An Open Letter to Praise Bands
Dear Praise Band,
I
so appreciate your willingness and desire to offer up your gifts to God
in worship. I appreciate your devotion and celebrate your
faithfulness--schlepping to church early, Sunday after Sunday, making
time for practice mid-week, learning and writing new songs, and so much
more. Like those skilled artists and artisans that God used to create
the tabernacle (Exodus 36), you are willing to put your artistic gifts
in service to the Triune God.
So please receive this little missive in the spirit it is meant: as an encouragement to reflect on the practice
of "leading worship." It seems to me that you are often simply
co-opted into a practice without being encouraged to reflect on its
rationale, its "reason why." In other words, it seems to me that you
are often recruited to "lead worship" without much opportunity to pause
and reflect on the nature of "worship" and what it would mean to "lead."
In particular, my concern is that we, the church, have unwittingly encouraged you to simply import musical practices into
Christian worship that--while they might be appropriate elsewhere--are
detrimental to congregational worship. More pointedly, using language I
first employed in Desiring the Kingdom, I sometimes worry that we've unwittingly encouraged you to import certain forms of performance that
are, in effect, "secular liturgies" and not just neutral "methods."
Without us realizing it, the dominant practices of performance train us
to relate to music (and musicians) in a certain way: as something for
our pleasure, as entertainment, as a largely passive experience. The
function and goal of music in these "secular liturgies" is quite
different from the function and goal of music in Christian worship.
So let me offer just a few brief axioms with the hope of encouraging new reflection on the practice of "leading worship":
1. If we, the congregation, can't hear ourselves, it's not worship.
Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular "form
of performance"), we often expect to be overwhelmed by sound,
particularly in certain styles of music. In a concert, we come to
expect that weird sort of sensory deprivation that happens from sensory
overload, when the pounding of the bass on our chest and the wash of
music over the crowd leaves us with the rush of a certain aural vertigo.
And there's nothing wrong with concerts! It's just that Christian
worship is not a concert. Christian worship is a collective, communal,
congregational practice--and the gathered sound and harmony of a
congregation singing as one is integral to the practice of
worship. It is a way of "performing" the reality that, in Christ, we
are one body. But that requires that we actually be able to hear
ourselves, and hear our sisters and brothers singing alongside us. When
the amped sound of the praise band overwhelms congregational voices, we
can't hear ourselves sing--so we lose that communal aspect of the
congregation and are encouraged to effectively become "private," passive
worshipers.
2. If we, the congregation, can't sing along, it's not worship.
In other forms of musical performance, musicians and bands will want
to improvise and "be creative," offering new renditions and exhibiting
their virtuosity with all sorts of different trills and pauses and
improvisations on the received tune. Again, that can be a delightful
aspect of a concert, but in Christian worship it just means that we, the
congregation, can't sing along. And so your virtuosity gives rise to
our passivity; your creativity simply encourages our silence. And while
you may be worshiping with your creativity, the same creativity actually shuts down congregational song.
3. If you, the praise band, are the center of attention, it's not worship. I know it's generally not your fault that we've put you at the front of the church. And I know you want to model
worship for us to imitate. But because we've encouraged you to
basically import forms of performance from the concert venue into the
sanctuary, we might not realize that we've also unwittingly encouraged a
sense that you are the center of attention. And when your performance
becomes a display of your virtuosity--even with the best of
intentions--it's difficult to counter the temptation to make the praise
band the focus of our attention. When the praise band goes into long
riffs that you might intend as "offerings to God," we the congregation
become utterly passive, and because we've adopted habits of relating to
music from the Grammys and the concert venue, we unwittingly make you
the center of attention. I wonder if there might be some intentional
reflection on placement (to the side? leading from behind?) and performance that might help us counter these habits we bring with us to worship.
Please consider these points carefully and recognize what I am not
saying. This isn't just some plea for "traditional" worship and a
critique of "contemporary" worship. Don't mistake this as a defense of
pipe organs and a critique of guitars and drums (or banjos and
mandolins). My concern isn't with style, but with form:
What are we trying to do when we "lead worship?" If we are intentional
about worship as a communal, congregational practice that brings us into
a dialogical encounter with the living God--that worship is not merely expressive but also formative--then we can do that with cellos or steel guitars, pipe organs or African drums.
Much,
much more could be said. But let me stop here, and please receive this
as the encouragement it's meant to be. I would love to see you
continue to offer your artistic gifts in worship to the Triune God who
is teaching us a new song.
Most sincerely,
Jamie
