The Liturgical Turn: Mr. Jones and Me

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I got together with some friends and attended a local community gathering.  After finding a parking space, we made the trek to the front door where we pasted by the greeters and were kindly shown to our seats by the ushers.  This place had everything you would expect, the lights, cameras, sound, stage.  There wasn’t a bad seat in the house.  Then the curtain opened, the band kicked in, the guy with the mic had everyone stand up. Within seconds everyone’s hands were raised and we were all enraptured by the music. 

No, we didn’t visit a megachurch (or any church for that matter).  It was my favorite of all cultural liturgies: a concert.  That which, due to the existence of children and Ticketmaster, I don’t get to enjoy as often as I used to.   This was a birthday present and I got to see one of my favorite bands, Counting Crows.  I’ve been impressed by them every time I’ve seen them in concert.  They are an incredibly tight band that knows how to play off of each other well.  Even though their lead singer and songwriter Adam Duritz has his fair-share of critics, I think he’s a great performer. That’s because he can do two things really well.  One is that he knows how to connect with the crowd really well and in a fairly short amount of time.  The other is that he knows how make his songs “work”.  By that I mean, he’s good at leading the band through them in such a way that his emotions are expressed while drawing the audience into those emotions at the same time.  If we do a little observation, then we can see that this is what makes any musician a good performer.  Bono, Sting, etc. all do this very, very well, even if in differing ways. 

However, what disturbed me a little about the show was how often I found myself taking mental notes.  Not in the way that every musician takes notes when they go to a show, but I found myself thinking of how to put some those notes to work next Sunday morning.  You see, every ‘contemporary worship leader’ out there would give just about anything for that kind response from their congregations.  Even though the best of us know that we're not performing per se and that “response” takes different forms (just like pastors should know that even if nobody complements them on the sermon that it, hopefully, was still edifying for the congregation) there is still something to be said for those times when the whole place is “lifting up holy hands” lost in worship. 

That kind of worship (along with its ‘worship leaders’) however does have its critics.  Perhaps rightly so.  Too often going to church does feel like going to concert.  In fact, my wife recently showed me a blog post of someone who extolling the greatness of their new church actually said “It’s the cleanest concert I’ve ever been too.” Maybe she’s right. If someone took a picture of a Counting Crows concert and a praise band in the middle of a ‘worship set’ more than likely there wouldn’t be much difference (except for the lack of pot and beer – hopefully!)

Believe it or not, I don’t want to be overly critical here.  Even for all the problems of over-zealous, rock-star worship leaders who employ common stage tricks to whip their audience, I mean, congregation into an emotional frenzy, I don’t think that means the church needs to stay with stuffy liturgies and out-dated hymnals.  Now, I’m all for prayer books and hymnals, but I don’t want to discount ‘contemporary worship songs’ either (for lack of a better word).  Even though, the idea of emotional response (a common argument against contemporary worship) for its own sake should raise concerns, I’m convinced more than ever that the church should be the forerunner in redeeming the “emotional response” and using excellent music to do so.  At the Counting Crows show people were singing, dancing, raising hands, clapping, etc. – all of which are gestures of praise that can be found throughout the Scriptures, especially in the Psalms.   

If these gestures can be found in secular liturgies such as concerts, how much more should be they be found in our worship? Especially among those of us who worship the God who became incarnate and redeems God’s creation.  Jeremy Begbie in “Resounding Truth” argues that if Christ became fully incarnate, then even human emotions have been redeemed.  Our praise and worship should inspire an emotional response that should manifest itself in a variety of bodily gestures – clapping, raised hands, kneeling, dancing.  Why? Because we worship the God who created us to be bodily and desires that we worship holistically – mind, heart, and strength. 

That’s one issue I have with the traditional hymns that I love so much.  I feel as if they are too embedded in modernity.  What I mean is that, even though theology and doctrine are so wonderfully portrayed through them, they are incredibly textual.  Hopefully this isn’t unfair, but I worry that the logocentrism of hymns might reinforce aspects of modernity that we’re trying so hard to move past.  Hymns are written in such a way that lyrics become the most important aspect of the song.  That’s not a bad thing.  Where I see the problem is that its tendency is to reduce the beauty of the melody and rhythm to secondary importance at best.  In a sense, we’re back to tired old dualisms – the cerebral over the material, rationality over emotional, truth over beauty. 

I don’t want to belabor that point, only to say that for all they’re worth, hymns aren’t infallible.  Particularly, because they probably stifle holistic worship more then they act as a catalyst for it.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.  

At the end of the day, Counting Crows, convinced me not to fear inviting an emotional response in worship.  In fact, I need to get better at creating space within my church’s liturgy for the entire range of human responses to manifest themselves if the Spirit see fit. Part of that comes in selecting songs that do include both solid lyrics and beautiful melodies and rhythms.  The other is simply encouraging freedom in worship.  Not that everyone’s response has to or can be the same, but I have found it interesting the people feel comfortable responding to music at an arena in a way they don’t feel comfortable at church - even though it’s the same song they’re singing.  

Comments

[twitter.com/geoffholsclaw]

eric,

I definitely agree that we need better balance, and that emotions should be reformed in the liturgy rather than rejected.

I know for me at our congregation, many have welcomed a more circumspect worship style or presence, but in the long run this tends toward apathetic worship

[twitter.com/michaelkrahn]

Good to see another Crows fan making these observations. A couple of years ago I did a series on the Crows and this post especially relates to what you're talking about:

http://michaelkrahn.com/blog/2007/01/31/counting-crows-a-history-of-emotion-part-3/

[Nouslife.blogspot.com]

It's not only the textual-ness of the songs that is modernist; it's the front-led-ness. How, liturgically, should we appropriate the de-centred, bottom-up-ness of the after-modernity sensibilities? (Cf Flickr, folksonomic approaches to info such as Technorati and crowdsourcing) Some, perhaps many, rave-mass experiments have something to commend them on this issue.

[Eric Speece]

Nouslife-that's a good point, and something that I wish I had more ideas about how to create the space for. I think you're right about "rave-mass" being a good place from which to think about. I know that some the UK 'fresh-expression' crowd have incorporated that with the use of dj's and such.

But, even though a more organic, open-source worship is good, can we really get away from or even want to get away from 'front-lead' songs? I guess I see that one role of the music director is to create space for participation.

[Kyle Dillard]

Eric,

Well written. I love what God is teaching you. I believe Him to be so big that worship can't exist without emotion. It's clearly evident in scripture. How can we as emotional beings say we worship our creator of those emotions completely unemotional. Impossible! Creating moments for people to respond to God's greatness and Glory is what worship leaders are for. Lead well, Kyle