{"id":6202,"date":"2011-07-07T11:38:33","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T11:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/?p=6202"},"modified":"2019-07-31T12:27:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T12:27:03","slug":"andy-flannagan-worship-music-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/andy-flannagan-worship-music-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Food for thought – Andy Flannagan on worship music culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
Andy Flannagan is a worship leader, singer and accomplished song-writer who is passionate about justice issues, and<\/div>\n
the Director of the Christian Socialist Movement. He recently sent us this extract from an interview he gave to a<\/div>\n
student which he thought the Sanctuary would be interested to make more widely available.<\/div>\n
We are publishing it here because we believe much of what Andy is saying is a message that many parts of the<\/div>\n
church today need to hear.<\/div>\n
(To find out more about Andy and his work, visit www.andyflan.com or read his blog)<\/div>\n
This interview was undertaken by Alistair Gilfillan, a third year student at the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry , for<\/div>\n
his dissertation entitled ‘Where is the place of sacrifice in modern youth worship culture?’<\/div>\n
Could you start off just by telling me a bit about your background as a worship leader?<\/div>\n
I started, like many people, basically because I was a boy with a guitar, not because I was greatly gifted. I had a<\/div>\n
guitar, I was learning to play it, and it seemed to be useful to help people to sing if I played along. So it was pretty<\/div>\n
unspectacular.<\/div>\n
Only when I got to university, I think, did I start to think \u2018OK, I actually need to give this some thought\u2019 \u2013 I need to<\/div>\n
think about how I\u2019m playing, what I\u2019m playing, the lyrical content of the songs, and what I\u2019m actually asking people<\/div>\n
to do.<\/div>\n
What positive things have you seen in modern worship culture? What are the things<\/div>\n
we\u2019ve got right at the moment?<\/div>\n
I think even the use of phrases like \u2018worship culture\u2019 quite scare me.<\/div>\n
My fear is that we have actually created a worship subculture where it\u2019s about a certain type of music and a certain<\/div>\n
type of person who needs it – and it\u2019s become a little genre all of itself. In fact you could say that it\u2019s becoming an<\/div>\n
industry, sadly.<\/div>\n
A lot of the time money and marketing are the driving factors that decide what we\u2019re going to be listening to. We<\/div>\n
listen to the next thing that\u2019s marketed to us, so other people decide who they think we should listen to, and I fear<\/div>\n
that the driving factor is profit not prophet \u2013 not being prophetic that is. Which I think is a real danger.<\/div>\n
We\u2019ve created a kind of celebrity culture, where worship leaders become almost like celebrities and we like their<\/div>\n
sort of worship, or we like worshipping like them, or we like their songs.<\/div>\n
Article<\/div>\n
Interview with Andy FlannaganArticle Extract from an interview with Andy Flannagan<\/div>\n
\u00a9 2011 Andy Flannagan, Alistair Gilfillan and www.thesanctuarycentre.org\/whereworldandworshipmeet 2<\/div>\n
When I have been to the States and gone to churches there, they haven\u2019t asked \u2018what\u2019s God doing with your<\/div>\n
church?\u2019 or \u2018what\u2019s God doing with you? What\u2019s going on back home?\u2019 Instead, their first question was \u2018Whose stuff<\/div>\n
do you use?\u2019<\/div>\n
And it felt like they\u2019d created this kind of personality-centric thing, and some of that stuff is infiltrating here too,<\/div>\n
sadly.<\/div>\n
In the States worship culture has become huge \u2013 it accounts for eight per cent of the total market there – bigger<\/div>\n
