So here's a practical question relating to the design of worship experiences. When it comes to the type of music played in a worship service, should popular songs, written and sung by secular artists, be permitted in the lineup? Not an easy question. I know people on both sides of the issue who would go to the mat on this one. There are some people I've encountered recently who strongly oppose the use of secular music during a worship service. And I suppose I can understand that. In fact if you had asked me 4 or 5 years ago, I probably would have opposed the use of popular secular music in a worship service in MOST cases too. I'll give you 3 reasons why I opposed it then, before I tell you how I changed my position more recently:
1. 4 years ago, I would have told you that popular, secular music is for performance, not worship. Worship, by it's nature, in some way needs to be participatory for the people. In other words, what I saw in the use of secular songs was a theological shift where it was no longer the congregation performing worship for God as our audience, but rather worship bands performing entertainment for the congregation as the audience. Therefore, because secular, popular music was not designed to be participatory in the way that praise music or hymns were designed, it felt decidedly out of place to include them in an environment of worship.
2. I also would have argued that secular music is often inappropriately misused by some churches when they choose a song that sounds as though it's related to something Christian, spiritual, or worshipful, when the artist who authored the song actually intended something totally different. From my Seminary Biblical interpretation classes, I learned the importance of trying to discover the original author's intent before deciding what a passage of Scripture meant. I figured the same principle should apply to the use of music. If the author intended that a song was meant in a certain way when he wrote it, then to perform it in a way he did not intend seemed disingenuous to both the author and to God. Who are we to take a love song written by a musician about his girlfriend and plug it in as a worship song we sing about our love for God? Something just seemed a little "off" about it.
3. And maybe the most important criticism I had of this type of worship selection was that I felt the motivation behind it had less to do with honoring God in the most genuine way possible and more to do with looking cool. I realized there may have been some evangelism benefits to that type of style, but really . . . to me it seemed more like an attempt at impressing people, not glorifying God.
But as I said, I have changed some of my thoughts on this subject to the point where I now actively search for good secular music to use in conjunction with our services at Waterfront rather than avoid them like the plague. How did I change my mind?
