It's All About Me, Pt. II

In my previous post, I wrote about how it feels like we have a culture of individualism creeping into worship music.  I feel a bit, however, like I might have missed a deeper point regarding my facetious title ("It's all about me").  More significant than whether or not our worship music is too individualistic is whether or not our worship is too consumeristic.

I stole this graphic, but I think it's pretty funny (video is definitely worth a watch too).  It's easy to poke fun when you look at it this way, but I fear that it hits too close to home and that's why we poke fun at it.  Worse, it sometimes feels like people easily talk disparagingly about "consumer worship" one moment, then dive straight into it the next.  There's two culprits here, as each side is quick to point out.  The churches blame the people - nobody comes if it's not what they want.  The people blame the churches - this is what they're being fed and who would go eat cereal when you could have eggs and bacon?  Gotta start somewhere, so I'm just going to consider a few thoughts, then I'd love to hear your feedback.

First, churches.  I believe this is a culture thing.  You're right, the people demand it.  But cultures can be changed.  I'm not talking about the entire nation, I'm talking about your own congregation.  To do this, you need to "exegete" your own cultural artifacts.  For example, do you have rows of comfortable seats facing a band on a stage?  You might be encouraging something.  Do you constantly work to make your production more and more professional to compete with the church down the street?  That's keeping up with the joneses, not ministry.  You're dealing with a symptom of something else.  When the Holy Spirit shows up, you won't need to worry about your production.  Spiritually mature believers, being discipled deeply at your church, won't be looking to be fed by worship - they'll be looking to praise God for feeding them throughout the week.  God laid down instructions for the Israelites to worship Him, and he didn't take their comfort into account.  Consider setting the bar a bit higher for your members - they may surprise you by reaching for it.

Second, people.  I get it, I really do.  It's called a "heart language of worship" - everyone's got one, and it goes deeper than just your "language."  Just the same as you wouldn't ask a Hispanic to sit in a Korean church week after week, you wouldn't ask someone who worships through contemporary music to sit through a liturgy with an organ and no choir.  There's nothing wrong with wanting to worship in your own "language."  But sometimes we need to put ourselves aside.  When you are a missionary, you enter another culture and choose to worship as they do.  Perhaps we need to think of ourselves more as missionaries, choosing at times to set our own language aside to be part of a community that ministers to each other, and then joins weekly to minister to God.  If you're complaining about the length of the opening set of music, or standing too long, or "those young whippersnappers with guitars", or "those old whippersnappers with organs," you're missing the point.  You don't go to church to get fed.  It's worship.

Anyway, that's just how I feel.  I really do get it.  I feel it.  As a postmodern, I hate scriptedness - it feels inauthentic.  You can tell when the church is really scripting their service, and it drives me nuts.  That's my consumer bent in worship.  I need to remember that it's not about me.  Every time I allow annoyance at anything to block my worship from God, I've got things backward.