We don’t want to say it. It sounds like we’re consumers, wanting more entertainment, and we know that’s not the problem. Worse, it might sound like we’re tired of God – when we know we’ve only just scratched the surface of the infinitely creative, dynamically relational being he is. Hence the collective sigh of relief in the London School of Theology Deep Calls to Deep conference when the outgoing Director General of the Evangelical Alliance, the highly respected and deeply passionate Joel Edwards, used the ‘B’ word without apology or caveat. ‘We’re bored in worship’. You could almost see tense shoulders sag and bright eyes perk up. We’re allowed to say it! Our worship has become boring!’ It was like permission, not to whine or complain or place blame (people do that enough about worship anyway), but to admit the weaknesses in our contemporary corporate worship lives and to begin to address authentic, fundamental and God honouring change.
His full quote expresses it best:
“There is something about the charismatic movement which brought something new and fresh. It came out of something new God was doing.
I am thirsty for something new again. I have to confess to you that mostly on a Sunday morning I am bored! And I wonder if one of the reasons why people are not singing is because they too are bored.
It may be a good thing to discover what you would write down if you spent two months noting what songs are sung on a Sunday morning. I cannot believe that so much of our repertoire has become so narrow. So predictable. That the formation of what we do on a Sunday is so utterly predictable. And I think to myself, how come the God who has formed the constellations and put the stars in place and has a new idea every second, doesn’t have something new for us for a Sunday morning? I wonder whether he might not be vaguely bored too.”
And so a conversation is stirring between worship leaders, pastors, songwriters, congregations, and (radical thought) the communities we are trying to reach, about how we might innovate our worship. No one person, movement or website has all the answers, but we’re pretty sure the questions begin with how we get out of this predictable, narrow, reality-dodging, inward looking spiral towards a creative, indigenous, multi-sensory, outward-looking expression of worship.
Problem – Predictable, Consumerist
Like going to any shopping centre and finding the same stores, we seem to be able to go to almost any contemporary evangelical church and find the same songs, the same themes, the same ‘one-size-fits all’ worship solutions. But do they? We know of the tragedy when colonial missionaries export a western worship style into a non-western context, squashing indigenous response. But don’t we ‘import’ the styles we find at the latest conference, or the successful church, or the hit CD, and expect them to work in our context?
Possible solution – Indigenous Creativity
What are the artforms practiced in your church, and by the community you seek to reach? Do they feature on Sunday? Where is the creativity, beyond singing? What is the heart-cry of where your church is at, and is it expressed in relevant media? How can we inspire indigenous creativity, and share with the best of indigenous creativity from other local congregations worldwide?
Problem – Narrow Aims
Contemporary worship has had intimacy with God as its primary aim for the last twenty years or more, and we should never grow tired of drawing close to God. But isn’t there more? How do we engage with a broader picture of who God is? How do we come to him with more of our emotions, needs and experiences?
Possible solution – Rediscover different ‘Movements’ of Worship
Do we need to turn back to some of the traditional ‘movements’ within corporate worship – gathering, praise, thanks, confession, intercession, lament, creed, testimony, communion, etc – and learn how to draw them into our worship life, expressing them through songs and other creative artforms?
Problem – Lost connection with humanity
Is worship a place where we leave our problems at the door, and lose contact with reality in wonder, love and praise, or is God interested in our whole lives? When does our worship embrace and celebrate our redeemed humanity? How can worship be a holistic experience of our bodies as well as our minds and souls?
Possible solution – Multi-sensory
Can we rediscover worship which engages with our tastebuds and sense of smell? Can we use more for the ears than a narrow range of music and spoken words? Can we create worship which paints a rich, varied visual picture of our God and his people? Can we put things into people’s hands to touch, break and recreate?
Problem – Inward Looking
Is worship all about ‘me and God’, or does God engage with us as a corporate body? More pressing – how much of our worship engages with the community around our building, and the wider world which God so loves? Is our worship ‘good news to the poor’, is it grappling with the big global causes and issues, is it missional?
