Resources and Comments in Response to “Why Do We Worship the Way We Have Always Worshiped When People Keep Changing?”
In the July 12 issue of Alban Weekly (“Why Do We Worship the Way We Have Always Worshiped When People Keep Changing?“), Graham Standish asserts that forms of worship need to be adapted to the trends that emerge with each new generation. Forms that were vital thirty or forty years ago fail as time passes because congregations forget to “keep the focus of worship on the encounter with the Holy.” Maintaining the status quo begins to take precedence over enabling people to “gain a sense of the Creator’s purpose in their lives, Christ’s presence in worship, and the Spirit’s power working through them.”
What is the alternative? Becoming intentional about adapting worship to the spiritual realities of people’s lives. The core question, says Standish, is this: “Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?”
What resources might help you and your congregation move toward an adaptive, spiritual approach to worship? In addition to the items listed at the bottom of the article (particularly Standish’s books, In God’s Presence and Becoming a Blessed Church), the items featured in the “Worship” and “Spirituality” sections of the Congregational Resource Guide may prove helpful. You might especially consider Beyond the Worship Wars, and Making Liturgy.
What are your stories and ideas concerning this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!
Mrs. Standish is probably correct. Were it not for her husband’s critical view of the forms of worship, he would no doubt not attend church on Sunday morning. I found his article internally conflicted. In adjacent paragraphs he devalued worship which is not God-focused; then turned right around to state that worship should not be God-focused.
What is captured in “encountering the Holy” which is not satisfied by God-focused worship? His approach to worship uses the hackneyed terms of “relevance” and “spiritual” in the usual nebulous ways worship pundits have been speaking for years. I thought worship that is Christian had to do with truth, not “relevance” to the changing forms of each generation. The church needs much more on the topic of worship whch goes beyond Mr. Standish’s “traditional” vs. “contemporary” [implied] in this article. And since when is the church to “adapt worship to the spiritual realities” in people’s lives?
What room is there for God if his worship team does this effectively
week after week? And how on any Sunday will we ever know that “people have encountered the holy”…and why is that his responsibility if what we do is by faith? By removing the “mystery” from worship, Mr. Standish merely sustains an approach toward the worship of the church according to the customer-satisfaction which Bill Hybels has recently recanted as wrong in the seeker-ideology which began the abortion of Spirit-led, faith-based worship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob years ago. “Spirituality” cannot be the criterion for effective Christian worship—I can get spirituality in a Gospel and Yoga exercise class. Mr. Standish needs to remove the Gnosticism and relocate his thought within historical, orthodox Christianity unless only “spiritual experience” is all that matters to him.
Paul O. Bischoff, Ph.D.
Unlike another who responded, I’m not going to critique Standish’s article, but I do want to thank him for expressing what he has.
I am fortunate and very blessed to lead a very diverse multicultural congregation that worships in English in a German-speaking environment. We have people from nearly 40 different countries in our congregation, and they bring with them even more varied traditions and expectations. It’s a joyful privilege and an exciting challenge to design worship for this group of about 110 who gather on Sundays, and I’m happy to say that ‘encountering God so that we can be changed even a little bit’ is my primary criterion.
Services regularly run 1 1/2 hrs, with communion and occasional baptisms/dedications making it sometimes longer. Since this time is the only time in the week when the community comes together, I feel it’s especially important to do some community-building during this time (another way we encounter God, I believe), so we include a children’s time; thorough, inviting announcements; welcoming of guests (with where they’re from); and a greeting time/passing of the peace; prayer requests and prayers that are personal; and lots and lots of different kinds of music. I intentionally personalize many things, using names and countries of origin a lot, because that ‘introduces’ this diverse community to each other and draws them closer together (again, encountering God in each other).
In another year I will return to the US to take another congregation, probably my last before retirement, and it will still be my criterion that people who come to worship experience God in some way and are changed somehow by it. I don’t see this as ‘mere spirituality’ at all. I understand my job as worship leader to bring these worshipers, who are there by choice, closer to God in some way; then, I must trust God to do what is available to do. And I know in my own experience the truth of Luke 1:37 (“With God, nothing will be impossible.”)
Thanks, again, for this article.
