Cutting edge or traditional worship?

// April 7th, 2009 // Chaplaincy, Spiritual

I once heard a Pastor say “if your worship team is not constantly producing new music then your church is going backwards”.

At the time I disagreed, I still do.

Whist I prefer contemporary worship at my church, I believe that we cannot throw out the traditions and history of our faith. In fact, I think that it is extremely arrogant to think that our forefathers have nothing to teach us in the art of worship.

How do we balance this today and how does this manifest in the services we facilitate for our students?

This snippet from an article by Dan Kimball on the renewed desire for traditional forms or worship and liturgy by young people is helpful:

“Those raised in contemporary churches found practicing liturgy and following the church calendar refreshing and meaningful. But some who had grown up in traditional and liturgical churches saw these same practices as lifeless or routine. They were eager to incorporate more contemporary forms. One group wanted to rediscover the past, and the other was trying to escape it.

Several years later I worked with a team of young people to plant a new church. We decided that it would not help our goal of reaching the lost if our worship pretended it was stuck in A.D. 800. But we also did not want to dismiss the rich history and depth of ancient practices. So on any given Sunday our young congregation sings a mix of contemporary choruses and traditional hymns. We now celebrate Advent each year with candles, responsive readings, and benedictions. We draw from liturgical elements in ancient worship and prayer books. But we also display modern art, project videos, and use a variety of 21st century worship elements.

We have found that the goal shouldn’t be to maintain the past or to always be on the cutting edge. Our goal is to worship in a way that represents our community to God and God to our community. That means contextualizing worship for today, but not forgetting the family of God throughout history to which we belong.”

At NBCS we have a high percentage of students who come from large pentecostal churches and are used to ‘cutting edge’ worship. It is interesting to note that the most attended chaplaincy event I run is not a contemporary worship service, not a guest musician, but ‘Worship Wednesday’.

Worship Wednesday is when we turn off the lights, close the blinds and project traditional images on the screen with either ambient music or gregorian chants playing softly in the background. I either let the students lie on the ground and focus on God or lead them through some reflection exercises. This style allows the students to experience something more solem and richer than the worship that they are used to. It is obvious that this is resonating with our young people as they want to feel connected to the bigger picture of Christianity by reinacting the practices of past generations.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against ‘cutting edge’ worship - what I am against is a closed mind when it comes to ways in which we can worship God. I encourage you to find that healthy balance between cutting edge and tradtitional worship practices - who knows, you might find something new in the old!