than classical, bigger than Latin, bigger than Jazz.<\/div>\n
And a lot of what\u2019s going on there is just marketing to Christians \u2013 finding music that you can sell to them. It\u2019s not<\/div>\n
just about the motivation of asking \u2018what is the Spirit saying to the churches?\u2019 And at the end of the day, it\u2019s much<\/div>\n
easier to release a fifth album from the guy you know sells really well, rather than reaching out for a new thing, or<\/div>\n
the creative thing.<\/div>\n
I understand why people do that, but we\u2019ve got to be aware that we\u2019re breeding a nation of consumers, rather than<\/div>\n
participants.<\/div>\n
So much of the worship experiences that we create for people are us just telling them what to sing, rather than<\/div>\n
giving them opportunities to express themselves, and where they\u2019re at before God. So young people particularly<\/div>\n
happily sit in that place of consumerism, like we do in all aspects of life, rather than writing songs for themselves,<\/div>\n
rather than feeling empowered to do that.<\/div>\n
So, you\u2019re asking me what I see is positive?<\/div>\n
It\u2019s great to see songwriters beginning to write songs that address all aspects of God\u2019s character, rather than just<\/div>\n
the romantic aspects and intimacy. We\u2019re actually starting to sing songs that actually address the breadth of God\u2019s<\/div>\n
character, songs about justice, songs about God\u2019s desire to see change and transformation in the world. We\u2019re<\/div>\n
starting to sing songs of that nature now, which is a very positive thing.<\/div>\n
We\u2019ve got to let that not just be a fad and a thing that we\u2019re singing about at the minute, we\u2019ve got to realise that<\/div>\n
these are songs about God\u2019s character. We sing songs about justice because we worship a just God who is the God of<\/div>\n
justice.<\/div>\n
It\u2019s encouraging to see that finally happening, but again I\u2019ve heard people saying things like \u2018well it\u2019s great that we\u2019re<\/div>\n
singing more songs about the poor\u2019, and the fact that we\u2019re singing songs about the poor makes it pretty clear that<\/div>\n
we\u2019re not worshipping with the poor.<\/div>\n
I long for the day where churches are engaged in the community to such an extent that we\u2019re not singing songs<\/div>\n
about other groups of people, we\u2019re actually engaged, incarnated, in the midst of people who are struggling.<\/div>\n
That will utterly change the sort of language and the sort of words we\u2019re using, rather than the presumption that<\/div>\n
these are songs to write for a crowd of middle class people to sing in the suburbs and make them feel less guilty<\/div>\n
because we\u2019ve remembered the poor people. It\u2019s a pretty limited way of looking at life and looking at the Kingdom.<\/div>\n
You mentioned about participation in worship, why do think that is so important?Article Extract from an interview with Andy Flannagan<\/div>\n
\u00a9 2011 Andy Flannagan, Alistair Gilfillan and www.thesanctuarycentre.org\/whereworldandworshipmeet 3<\/div>\n
I think because we\u2019re made in the image of God. And God is the divine Creator, he is the fount of all creativity. We all<\/div>\n
have creativity in our being, whether we acknowledge it or not.<\/div>\n
Our praise should match its object, and so if we have an entirely creative God, our worship should match that. It<\/div>\n
should be creative, it should be an expression of who we are and of who God is. If we just rely on other people\u2019s<\/div>\n
words to communicate with God, it can become like a second-hand relationship. It\u2019s like we\u2019re \u2013 to use the language<\/div>\n
of the 21<\/div>\n
st<\/div>\n
century \u2013 outsourcing our relationship with God to the worship songwriters.<\/div>\n
I see this happening all the time, with young people especially \u2013 they\u2019ll sing somebody else\u2019s words, and they\u2019ll love<\/div>\n