I would probably hate worship, too, if every week I had to “tinker” and “tweak” with the liturgy to “design experiences” to “make worship more relevant” so that people will encounter God by what we do. (As though somehow we are going to conjure up a neat experience of God for our people.) What an awful burden to place upon oneself. That Standish may have been successful to date in his church (i.e., in terms of numbers) only means he is a very talented showman.
Pr. Standish’s outlook is precisely what is wrong with worship in so many churches today: chasing down the culture with our latest liturgical trick or treats, hoping people will take interest in our latest innovations. Pastors have cast themselves in the role of Ed Sullivans, each week out to produce “a really big show for you” tonight — or should I say this morning. Standish proposes nothing new; it is the standard project since the Enlightenment: modern times are certain, tradition is suspect, what was must be trimmed, fitted, changed to become relevant to where people are today.
Rather than engage in a point-by-point critique of Pr. Standish’s article, let me simply point him and our readers to an article that addresses the same issue he does, but provides a completely alternate and, I believe, more faithful answer to the question. It is Bishop Chaput’s recent article on First Things Online, “Glory God By Your Life.” (http://www.firstthings.com/ont.....-your-life) As he writes, “The project is not to shape the liturgy according to the suppositions of the age, but allowing the liturgy to question and shape the suppositions of any age.”
Of course, one may within the sructure of the liturgy use a variety of musical styles, rituals, ceremonies, etc. And the liturgy of the Church and the Church year is marvelously adaptible, flexible and varied to any culture. That is far different from “trying to figure out where people are spiritually” and adapting worship to them.
So why do we worship the way we always have worshipped, when people keep changing? Precisely because the catholic tradition of the liturgy provides an anchor point, a firm foundation, a rock upon which to build the Church. Any other builds on sinking sand.
I think the most important part of Standish’s essay is this paragraph:
“Ultimately, the problem isn’t that each generation keeps changing. The problem is that as time passes congregations and their leaders forget to keep the focus of worship on the encounter with the Holy. They forget that unless people sense that they have had an encounter with Christ, an experience of the Spirit and that through worship they are increasingly established in the Creator, then worship is no longer God-focused.”
While I totally disagree with Standish’s need for “tinkering,” I think the author is spot-on in saying that the pastor’s challenge is to facilitate the encounter between God and worshiper to the extent that the pastor provides an engaging message, thoughtful prayers, and thematic hymn/song selections which match the readings and proclaimation of the Word. All of these can be done within any worship form the congregation choses to embrace.
In my faith tradition that encounter is very tangible in the waters of baptism and the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. That’s pretty palpable stuff worthy of an encounter. Therefore I need to try my best not to get in the way of that.
I read Mr. Standish,s article with keen interest because I lead a congregation of people who are living their worship experience through their memory of past glory, a time when the church was full, the choir ranks bulging and the music of cathedral quality. The reality today is that we continue to practice the liturgy as though those things were still true. In fact, the body is sixty percent smaller, the choir is virtually gone and the quality ofmthe music is commensurate with the new reality. So the older generation longs form what was and the new generation wishes for something different, or stays home.
The problem with the article is that while everything he said resonated with me and with my experience, I knew precious little more when I finished than when I began. Some practical ideas would have been useful. Just how did he ‘tweak’ the worship? Enquiring minds want tonknow.
In far too many congregation, a half a dozen hymns are popular and the liturgy is rote and repetitive Standish is right on. Worships needs the people worshipping and connecting with the “Holy” not worrying about kick-off, the roast in the crock-pot, or if we are going to be out early enough to get a good seat at Cracker Barrel.
I agree that generational shifts offer a welcome opportunity to reexamine and reinvigorate worship by seeing it though new eyes. If we become too attached to worship as we’ve always known it, then we come perilously close to worshiping worship rather than worshiping God.
What concerns me about this article, though, is that Standish seems to putting the bulk of the blame for “functional” worship on the views of existing members of the church:
That may be the case in some congregations, but I would contend that shifting the focus to recruiting membership can have an equal result — more functional, less spiritual worship. Do we truly believe in the transformational power of worship as an experience of the Holy that can lead people to a greater commitment to the Great Mystery, to the community of faith, and to the spiritual work that individuals do in the wider world? If so, any appeal to “relevance” for any group — be they old-timers or newcomers — should be oriented toward fostering purpose, presence, and participation, not putting on a performance that fits within this week’s favored cultural paradigm.
