Embracing a Larger View of Worship

Maybe you’ve heard some of these names in popular music:  The Fray, Sufjan Stevens, Paramore, Corrine Bailey Rae, OneRepublic, Cold War Kids, the Jonas Brothers, Flyleaf, and Jon McLaughlin. This is just a small sampling of recording artists outside of so-called Christian music with professions of faith in Christ. All of this exciting business of “being in the world” used to be called crossover. The truth is, crossover was invented about midway through the cultural experiment that was contemporary Christian music. If the late Larry Norman is indeed the father of contemporary Christian music, then history reminds us that Larry was first signed to Capitol Records and then recorded as a credible indie artist after that. In short, the Jesus-music that started it all began in mainstream pop and not at one of our Christian record labels. 

In our time, there’s been the temptation to choose sides between making music in the culture at large and making music for Church culture. In polarizing these two, we risk missing the point of culture altogether. All culture is God’s culture in that it occurs in His world under His authority. He has given His people the mandate to steward all life-affirming forms of culture making, including popular music and worship music. Both of these reflect some aspect of a holistic view of musical faithfulness. It’s time to let the tired and polarizing arguments associated with these two breathe their last. Honestly, we have bigger fish to fry. This is an apt saying since we need to move from the immaturity of milk to the maturity of solid food (Hebrews 5:12).

Substance
What does culture making maturity look like? It always concerns itself with quality over quantity. So while the Church ought to be thankful for more and more examples of Christians at work in popular music and worship music, we must eventually ask questions about the quality of our faithfulness. This brings me to the take-away portion of this short article.

Significant life-changing cultural impact is always preceded by a genuine concern for the quality of the culture making. I’m not only referring to musical quality, but to that unique quality associated with distinct Christian ways of being, doing, thinking, imagining, and loving—ways that could and should be brought to bear on the lyrics we write. We have finally arrived at the point where we have permission, and we know how to write a good love song to Jesus and to our girlfriend. Yeah! Church, are we now ready to move out and beyond this good but rather small achievement?

Bigger Plans
Mainstream Christian pop artists have been somewhat distracted by keeping the window of cultural opportunity open. This has limited the subject matter of their songs. Worship artists (or lead worshipers) have been no less distracted, keeping the commercial worship opportunity open. All of this is thinking too small. The plans God has for His people are not made of such small stuff. Declaring the Kingdom and participating in it is a huge undertaking that can only be described with lyrics of a commensurate size.

Faithfulness in the stewardship of lyrical music requires a huge and diverse view of God’s story, His agenda for humanity, and ultimately what is praiseworthy. A small view of the Word and work of God leads to a small view of what inspires worship. A small view of what interests Jesus leads to songs of little impact in the culture at large. Bring on the big songs.