it and it\u2019ll be a great sound, and they\u2019ll get a warm and fuzzy feeling. But when they hit 18 or 19 and they go to start<\/div>\n
a job, or go off to university and they haven\u2019t spent time developing their own relationship with God, their own<\/div>\n
words, they just flop.<\/div>\n
They just disappear because they can get that buzz from other things like alcohol or relationships, so they don\u2019t<\/div>\n
want faith anymore. Maybe it\u2019s because it wasn\u2019t real; it wasn\u2019t their relationship, their metaphors or their words.<\/div>\n
They were only using a language of seed sowing and refining fires, and it didn\u2019t actually integrate with their nine to<\/div>\n
five experience.<\/div>\n
I believe we don\u2019t create enough space for people, especially young people, to be able to express their anger, doubt,<\/div>\n
or sadness towards God. Rather, we say \u2018hi, here\u2019s the songs we\u2019re going to be singing today, and here\u2019s how we\u2019re<\/div>\n
going to be feeling while we sing\u2019.<\/div>\n
But if we don\u2019t create enough creative space for people \u2013 whether it\u2019s through art, poetry, writing, rap, dance or<\/div>\n
whatever \u2013 then we don\u2019t create enough space for them to express what they are feeling towards God. And if they<\/div>\n
can\u2019t have that space to express their anger, frustration, doubt and everything else, then they will find other ways to<\/div>\n
express it, but these won\u2019t necessarily be in the direction of God.<\/div>\n
So we\u2019ve got to start trying to create that context where people can do that.<\/div>\n
Do you think there is a difference between what worship leaders try to communicate<\/div>\n
about leading, and what those being led in worship understand?<\/div>\n
I think that\u2019s a huge question. Very often there is much more subliminal communication going on than the actual<\/div>\n
physical communication. Even though you\u2019re saying \u2018oh hey, this isn\u2019t a performance, this is worship\u2019, at the same<\/div>\n
time you\u2019re standing on a stage with a microphone, a huge PA system, and huge big screens, and with big lights on<\/div>\n
you.<\/div>\n
So everything within me is screaming \u2018this is a performance\u2019.<\/div>\n
Anybody walking in from the outside world would say \u2018this is a performance\u2019. At the end of the day, I don\u2019t care what<\/div>\n
you say it is, it is a performance. You\u2019re creating a sense that people are standing looking at a stage in the same way<\/div>\n
they would look at a stage when an artist is performing. It can carry that same dynamic of hero worship and that<\/div>\n
turns the congregation into consumers, rather than a participants.Article Extract from an interview with Andy Flannagan<\/div>\n
\u00a9 2011 Andy Flannagan, Alistair Gilfillan and www.thesanctuarycentre.org\/whereworldandworshipmeet 4<\/div>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter how much your worship leader says \u2018it\u2019s not about me\u2019 \u2013 if there\u2019s a whopping big picture of them<\/div>\n
on the front of a CD looking cool, that is what\u2019s being communicated. If their name\u2019s up in lights, that\u2019s what\u2019s being<\/div>\n
communicated.<\/div>\n
And we let ourselves off by thinking \u2018yeah well we kind of have to use the ways of the world to get this stuff out<\/div>\n
there\u2019.<\/div>\n
Well, who told us that we have to? Who told us we have to sell our stuff?<\/div>\n
Can you really imaging the early church selling worship resources to each other?<\/div>\n
Can you imagine Amos making the top 10? He wouldn\u2019t have. He wouldn\u2019t have been popular enough. Amos\u2019 way<\/div>\n
with words was far too uncomfortable for people.<\/div>\n
Perhaps we\u2019ve started following what sells the most, rather than always listening to what God is saying. We need to<\/div>\n
ask again \u2013 what is God\u2019s specific word for the church at this specific time?<\/div>\n

