"Relevant" Worship

You can't be around discussions of the nature of Christian worship for long without hearing the word relevant batted around. Relevant is a word with baggage, however. Relevant is shorthand for "cool music that the highest percentage of people like"--which means it is a code word for style.

There is a place for discussion of style, but I'm fairly ambivalent about style. Styles of music change constantly and each has advantages and disadvantages in its own way. Bach's style accomplishes things that Chris Tomlin's style cannot, and vice verse. You won't find any scriptural commands about style, nor will you find any discussion of the style of music used in the early church.

The music of the early church would, I'm sure, be so foreign to us as to be distracting in worship. When I was in the Middle East in 1994 every song I heard sounded exactly the same to my ears. I thought there was just one song endlessly droning throughout the region. I could almost hear the radio announcer saying, "And the number one song for the one billionth week in a row..."

I guess that means that the Spirit of God is absent in their music. After all, if I don't feel the Spirit then the Spirit must be absent. Right? Can I get a witness? Somebody? (insert cricket noises here)

When the church battles over style and calls it a battle over relevance, then we've fallen into a very shallow trap. There is a relevance we should be more diligent to insure, the relevance substance. The reason we're less likely to do battle here is that relevant substance can be a real downer (a definite no-no if we're going to reach masses of people who want to pretend everything is wonderful).

I was reminded of that yesterday morning when I heard the news out of Baghdad that the insurgents used two children to get past a military checkpoint, then (with the two children still in the back seat) the two adults scrambled away from the car just before it blew up--two innocent children gone.

That's just one story. How many other tragic, senseless, stories of suffering are a part of the news today? And, yet, on Sunday morning many churches will only sing songs of celebration. Shiny happy people singing songs.

John Wesley wrote (and, yes, I'm at a Methodist school right now, reading Wesley's works) that people who never grieve don’t understand reality and are not distraught over the evils in the world. But it wasn't just Wesley who made it clear that mourning should be a part of the religious life. Jesus made it clear to the masses that the ones who mourn will be blessed, be comforted.

But for many churches, grieving is a downer. Mourning is irrelevant . Someone sitting near you may have lost a job, may have just realized that his or her marriage is on the rocks, may have a child struggling with addictions, may have a daughter in Iraq, may have always wanted a family but never found the right person to marry--may be rearing children on her own after losing her husband. But the worship leader will say "GooooooooodMooooorrning!" and if the congregation doesn't respond with enough vigor then the worship leader will accuse the people of being poor worshipers of God. Disappointed in the response, the worship leader will then play a song that is relevant because it has a kickin' bass line.

I'm not saying we should start letting Tim Burton design our worship services or that we should hire My Chemical Romance to be the worship band--the church does need to make celebration of God's ultimate victory the center of the service--but if we're going to be authentic (relevant) we also need space for people to grieve.