I’m sorry to sound harsh, but really–what are you saying . . . that people should just take it for what it is?

How do you think God feels about it? I know that God does not appreciate vain words and will not suffer any flesh to glory in His presence.

Only a national repentance is going to make a lasting change. In the meantime, there is always going to be remnant of saints seeking reform.

Man, at least in our area of the country I couldn’t disagree more with the above commenter.

We receive no compliment at our ministry without the person mentioning their love for the worship! The only people in our congregation (about 2,500) who spectate are new attendees checking out the church. Some of the lost that come to know the Lord specifically have told me over the years that the music played a HUGE part in their conversion. They say they understand it and the way it described the Lord far easier than the church they grew up in that was filled with music that contained hard to understand church language at times.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely cherish the old hymns and we make sure to include them in our services often.

Our young college aged and upper high school kids are being strategically targeted for mentoring and new small groups are created to care for them and teach them. I oversee all the Technical and Musical areas of the ministry and it is ME creating the connection points for our young adults. I am completely committed to raising up the next generation to lead the church!

I don’t wait for the youth group to do it, or parents to do it, if I as the leader want young people committed to leading worship – I have to create the opportunities and connect them to solid Bible teachers.

Just this week as I walked down the backstage hallway I passed a graduating high school guitarist talking and laughing with our 50 something drummer. Cool stuff.

I don’t try to define our churches music in any certain genre, but, instead explore whatever I feel best supports the pastor’s teaching that weekend and communicates God’s love the clearest.

I had an eye opening experience just this week that I wrote about with a Christian genre of music I don’t care for, but, now must admit God is using it. I have become my parents scared of new styles, just as they were with the Modern worship of today! ha ha you can see what I mean by reading this…

http://www.loribiddle.com/2009/06/night-to-remember.html

I really appreciate your view point in your article and I even agree with you in may ways, but I find one thing lacking in your article that I have found lacking in so many of our worship leaders over the past 15 to 20 years. What I find lacking is a genuine concern for the people we worship leaders have been leading in worship all of these years.

I find that most worship leaders are more concerned about defending their right to express themselves artistically then they are in the condition of their congregations. This is not to say that I get this from you and your article, but your article was a bit on the passive side of the argument of our Modern Worship becoming corrupt or not.

To me, the real issue isn’t whether or not our Modern Worship has become corrupt or not – the issue must become: has our Modern Worship produced any fruit or not in the congregations we’ve been leading.

As a missionary for the past 17 years, I have traveled a lot and have been to many different churches throughout North America as well as Europe and I have consistently seen a similar pattern in most of the churches I’ve attended who incorporate our so called, “Modern Worship” – what I consistently see are congregations that are filled with “Spectators”. What’s even more troubling is most of the worship leaders who are leading these congregations are so busy producing great sounding worship services that they don’t even notice that the majority of the people they are supposedly leading in worship are just standing around spectating.

The real tragedy of Modern Worship is that it hasn’t produced the lovers of God we once saw in the “Old Days” when contemporary worship first started showing up. The bottom line is I don’t see any fruit from it. I think we all agree that it started off really great and then somewhere down the road everything changed. I personally think the reason why it started off the way it did is because the “Heart” was really the motivating and driving factor in the early days of Modern Worship. It wasn’t that the modern music and choruses we were singing was a new thing we didn’t have previously and that is what was driving the worship, it was that people really did Love God and finally had away to express that love with passion towards their God in away that was heartfelt instead of the old conservative way that constrained our hearts as we used to worship when all we had were hymnals. With choruses, we finally had away to tell God we truly did love Him and worshiped Him with passion and sincerity. In other words, what I think I’m trying to say is Love is what was driving our Modern Worship in the beginning, not the new musical style.

Love should always be the driving force behind our worship and the way we worship our God. I think Modern Worship became – as you say “Corrupt” only because worship was no longer being driven by love. Instead, it was being driving by musical style and artistic expression and yes, even money was driving it as it was becoming so commercialized. Granted, the music in our Modern Worship these days sounds so much better than it did in it’s infancy stages back in the 70′s and 80′s, but without the love, really, it has become nothing more than a clanging symbol.

Now, I could be wrong on this, but if so many people in the church are complaining about “Modern Worship” becoming “Corrupt”, don’t you think it might be because so many people recognize how truly empty the sound of clanging symbols really sounds.

For me, when worship is driven by the heart, then the fruit will always be Love. When it’s driven by the music, then the fruit will always be a clanging symbol. When Love drives worship then I believe what you will eventually find on the other end is a congregation filled with lovers of God. When the music is what drives worship, then what you will find is exactly what we have today – Song Singers or worse – Spectators.

We’ve all had our fill with MUSICAL STYLE, and we’ve come out on the other end empty and I believe the church is realizing that STYLE doesn’t bring fulfillment. The people are complaining about our Modern Day worship and our worship leaders seem to be spending more time defending themselves rather than listening to the people they should have been leading all along and adjusting to their needs.

Isn’t that what WORSHIP LEADING is all about anyways – leading the church so that they can truly worship their God? If the people have become spectators instead of lovers, shouldn’t our worship leaders take notice of that and choose to do something about it? Shouldn’t we start examining why our congregations have become so impotent instead of continuing on producing the same old stuff?

I would love to read something about this from a really good writer such as yourself. It’s time to start standing up and fighting for the people who have stood around long enough spectating. It’s time to do what Matt Redman wrote about years ago: Lets’ really get back to the heart of worship and make it all about Christ. If we do this, then and only then will the people in our congregations learn to start expressing their true love towards God instead of just standing around spectating.

Thanks for allowing me the time to respond to your article.

Blessings,

I feel like this is where a lot of people are missing the mark. We are to worried about getting a seasoned musician rather than taking in the young and training them. Not just musically but in the Word and how to live a life that is pure and holy. If we bring them in young when they have the passion, and teach them, when they do began to bless more than just our church with there gift and maybe the nation, we will no longer have and issue with “corruption” at all, because they young would have been taught by the old.

WE NEED TO BE DISCIPLED BY YOU!!! WE NEED YOU WHO HAVE BEEN THERE TO TEACH US HOW TO DO WHAT YOU DO! YOUR NOT TO OLD! WE WANT TO LEARN FROM YOU AND THEN PUT OUR MUSICAL TWIST ON IT!