Amen, Graham. You put into cogent theological terms what my heart has screamed for decades. In a congregation which does not want ‘contemporary’ worship, and that is the opinion of our young adults,too, there is still something very much missing for them. This explains why the ‘symbolic acts’ detailed in the Iona ‘Wild Goose Worship Group’ liturgical materials have been so thoroughly embraced when I find the appropriate theme and the (resource) ability to include them in our worship. I have been hit with the (not novel to you, most likely) notion of inviting my 6 most respected matriarchs who are the greatest source of grumbling about anything new to meet with me as a ‘focus group’ in order to identify what music specifically connects them to the Holy AND to read/discuss this paper in order to educate and persuade them to support including the regular use of a wide variety of global contemporary music — whatever will also accomplish this for the 40% of our ‘active’ membership who is under 40 years of age, but a tiny percentage of our worshiping church. Thanks yet again for your faithful guidance.
I am thankful to Standish for confessing what is also true for me: sometimes I’m not fed spiritually by corporate worship, whether it is traditional or contemporary. Maybe I get something else out of it, though: a new theological insight, or connection with a friend…
I question two things: one, are we placing too much emphasis on the Sunday worship experience? I think it’s near impossible to get an encounter with the holy, a sense of community, grounding in Christian tradition, and a “really big show”, all in 60 minutes. Encounters with the holy in my experience happen more often in small groups; for some they happen on a mission trip or in nature. Maybe we shouldn’t try to put all our eggs in one basket. I sense that successful faith commnities are providing different doorways into awareness of the Spirit’s presence.
Secondly, it may be naive to assume that everyone wants to have an encounter with the holy on Sunday. Of course, we want them to want that! But we cannot stop people from coming to worship for other reasons, and we perhaps should not judge them for that, but trust the Spirit to work with them as it will.
I am curious if the church is growing where the author of this article pastors. I agree with the basis premise of the article. I love the idea of focusing on worship and working with it and making it more intentional. Is the author sure people have walked away because of worship styles? Is this referring to protestants or Catholics or Anglicans? Which groups does he mean? Is worship for us or for God? Is changing worship to suit a few not like changing channels to keep the kids happy? My questions are negative in nature even though I agree with the basic premise of the article.
There is tension between generations at worship for many reasons, including the fact that we approach our world view differently and hence our way of relating to the experience of God is different. Leonard Sweet does a wonderful job of explaining this in his book, “The Church of the Perfect Storm”. The builders and boomers are still approaching God from a “I think there for I am” perspective while the Gen-Xers and Millennials are coming from “If I experience it then it is truth to me” In order for churches to be effective in their worship they have to acknowledge both needs and provide for them. Churches that ask both groups to compromise and share “blended worship” are going to appeal to a small group but fail to provide a quality experience to either. Ideally both groups need to acknowledge and support each other rather than judging each others needs.
Because we have made Sunday worship the yardstick by which our churches are measured, we think if we are not united in that then we have failed. But we can find common ground in other areas.Christian Education can provide an excellent opportunity for that. After all Jesus spent the majority of His time teaching. As long as we are united with Christ as our center in all we do, then we can find creative ways to provide a transforming encounter with God in all venues.
I think Standish hits the nail on the head when he says the problem is that we lose focus on encounter with the holy. I would further argue that the constant “tinkering” IS valuable — but less because the resulting tinkered worship is necessarily superior and more because the process of tinkering — when that tinkering is done by empowered lay teams — keeps worship fresh and intentional. The book “Gathered Before God: Worship-Centered Church Renewal” by Jane Rogers Vann suggests the combination of experience, reflection and innovation in worship brings about congregational renewal.
While I am grateful for what I believe Standish is trying to do, like some others here I am left shaking my head as to what he means exactly. I don’t see how any mortal can design an “experience” that guarantees and encounter with the Holy. Isn’t that the wind that blows where it wills…..? What I do believe we can do and we should do as best we are able is worship in way that we create a space in our collective and individual lives (something we can do) in which the Spirit might – might – choose to enter. For that to happen, I haven’t found anything better than the four-fold order: Gathering, Word, Meal, Sending. Ancient and present at the same time.