Possible solution – Outward Looking (clever eh?)
Is intercession seamlessly linked to our worship, or an add-on after everyone has sat down? Do we recognise the pain and suffering of our planet, and sing about God’s heart for justice, equality, and restoration of this broken world? Do we sing the songs of the world church? Can we connect our worship with our missionary and evangelistic efforts?
OK, that’s four to get you started. Your thoughts?
Sam Hargreaves is co-founder of engageworship.org. He will be blogging regularly for Musicademy and we’ll also be uploading some of EngageWorship’s great free resources each month.
23 Comments
Sam, good to get this being discussed beyond the Deep Calls to Deep attendees. I guess, as with most things you get pendulum swings and the current worship was a reaction and things are probably swinging back somewhat. However, what’s also happening is what’s happening in many other areas, like cooking and mainstream music – a fusion of many styles and a menu that includes a wider range og ingredients.
The 365/24/7 is probably taking longer to appear in worship music and songs but I think is coming as the church generally is focusing on this.
I like your 4 suggestions – nice and simple places to get started but which may lead to something further. This is a great opportunity to involve people in creative worship. I’ve been amazed by a) the great ideas that people who don’t think of themselves as creative are bringing and b) the receptiveness of congregations and cells of all ages to the variety and experimentation.
Let’s also allow ourselves to make mistakes – as long as we learn – and bring positive criticism to bear on growing in our worship.
I am inspired in reading the book of Psalms, how King David was intrigued and fascinated by the glory of the Lord, and the endless facets of his nature , goodness, power and majesty.There is always something new in reading this book , and i see the Psalms as an inspiration for song writing.
We tend to be excited about new action adventure movies, but i feel that the Lord is “larger than life” and “greater than fiction “.There are endless songs out there waiting to be released to glorify Him.
Here’s a radical thought for a website devoted to music……..worship without music. I think that we have become so focused on the music, and on our musicality skills that we have taken it beyond the point where it is accessible and useful for many people. To sing or play an instrument requires particular skill – and development of this skill is no longer a univeral priority in our culture. We get our music from others rather than making ourselves, and sometimes it just gets in the way. Our world is noisy – what would happen if we approached God with out that noise, and simply gave expression to our worship through our bodies, our spirit, and (just maybe) a spoken word? Mightn’t we hear more clearly? Just a thought.
I think that’s a very valid thought and in fact, I’ve just come back from a conference where I ran a seminar on non musical forms of creativity in worship so despite us running Musicademy, we’re not so tied up with musical worship that we can’t see beyond it.
That “Let’s move into a time of worship” announcement generally means that we’re about to start singing…. We’ve been catalogueing 50 worship songs for a project this week trying to fit them into themes. There were quite a few that fitted into the “songs about singing” category (now I am being a bit tough – hey were kind of songs about worshipping but you get my point, we can be critiqued for having a rather limited breadth of subject matter). Nick Page’s book “And Now Let’s Move into a Time of Nonsense: Why Worship Songs are Failing the Church” is excellent and the title captures it pretty well don’t you think.
I think we’ll come back to this on future blog posts – just working on some thoughts at the moment.
I have to say boredom with “times of worship” perhaps says more about the lives of the people outside those times then anything. If we were truly dependent on God then we would happily worship to practically anything. While I agree there might be ways to cater for our tastes better – if we actually require them to “enjoy” worship then our spiritual life is in a mess. How can we ever be bored of worshipping God if we are close to him?
Just been reading Amos which seems appropriate, in particular 5 and 6 for God’s reaction (I like the message version). It talks about a people doing lots the right religious things, having fancy worship sessions, conferences, fund raising, etc but actually being very two faced – having lost touch with God and what he wants – in their luxurious and self centred lives. God was very angry. We have to be careful we don’t fall into the same traps they did today.
Some great posts. My 2 cents worth: 1) Who is the worship for? I know we’re usually ‘blessed’ by being a part of it..but shouldn’t we be asking God what He likes? 2) His mercies are new EVERY MORNING..we should aniticipate fresh manna, fresh anointing and the Spirit to ‘blow where He will’ when we fully surrender to Him. Granted, the larger the group, the more uncomfortable moving that way may be. That’s the ‘adventure’ of walking with God.