\"andy-flanagan\"<\/a>Previously a hospital doctor, Andy Flannagan is an Irish singer songwriter with a long history of campaigning around justice issues and is currently working in a political role in Westminster where he also regularly leads worship. His songs cover issues such as climate change, poverty and the broken lives of young people.<\/p>\n

This is a hard hitting interview. Andy has some tough things to say that challenge many of the fundamentals of our contemporary worship culture. We’d love to know what you think. Many of our readers (and of course Musicademy itself) are part of the machine (commercial or otherwise) that facilitates worship in the UK, US and beyond. What do you think about the industry and the way in which the cult of celebrity has infiltrated?<\/p>\n

Could you start off just by telling me a bit about your background as a worship leader?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started, like many people, basically because I was a boy with a guitar, not because I was greatly gifted. I had a\u00a0guitar, I was learning to play it, and it seemed to be useful to help people to sing if I played along. So it was pretty\u00a0unspectacular.<\/p>\n

Only when I got to university, I think, did I start to think \u2018OK, I actually need to give this some thought\u2019 \u2013 I need to\u00a0think about how I\u2019m playing, what I\u2019m playing, the lyrical content of the songs, and what I\u2019m actually asking people\u00a0to do.<\/p>\n

What positive things have you seen in modern worship culture? What are the things <\/strong>we\u2019ve got right at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think even the use of phrases like \u2018worship culture\u2019 quite scare me.\u00a0My fear is that we have actually created a worship subculture where it\u2019s about a certain type of music and a certain\u00a0type of person who needs it – and it\u2019s become a little genre all of itself. In fact you could say that it\u2019s becoming an\u00a0industry, sadly.\u00a0A lot of the time money and marketing are the driving factors that decide what we\u2019re going to be listening to. We\u00a0listen to the next thing that\u2019s marketed to us, so other people decide who they think we should listen to, and I fear\u00a0that the driving factor is profit not prophet \u2013 not being prophetic that is. Which I think is a real danger.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve created a kind of celebrity culture, where worship leaders become almost like celebrities and we like their\u00a0sort of worship, or we like worshipping like them, or we like their songs.\u00a0When I have been to the States and gone to churches there, they haven\u2019t asked \u2018what\u2019s God doing with your\u00a0church?\u2019 or \u2018what\u2019s God doing with you? What\u2019s going on back home?\u2019 Instead, their first question was \u2018Whose stuff\u00a0do you use?\u2019\u00a0And it felt like they\u2019d created this kind of personality-centric thing, and some of that stuff is infiltrating here in the UK too,\u00a0sadly.<\/p>\n

In the States worship culture has become huge \u2013 it accounts for eight per cent of the total market there – bigger\u00a0than classical, bigger than Latin, bigger than Jazz.\u00a0And a lot of what\u2019s going on there is just marketing to Christians \u2013 finding music that you can sell to them. It\u2019s not\u00a0just about the motivation of asking \u2018what is the Spirit saying to the churches?\u2019 And at the end of the day, it\u2019s much\u00a0easier to release a fifth album from the guy you know sells really well, rather than reaching out for a new thing, or\u00a0the creative thing.<\/p>\n

I understand why people do that, but we\u2019ve got to be aware that we\u2019re breeding a nation of consumers, rather than\u00a0participants.\u00a0So much of the worship experiences that we create for people are us just telling them what to sing, rather than\u00a0giving them opportunities to express themselves, and where they\u2019re at before God. So young people particularly\u00a0happily sit in that place of consumerism, like we do in all aspects of life, rather than writing songs for themselves,\u00a0rather than feeling empowered to do that.<\/p>\n

So, you\u2019re asking me what I see is positive?\u00a0It\u2019s great to see songwriters beginning to write songs that address all aspects of God\u2019s character, rather than just\u00a0the romantic aspects and intimacy. We\u2019re actually starting to sing songs that actually address the breadth of God\u2019s\u00a0character, songs about justice, songs about God\u2019s desire to see change and transformation in the world. We\u2019re\u00a0starting to sing songs of that nature now, which is a very positive thing.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got to let that not just be a fad and a thing that we\u2019re singing about at the minute, we\u2019ve got to realise that\u00a0these are songs about God\u2019s character. We sing songs about justice because we worship a just God who is the God of\u00a0justice.\u00a0It\u2019s encouraging to see that finally happening, but again I\u2019ve heard people saying things like \u2018well it\u2019s great that we\u2019re\u00a0singing more songs about the poor\u2019, and the fact that we\u2019re singing songs about the poor makes it pretty clear that\u00a0we\u2019re not worshipping with the poor.<\/p>\n

I long for the day where churches are engaged in the community to such an extent that we\u2019re not singing songs\u00a0about other groups of people, we\u2019re actually engaged, incarnated, in the midst of people who are struggling.\u00a0That will utterly change the sort of language and the sort of words we\u2019re using, rather than the presumption that\u00a0these are songs to write for a crowd of middle class people to sing in the suburbs and make them feel less guilty\u00a0because we\u2019ve remembered the poor people. It\u2019s a pretty limited way of looking at life and looking at the Kingdom.<\/p>\n

You mentioned about participation in worship, why do think that is so important?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think because we\u2019re made in the image of God. And God is the divine Creator, he is the fount of all creativity. We all\u00a0have creativity in our being, whether we acknowledge it or not.\u00a0Our praise should match its object, and so if we have an entirely creative God, our worship should match that. It\u00a0should be creative, it should be an expression of who we are and of who God is. If we just rely on other people\u2019s\u00a0words to communicate with God, it can become like a second-hand relationship. It\u2019s like we\u2019re \u2013 to use the language\u00a0of the 21st\u00a0century \u2013 outsourcing our relationship with God to the worship songwriters.<\/p>\n