Love the article and agree mostly. My take on it is that there is a necessary functionality that goes with worship design and that’s why it’s so tempting to fall into the trap of just being functional. It’s tangible, and thus easier for leaders. If those who plan and lead worship aren’t spending time with God and immersed in God’s presence, that’s what happens. And most leaders are so busy running their churches that they’re not making time in their own day for spiritual practices. It’s an occupational hazzard. In fact, the functionality of it keeps us from having to drop our own defenses to be intimate with God. It’s very subtle. But I see it all the time with pastors. Anyway, great article. CT
Claudia writes: “Being intentional means reassessing our practice of worship and asking whether what we are offering actually connects members of each generation with the Holy. It means asking a simple question: Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?” Why not press on to this most crucial question: Does our worship connect us with the specifics of how the Holy wants us to live in our various daily places in the week ahead? When ministry in daily ife is the growing issue, is this not the real question we must ask?
To be fair and charitable, N. Graham Standish’s premise that worship should be a transcendent and transformational encounter with the Holy is helpful. He is also right by insisting that worship planning must be intentional instead of being shaped by preference and behavioral ruts. But after that, his worship renewal train is derailed by the same ahistorical modern approach that has cultivated a generation of religious narcissists, worship wars, and has reduced corporate worship to a commodity.
To be sure, corporate worship must be in the cultural language of the people. It must connect. The Incarnation teaches us that principle in that the Son of God became one of us and dwelt among us. The disciples got it. They beheld his glory. But there is a difference between speaking the cultural language and accommodating to its values. Standish does the latter when he insists that well-designed worship is “an encounter with God…that is deliberately focused on making a spiritual and psychological impact on people.” He aligns his definition of good worship with the dominant cultural obsession with “my experience.” He has reduced the objective and measurable criteria of worship to a “holy buzz.” The object of worship has become me. And what is the measure of “spiritual and psychological impact” for me. Did they sing my songs? Did the message make me feel good? What if my “needs” haven’t been met? It’s a deep pit and I’m afraid that is where many of our churches find themselves today. I know. I’m a worship pastor and I’ve dealt with those expectations for over thirty years. Frankly, it grieves me deeply. The American Evangelical church is in dire need of worship renewal.
Standish’s approach is rooted in the shifting sands of cultural evolution. It is far better to be rooted in Scripture and the historical practice of the Church. It is the height of modern ignorance and arrogance to jettison the practice of the past. Rather, we should frame worship as doing God’s Story through the Word and the Table as the Church has historically done. Worship as God’s Story takes the focus away from the individual and transforms us over time as we join the saints of all ages in the Grand Narrative.
Sure, change the language of corporate worship to connect with the people who we seeking to engage. Use the technology, the songs, and relate the issues of today to the Narrative of God’s historical Story. But focus on the substance rather than the means. Faithful and transformative worship will enact God’s Story through the various elements of the service rather than seek to craft an experience to satisfy the desires of the modern worship consumer.
I’m disappointed with Alban. I have found many of their books to be quite helpful. I’ve even used some in undergraduate courses that I’ve taught. But if Standish’s book is anything like his essay, I’m afraid it is more harmful than helpful. There are others that are better.
God help us all.
excerpts from RECLAIMING CHURCH by Doug Sloan
http://dmergent.org/2010/06/03/reclaiming-church/
How many of us have seen or participated in placing a hand on the wall of the sanctuary and then saying, “This is not the church.” With this act, we are trying to illustrate that it is the people of our faith community who are the church and not the building. Do we have any idea what we just said? If the building is not the church, why do we spend so much time and effort dealing with it? If the building is not the church, why is it so important to us? After we have said, “This is not the church,” have we ever taken a far look in the direction we just pointed? What happens when we extend that thought?
What do capital campaigns and 6- or 7- or 8-digit mortgages (or any mortgage amount) and sanctuaries with high vaulted ceilings and proper acoustic resonance and stained glass windows and basketball courts and dining halls and sculpted altars and carved pulpits and custom-built communion tables and decorative carpet and imported floor tiles and plentiful paved parking lots and meticulously manicured gardens have to do with living and sharing the Good News? – Nothing.
What do fund raisers and all the accompanying effort and bother and time and finding and organizing the required workers have to do with living and sharing the Good News? – Nothing.