Though provoking comments…
I love the quote by Marcus Green in his book ‘Salvation’s Song’. It has really captured what I belive worship is. He says that Worship is “the entire Godward responce of our lives in corporate expression”. That means that yes, what we do on a Sunday morning is intrinsically linked to the whole rest of the week in work, at home, etc… I believe Simon is right and that people being ‘bored’ of worship potentially illustrates a dualistic thinking such that we’re seeing our ’spritual life’ as different from our ’secular life’ – the result of which is that we end up transfering ideas such as ‘consumerism’ into our expectations of Worship. God is the ‘consumer’ of our worship, not our congregation! Our God is an all consuming fire…
On the other hand, I agree there can be some bordem in Worship and I feel that it’s maybe because we are not tapping into God’s creativity. God is the Creator… We are made in his image… We are created beings…
I’m a musician, but really, how can my music express who God is. I’m challenged by teaching about the Otherness of God. How can we express His otherness in our Worship?
We can limit our worship by just reproducing what we know. Music is great, important, and biblical… but we shouldn’t narrow our expression to just music, because that’s not using all that God has given us. He is more creative than that, and he’s created us to be more creative than that.
The reason people in our little church aren’t singing isn’t because of boredom, it’s because they don’t know the words. We are bombarded with every new song that comes out and it’s different every week. What happened to praise and worship? When did it start being entertainment and the focus turned to how well the guitars and drums could sound just like the CD?
Worship should be simple and be our heart’s cry, not a repeat of the latest christian radio station. I want to concentrate on saying to God what is in my heart, not struggling to learn a new way to say it.
i agree that the worship culture in the church has gotten boring. what may have started as a fresh expression ten years ago is no longer fresh. what started as an authentic expression may have become a formula (to sell records or build empires dare i say it). what started as a creative spark and attempt at cultural relevance now feels like dry repetition – the same delay drenched licks over the same changes. Lord keep us hungry for you – never content to settle for pale substitutes – especially things that seem right but have no eternal value.
Some great comments – glad this has got people thinking! I know where Simon is coming from, and agree that in one sense people should be able to worship ‘to anything’ (I think it is a real mark of discipleship if someone can engage with God in a service totally outside their tastes and preferences – still working on that one in my own heart!)…
But my point really is as Worship Leaders we need to be thinking more carefully about the choices we make in how we lead people. My congregation could have lives of vibrant connection with God, and yet when they come into church I can potentially serve up the same old songs, same old prayers, same old actions without thinking about it. I want to make sure that we are drawing people’s attention to a wider range of God’s attributes, his passions, his actions in the world, and connect with people in a greater variety of ways to each other and the world around them.
Loving the conversation about worship without music – yes bring it on! I love singing and never want to loose that from our public gatherings, but there is so much more and it is great to see people exploring that.
Too many words/too many new songs says Debbie – yes, could be, depends on your church really! I think often churches a) pick too many new songs, b) pick the wrong ones (eg the ones which work in a conference or CD but not necessarily in the local church), c) fail to teach them properly, d) fail to repeat them enough times so they bed in. If you switch those four statements around postively we might have a guide to new songs! But i guess the final point is yes, perhaps there is space for some simple songs again.
I love this topic of conversation and it has really made me think. I am a worship leader at a church with a 200+ congregation and to be perfectly honest from a Praise point of view trying to cater for all ages is difficult. We try to maintain a balance.
I believe everthing we do should glorify God so the word ‘worship’ shouldn’t just be used in the context of singing. Everything we do in our lives should be worship.
I also agree with Sam’s comments on Debbies post.
The ‘missing generation’ is a hot topic at conferences and in most local churches. So can I leave this point to ponder…
Music is such a big influence in most people’s lives latest band / style of music. As church we need to accept music can be a big influence so lets use it…
We all know that the Word is the bread of life. Let’s get the missing generation through the door and hit them with the Word.