I see this happening all the time, with young people especially \u2013 they\u2019ll sing somebody else\u2019s words, and they\u2019ll love\u00a0it and it\u2019ll be a great sound, and they\u2019ll get a warm and fuzzy feeling. But when they hit 18 or 19 and they go to start\u00a0a job, or go off to university and they haven\u2019t spent time developing their own relationship with God, their own\u00a0words, they just flop.\u00a0They just disappear because they can get that buzz from other things like alcohol or relationships, so they don\u2019t\u00a0want faith anymore. Maybe it\u2019s because it wasn\u2019t real; it wasn\u2019t their relationship, their metaphors or their words.<\/p>\n

They were only using a language of seed sowing and refining fires, and it didn\u2019t actually integrate with their nine to\u00a0five experience.\u00a0I believe we don\u2019t create enough space for people, especially young people, to be able to express their anger, doubt,\u00a0or sadness towards God. Rather, we say \u2018hi, here\u2019s the songs we\u2019re going to be singing today, and here\u2019s how we\u2019re\u00a0going to be feeling while we sing\u2019.\u00a0But if we don\u2019t create enough creative space for people \u2013 whether it\u2019s through art, poetry, writing, rap, dance or\u00a0whatever \u2013 then we don\u2019t create enough space for them to express what they are feeling towards God. And if they\u00a0can\u2019t have that space to express their anger, frustration, doubt and everything else, then they will find other ways to\u00a0express it, but these won\u2019t necessarily be in the direction of God.\u00a0So we\u2019ve got to start trying to create that context where people can do that.<\/p>\n

Do you think there is a difference between what worship leaders try to communicate\u00a0about leading, and what those being led in worship understand?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s a huge question. Very often there is much more subliminal communication going on than the actual\u00a0physical communication. Even though you\u2019re saying \u2018oh hey, this isn\u2019t a performance, this is worship\u2019, at the same\u00a0time you\u2019re standing on a stage with a microphone, a huge PA system, and huge big screens, and with big lights on\u00a0you.\u00a0So everything within me is screaming \u2018this is a performance\u2019.Anybody walking in from the outside world would say \u2018this is a performance\u2019. At the end of the day, I don\u2019t care what\u00a0you say it is, it is a performance. You\u2019re creating a sense that people are standing looking at a stage in the same waythey would look at a stage when an artist is performing. It can carry that same dynamic of hero worship and thatturns the congregation into consumers, rather than a participants.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter how much your worship leader says \u2018it\u2019s not about me\u2019 \u2013 if there\u2019s a whopping big picture of them\u00a0on the front of a CD looking cool, that is what\u2019s being communicated. If their name\u2019s up in lights, that\u2019s what\u2019s being\u00a0communicated.\u00a0And we let ourselves off by thinking \u2018yeah well we kind of have to use the ways of the world to get this stuff out\u00a0there\u2019.<\/p>\n

Well, who told us that we have to? Who told us we have to sell our stuff?<\/p>\n

Can you really imaging the early church selling worship resources to each other?<\/p>\n

Can you imagine Amos making the top 10? He wouldn\u2019t have. He wouldn\u2019t have been popular enough. Amos\u2019 way\u00a0with words was far too uncomfortable for people.\u00a0Perhaps we\u2019ve started following what sells the most, rather than always listening to what God is saying. We need to\u00a0ask again \u2013 what is God\u2019s specific word for the church at this specific time?<\/p>\n

To find out more about Andy and his work, visit www.andyflan.com or read his blog<\/p>\n

This interview was undertaken by Alistair Gilfillan, a third year student at the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry , for\u00a0his dissertation entitled ‘Where is the place of sacrifice in modern youth worship culture?’written while he studied at the Midlands Centre for Youth Ministry. It was originally published by the Sanctuary Centre<\/a>, a website exploring issues of poverty, justice and intercession. Check out their worship and justice resources.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andy Flannagan is a worship leader, singer and accomplished song-writer who is passionate about justice issues, and the Director of the Christian Socialist Movement. He recently sent us this extract from an interview he gave to a student which he thought the Sanctuary would be interested to make more widely available. 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