A few days ago I posted links to
some already important pieces in the growing conversation on “performancism” in
worship. Here’s my take:
First,
a quick look at the context I am writing from.
I lead worship for a small church with average weekly attendance less
than 100. The worship team consists of
me (guitar, vocals), a keyboard player, and 2-3 female vocalists. I’ve been a part of the stage end of worship
teams for the past 9 years. Before that,
I spent several years back in the sound booth.
While my current church is fairly small, I’ve been in churches with
average attendance of a few hundred each week.
I’ve been a part of services that are more traditional with hymns and
services that “go with the Spirit” and feature contemporary praise songs.
For me
it seems like there is one part of this conversation that needs to be addressed
because I think it can lead to some unrealistic expectations. Jamie Brown brings into question the nature
of the worship music industry and how worship leaders may be fostering this
“performancism” as he calls it. David
Santistevan raises the question of our hearts in worship and ponders the
question of our desperation for Christ.
They both make very valid points and I want to look at one key area
where those two sides intersect.
Over the last 5-10 years it seems that there
has been a serious growth in mass-worship events. Some of them are geared towards a specific
audience like the Passion conferences.
Some have more broad appeal like a Hillsong concert. Both Passion and Hillsong have been around
for many years and they continue to bring in new artists and songwriters. There are also groups like Jesus Culture that
have sprung up more recently. These
groups are doing some amazing and important things for worship within the
church. But, I think we sometimes
confuse Saturday night with Sunday morning.
Saturday
night is a great night of worship with Hillsong, Jesus Culture, Kari Jobe, Matt
Redman, pick your artist (this could be any night of the week, not just
Saturday). It’s a lot of fun to be there
in the arena with several thousand people, most of them singing along. But let’s not forget one key thing – this is
a concert, a performance. For the people
on stage and behind the scenes, this is their livelihood. This is how they pay the bills. Now, hopefully, they love their jobs and
aren’t in it just for the money. Most of
them are in it because they love it and have the talent and ability to make a
career out of music. Like I said before,
these people and groups are important for worship within the church.
When
you go to that Saturday night concert, you have a certain set up expectations,
and I would venture to say that those expectations are different than the
expectations you have on Sunday morning. On Saturday night, you’re hoping, in part, to
be entertained. You’re probably not
expecting to be challenged in your walk with Christ. You’re not expecting to hear someone go into
a detailed study of the book of Ruth and what it means for us today. You’re expecting to hear some great music,
and probably, sing along with a lot of it.
You probably expect some type of general alter call after a presentation
of the basics of the Gospel, but, really, you are there to sing/hear some good
music. Saturday night is usually a great
experience and there may some moments of sincere emotional reactions that may
draw you closer to Christ. Let’s be
clear though, this is not Sunday morning.
When we
get to Sunday morning we encounter a few problems. The biggest one being that most churches
cannot recreate Saturday night. We
don’t have the same level of skilled musicians and we don’t have the same
massive audience. In Hillsong’s “With
Everything” there is this “whoa” part after the bridge. That’s great when you have 5,000 teenagers
and young adults singing along. It’s not
so great when you have 50 people in the entire church. That’s a real problem if you are trying to
perform a song just like it sounds on the album. With the band that I have right now, I can’t
do “Jesus Paid It All” the way Kristian Stanfill does. Singing “O
praise the one who paid my debts and raised this life up from the grave” 4
times is a bit too repetitive. It
doesn’t matter that the chord structure changes after the first 2 times. We don’t have the musicians to clearly define
that change in the music.
The
other big problem is that Sunday morning has an inherently different purpose
than Saturday night. The closest you
will get to a sermon on Saturday night is a basic presentation of the
Gospel. That’s a very good thing, don’t
get me wrong, but it’s not what we need on Sunday morning. Saturday night we want to hear some great
music and sing along with lots of people.
Sunday morning we should want to sing some great songs and hymns. We should also want to be challenged to grow
in our faith. We should want to interact
with our close friends and share our lives with them. Saturday night should be about having a great
evening with a lot of people. Sunday
morning should be about growing in our walk with Christ.
This is
where the issue of “performancism” causes a problem for me. When worship leaders try to recreate Saturday
night or the congregation “needs” the worship leader to recreate Saturday
night, that’s a problem. The arena on
Saturday night probably has a few Jumbotrons that help everyone more clearly
see the band on stage, maybe even zoom in on specific members of the band. That shouldn’t be happening on Sunday
morning. Saturday night is about going
to a concert, singing along with songs we hear on the radio and, sometimes,
sing on Sunday morning. It’s about
hanging out with friends and having fun.
Sunday morning should be about coming to meet with Christ, to admit our
need for Christ, to be challenged in our faith.
This seems to be the key point in David Santistevan’s post. If I’m singing Chris Tomlin’s “Lay Me Down”
on Saturday night, it’s because it’s fast, high energy, and a heck of a lot of
fun to sing. If I’m singing that same
song Sunday morning, I should be thinking about the fact that I belong to
Christ; I should be reflecting upon my own actions to see if I really am laying
myself down in service to Christ. I
should be asking myself, is it really a joy to say to God “your will your way,
always.” If we’re striving to make
Saturday night happen on Sunday morning, then we probably aren’t creating the
space where our congregations can be challenged and changed by the songs we
sing.
Finally, I link back to JamieBrown’s blog as he wrote several more posts on this idea of performance and
worship that you really should read, including one on why you need to get your
face off the screen.
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