What do praise bands and church orchestras and bell choirs and octaves of tuned bells and multi-rank pipe organs and grand pianos and synthesizers and adult choirs and children choirs and choir auditions and choir robes and music folders and the search and review and selection analysis and purchase of new music and multi-line PA systems and multi-screen video systems and live broadcasts and recorded broadcasts and hours of rehearsal time and church bulletins and church bulletin art work and church bulletin paper and designer fonts and newsletters and mailing lists and advertising and advertising placement and multi-media web sites and visits by unique IP addresses and the use of and the presence on new media have to do with living and sharing the Good News? – Nothing.
What do membership drives and attendance numbers and baptism numbers and tithing and bequeaths and endowments and liturgical employees and non-liturgical employees and salaries and benefits and committees and committee meetings and church boards and church board meetings and the consequential and unavoidable church politics have to do with living and sharing the Good News? – Nothing.
Much of what we call successful Christianity and successful worship and successful congregations has nothing to do with living and sharing the Good News.
Once we begin to think of our faith in terms of largeness instead of largess or in terms of measurable success or significant achievements or community stature or statistically significant gains or business models or congregational models or appropriate budget processes or cash flow direction or generally accepted accounting practices or independent audits or administrative requirements or managerial transparency or proper leadership roles and boundaries or membership trends or effective organizational structures or a current and accurate vision statement – at that point, we have become the money changers – we have lost our faith and deserve to be driven away for we are neither living nor sharing the Good News.
What would happen if the church universal – every congregational property, every regional office, every national office, every seminary, every camp – was sold and the net proceeds were used to establish a trust fund endowment to support nutritional, medical, legal, and educational services for the poor, the lost, and the hurt?
When you want a new status quo – a status quo different than the current status quo – you are asking for revolution. When you desire radical transformation – you are asking for revolution. When you are tired of capital campaigns for more structural imagery; nauseated by controversy over who is fit to be a church member, deacon, or elder; repulsed by the aggregation and protection of authority that defines narrow rigid paths to ordination; grievously hurt by the abandonment and refusal to acknowledge congregations who dare to be excited by their proclaiming and living the Good News; or sick of choosing better organization over better outreach – you are asking for revolution.
“Doing” has to be the new definition of faith. A “new definition” will not be statements of purpose/mission/vision or political participation or public stances on issues or styles of worship. It will be specific activities; specific ways of living that are the new definition. Participating in CODA or LifeLine or Habitat for Humanity will not be an outreach activity; it will be what we do and definitive of who we are. Supporting a free clinic or a food pantry or a shelter for the homeless will not be the focus of an annual fund-raising event; it will be part of our continuously active and visible theological and spiritual DNA. Worship will not be every Sunday morning – it will be whenever and wherever 2 or 3 (not 200 or 300, not 2,000 or 3,000, not 20,000 or 30,000) are gathered to live, study, and contemplate the Good News. Indeed, “doing” will be about living and being the Good News, not scheduling it as a repetitive activity on our digital calendar on the same day at the same time that always occurs at the same location and always follows the same sequence. “Doing” our faith does not require capital campaigns; local, regional, or national governing boards; seminaries; or licensing/ordination policies.
“Doing” our faith has to be seen as a radical, counter-cultural, defiant way of living. By its very nature, our faith is not supposed to be institutionalized and not measured by largeness, cultural pervasiveness, or authoritarianism. Our faith is supposed to be personal and divinely humane. Our faithful doing is to be delivered person-to-person, face-to-face, one-to-one – not by an invisible faceless remote committee or collective. “Doing” our faith can be accomplished only with more personal involvement and not with more technology that is better, more pervasive, more invasive, and increasingly remote and detached.
Congregations should be small groups meeting for worship in the homes of different members. Just imagine: Church with no offerings, no church governing boards and no board meetings, no committees and no committee meetings, no rehearsals, no fund raisers, no capital campaigns, no finances, no buildings, no property, no maintenance or repairs or replacements, no employees, no membership drives. Just imagine: Church as only worship, only studying, only witnessing in word and service to each other and the world.
Coming late to the party I find merit in many of the comments. I am not disappointed with Standish because he asks questions as well as makes valuable suggestions about relevancy, spirituality, culture, mystery of God. Each congregation could benefit from asking regularly “Do people encounter the Holy in our worship services?” Then I would expand that question to all congregational activities.