All of the above comments are interesting, and upon reviewing Sam’s article i feel that Joel Edward’s comment sums up the discussion:-
” The FORMATION of what WE do on a Sunday is so utterly predictable and i think to myself ,HOW COME GOD who has formed the constellations and put the stars in place and has a new idea every second , DOESN’T HAVE SOMETHING NEW for us for a Sunday morning .”(My own emphasis)
I attend a house church where we wait on the Lord to hear what HE wants to do and say.
Someone may be led to sing a song, and others receive scriptures .What we are receive from him individually, all fits together. God, who leads the meeting, feeds us,encourages us , builds us up and each meeting is different and fulfilling- never boring.
Can this be done in Church small groups? Is this too radical???
Does the church need to change in changing times ?
Of course it’s boring and and here’s another word “manipulative”. It’s based on a faulty premise: music = worship. Most of the occasions that I experienced during my charismatic days used music as a mood modifier to set people up for the spoken portion of the service and then a couple of up tempo songs before exiting the building. What gets me is that the packaging is all so very neat. In every service worship is shoe-horned into a 20-30 minute slot and it is more to do with emotion than connecting with what is happening in your life. I can remember endlessly repeating choruses from particular songs until a particular emotional reaction was obtained.
Anyway, I’m off to work. I’ll probably listen to my favourite podcast, Dave’s Music, on the iPod, have a chat to God and try and be kind to those I meet during the day. For me that’s much more real and spontaneous.
Hi I am really interested in the way this discussion is exploring things but i just wanted to throw in the thought that we do need to take the folk in the church with us when leading – so familiar material is essential so that people feel secure in what is going on but we also should be seeking to educate our church families that doing it differently sometimes is a really positive thing. Striking this balance is a difficult one.
At my church we are used to times of extended and spontaneous worship but you have to be really careful to flow with the Holy Spirit and where he is taking it and at the same time watch for people disingauging from the worship.
There is a deeper issue here.
We have become like our society, always looking for how to do things. Think of the questions you are asked when you meet someone new.’ What do you do?’ is always high on the list…
Maybe it’s time to focus on ‘breathing’. This is different to the common misconception of praying (breathing in) and doing (breathing out). You can ‘breathe’ in or out while praying. Petition is our default setting for prayer meetings, singing songs is our default setting for ‘times of worship’.
We need to allow the presence of God to be our guide. This is unfortunately often confused with the crowd buzz that is available at all good secular and christian gigs. This buzz can move people to tears, laughter, even fainting! If we breathe out our praise to God and breathe in His presence this can lead to the unexpected. Maybe worship as we know and love it, or maybe an expression that has very little to do with our culture. It is down to you. If you are bored and just react to the current setup you will just polarise the situation. Pray (petition) God and ask him how to take this forward. PLEASE don’t pray against your leaders/ gossip about how boring things are/ set your own pet good ideas up as the only way forward. There is a genuine hunger growing among Gods people. We need to put down our good ideas, spend some time just being with God, and wait for him to guide us.
Our relationship with God is not measured by the gifts He gives. It’s not measured by the volume or quality of our music. It’s measured by how well we know him. In my experience this is what leads to the worship that we so desire. If a child is constantly pestering parents exclusively asking what do I do now then they don’t have a relationship based on love. They have a management structure. If we are only approaching God with requests and agendas then we don’t really have a very healthy relationship with him and are copying the business models of our western culture instead of following the one that we are in love with.
Love the site/blogs/realcomments. GBY
Thank you all for your comments. I am sitting here reading them and being very challenged. I have become bored, and I have been looking for answers in innovation. As I sit here and read I feel convicted that I am looking in the wrong place. I love new songs and I love creativity, but I think I have gotten too caught up in looking for the next big idea. I have become a consumer of worship without realizing it. I will never find the answers in my own creativity or ability. I will not find them on a blog post or magazine article. I have been listening for too long to the sea of voices weighing in on the debate rather than listening to the still, small voice of God… Speak Lord, I am listening…
Out of love:
The reason people are bored with worship is because churches are using entertainment to draw them there. This results in having to use entertainment to keep them there.
