/summer00/popculture.htm
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Ken Hartley, Jr., a 1990 Union graduate and minister of music to North Metro First Baptist in
Lawrenceville, Georgia says that the main source of conflict continues to center on musical style.
“The number one debated question is ‘what style are you’?” says Hartley.
Whether a church is liturgical, blended, or con-temporary, most church musicians agree that the
truth being shared through the music is more important than the rhythmic beat or whether the
words are sung off a screen or out of a book. It is the quality of worship, and perhaps more
important, the understanding of worship that counts.
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“In the use of music in worship, it’s important to understand that there are two main types: one
that focuses on the transcendent, holy nature of God and one that focuses on God being very near
and close to us,” explains Roby.
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“Too often we not only make a distinction between the traditional and con-temporary styles, but
we make a dichotomy between the transcendent God and the imminent God, which isn’t right,
because God is both.”
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It is the definition of worship that still has not found total agreement among worship leaders and
pastors.
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Hartley asserts that worship must be direct, focused attention on God. He says that the reason for
the swelling popularity of praise choruses is “while most hymns are about God, most choruses
are to God.”
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“We don’t take time to intimately encounter God one on one in our worship services today,” says
Hartley. “If we miss that, we’ve missed encountering the Holy of Holies.”
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One church that has worked hard to achieve that intimacy is First Baptist Church in Franklin,
Tenn., also known as “The People’s Church.” Rick White, who came in 1983 to serve as senior
pastor there, also serves as a Union trustee. His associate pastor, Ed Rowell, says that they
describe their worship not as traditional or contemporary, but as “creative worship.”
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“Our worship services usually last about an hour and fifteen minutes and include not only
preaching, but drama, music and video,” explains Rowell. Each Sunday has a particular theme
that is planned and discussed by a worship planning team. With a congregation that has grown
from 400 to 3000 in the span of White’s leadership, Rowell says his church simply reaches out to
the people around them – musically talented Nashvillans who came to Music City seeking fame
and fortune and who are now working in a bank or selling insurance.
Title: When Popular Culture walks into your church
Author Sara Horne
Source: Union University
Date Of publication: June 2002
Ability: Inclusion-Advanced
URL: http://www.uu.edu/Unionite/summer00/popculture.htm
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“If a person has strong musical gifts,” says Rowell, “there’s a tendency
in our culture to see that as performance. Our goal is not to perform and
to entertain people. It’s to lead people into the presence of God.”
When it comes to style, Rowell says that the People’s Church does not
base their worship on a particular style. “The question for us is not how
many hymns and choruses do we do this week, but what is the theme
we’re addressing and which song will better fit that topic?” explains
Rowell.
With regard to meeting each generation, Rowell says that his church is continuing to explore
what the best course of action is, specifically for Generation Xers.
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“I think that when you’re talking about people whose half of their generation was aborted and
half of their generation was the product of broken homes,” says Rowell of the generations
coming up, “I don’t think these people see many churches being a place that they can find God
because it doesn’t connect with their hearts and with who they are as people.
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“Paul said ‘I’ll be all things to all people in order that I may reach some.’ I think it’s incumbent
upon every church to make the gospel relevant in the form that it can be perceived as being
relevant. I think that’s the biggest task ahead,” says Rowell.
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One thing everyone agrees on is that worship was not created for us.
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“I think as I mature in my faith,” says Roby, “I should be able to come into the presence of God
in a worshipful way with whatever style of music used, traditional or contemporary, and find
truth in either of those. The fact that my musical preference would choose one over the other
only has to do with my pleasure. And worship is not for my pleasure. Worship is for God’s
pleasure.”
Article by Sara Horn