If you have a congregation that is trully saved and REPENTED, they will worship freely without any wordly innovation or special effects.
Seek and save that which is lost and worship will happen because people want to, not because it’s fun!
Again, out of love and faith in my savior, Jesus Christ, I ask all worship leaders to worship like the bible, not like other churches.
Scott raises a good point. Crudely stated but a good point none the less.
I know that when a group of people get together to worship, no agenda, no time scales, no musical subscript, and just get on with it, God tends to show up ( ie He inhabits the praises of His people). The problems arise when we have to fit the worship time into our expectations of a church meeting.
The question I keep being dragged back to in all of this is, “Why do we do what we do?” We need to ask this because the answer is the foundation on which our church meetings and all of our musical (and non musical) worship is built.
” Jesus, be the centre…” not “How do we sing better songs?”
I want to use and develop my musical ability to bring God glory because He has made me with potential that I have a responsibility to fulfil. This is worship too. If I learn to play complex jazz chords that only serve to make people say how good a musician I am then I’m missing the point. If I have the potential AND the calling to play complex jazz chords that will draw people to God then I will have to stand before Him and make account of what I did with the gift I was given.
We need to take on board the truth of Scotts’ comment and balance that with our biblical responsibility to develop our abilities. Sometimes this will mean changing our priorities in our meetings, sometimes it will mean changing our heart cry.
To roughly quote Exiles by Michael Frost (highly recommended reading-thanks Marie) “In order to make a nation of boat builders, teach people a longing for the sea.” Then just watch what happens…
An interesting and thought provoking article and comments that follow. There are lots of reasons why people get bored in worship. Scott has raised a few good points. A person who meets God in worship will never bored.
I do believe that we should try to lead worship in such a way that people are encouraged to worship God. I’ve noticed that people from varying age groups find worship tedious for different reasons but actually it is the same reason. Namely they don’t like or are not comfortable with the style of worship. As worship leader I occasionally get a spray from both young and old because they think there is too much of the old or contemprary. The challenge is to provide a variety of styles and modes of worship so that everyone in the church feels they get a chance to worship in the way that is most comfortable at least some of the time. We try to do this by having both young and old people leading the services and a range of musicians that suit the style of the leaders. Some leaders are comfortable with either style and that includes some of the younger ones. That to me is a sign of spiritual maturity.
I think there is a need to educate the congregation to show Christian grace toward the legitimate tastes and preferences of their brothers. Then there is the challenge of learning to do that yourself.
I like the idea of having worship songs and music that is more home grown. Is it possible for more in the congregation to come up with lyrics and tunes or items that can be used in the service? Getting people to engage in this and accept the music even though its not quite as good as the imported stuff would be a hurdle. I’d be interested to hear if other leaders have had any succcess in this area.
God is the God of all creation -not just the wordy bits. One Saturday last month we were invited to take part in “workshop” consisting of drama, petry, flower arranging…(yes even one of the guys had a go) and yes we did have some music. After about an hours practice, the whole experience was brought together in an act of worship where we performed drama, read the poetry as prayers and used the flower arrangements for meditive reflection..oh yes.. we sang a coule of worship songs accompanied by keyboard. The result was “when can we do it again”. It was different, it was fun, and certainly not boring.
I think I should check my spelling before posting a comment !!
Spelling errors or not its great to hear that some churches are thinking of forms of worship beyond music. We have five senses and its good to use them all creatively. I find that intro “Let’s move into a time of worship” really unhelpful – as if the sung worship is all there is.
Well, we tend to get a good look at the back of a lot of heads, sit and listen for a long time to 1 guy week in and out, (traditionally speaking). So some other group holds hands, and dances in a circle, rotating partners around the room. Only problem, Jesus doesn’t get an honorable mention at this group. Why can’t we dance in a circle sometimes where Jesus is mentioned and honored?