Worship Culture
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Worship Culture
John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books , including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently What Is Saving Faith?
John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books , including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently What Is Saving Faith?
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1. There is very little in the New Testament about the forms and style and content of corporate worship. Following Old Testament forms too closely contradicts the obsolescence of the wineskins. God must mean to leave the matter of form and style and content to the judgment of our spiritual wisdom — not to our whim or our tradition, but to prayerful, thoughtful, culturally alert, self-critical, Bible-saturated, God-centered, Christ-exalting reflection driven by a passion to be filled with all the fullness of God. I assume this will be an ongoing process, not a one-time effort.
2. One way to describe the differences in how people approach worship is to speak in terms of fine culture and folk culture. By “culture” I mean a pattern of life including thought and emotion and speech and activity. By “fine culture” I have in mind the pattern of life that puts a high priority on intellectual and artistic expressions that require extraordinary ability to produce and often demand disciplined efforts to understand and appreciate. By “folk culture” I have in mind the pattern of life that puts a high priority on expressions of heart and mind that please and help average people without demanding unusual effort.
For example, it’s the difference between classical music and blue grass (or easy listening or rock or show tunes or oldies or country western — all of which are “the music of the people,” though I realize there is a continuum rather than a neat box for all kinds and qualities of music).
Or another example would be the contrast between a Shakespearean drama at the Guthrie and “The Empire Strikes Back” at a theater.
Or one might think of the difference between reading Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem, “The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord.”
I caught this morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing.
Or on the other hand reading the homespun poetry of Edgar A. Guest,
It takes a heap o’ livin’ to make a house a home.
3. We should not pass judgment on fine culture or folk culture *per se*. There are caricatures of the excesses in both that are easy to condemn. That is not our purpose. It is more profitable to consider the strengths and weaknesses built into both of them so as to avoid the weaknesses and affirm the strengths in both. Fine culture and folk culture have intrinsic vulnerabilities to sin and unique potentialities for God-glorifying goodness. They are redeemable.
4. Intrinsic vulnerabilities of high culture include elitism and snobbishness. In demanding high levels of intellect and skill, it easily inflates the ego of those who succeed in it and tempts them to look with contempt on folk culture with its simpler achievements. It easily isolates technical expertise from the larger issues of life and attempts to give it intrinsic value instead of defining its value in relation to other, more important spiritual and personal realities. It is inevitably less accessible to average people and therefore tends toward performance rather than participation, and this performance orientation carries again the tendency toward an atmosphere of aloofness and distance.
5. Intrinsic vulnerabilities of folk culture include a laziness and carelessness. There is an intrinsic drift toward increasing indifference to simple disciplines that define excellence at the most rudimentary levels (for example, using bad grammar in worship songs like “you reigneth” or having “you” and “thou” in the same line. This is not like the word “ain’t” in “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.” It’s like singing “Thou ain’t nothin but a hound dog”). Folk culture, with its intrinsic anti-intellectualism, tends to short-circuit the mind and move the emotions with shortcuts. Thus folk culture is not generally a preservative force for great biblical doctrine.
6. The positive potentials of fine culture include the preservation of what we might call the “life of the mind.” Fine culture is more likely than folk culture to inject into the stream of society the commitment to think hard and think clearly. It is more likely than folk culture to keep the intellect from atrophying. It is especially crucial that Christians not surrender the life of the mind to the secular world, first, because it belongs to God, and he commanded us to love him with our minds, and second, because we will lose succeeding generations if we do not have intellectually credible expressions of faith to pass on to them.
Further, fine culture has the potential of preserving the very concepts of truth and excellence and beauty as objective ideals rooted in God as our Absolute. Folk culture tends always to exalt what works. It is intrinsically pragmatic and colloquial and does not measure its achievements in terms of objective, absolute ideals, but generally in terms of wide appeal and practical effect. Fine culture tends to march the beat of a drummer other than mass appeal or practical effect. At its best it strives to create images of excellence and beauty and truth that echo more faithfully the ultimate excellence of God. Fine culture thus has the potential (if not contemporary success) of helping preserve the real complexities of truth and thus guarding against the intrinsic tendency of folk culture toward over-simplification and eventual distortion.
Fine culture has the potential of touching some emotions that folk culture will not touch. Folk culture tends toward what can be commonly shared and therefore minimizes what is rare. However, some emotions that belong to God are rare and profound, and may be awakened and carried best through the expressions of fine culture. For example, there are probably some senses of grandeur that find preservation and expression best in some grand and magnificent artistic statements that are not part of folk culture.
7. The positive potentials of folk culture include meeting people where they are in order to communicate. Folk culture affirms the importance of building bridges of shareable experience. It is a go-and-tell mentality rather than a come-and-see mentality. It goes the extra mile to make its vision accessible to the average person.
Folk culture keeps the truth clear that elite groups of intellectuals and artists that look with contempt on the common man and his needs and tastes are not admirable persons no matter how accomplished their talents. Folk culture has the potential of reminding us that God must have loved the common people because he made so many of them. Folk culture is by nature incarnational: It clothes its claims with the skin of ordinary people and affirms implicitly the value of getting through to the mind and heart of the masses.
Folk culture at its best has the potential of touching emotions that fine culture will not generally touch. Thus folk culture honors the preciousness of average wonders. Falling in love, taking a walk, eating a good meal, talking to a friend, swimming in the ocean, having a baby, planting a garden — all these are likely to be the subject of folk culture creations and communications. It helps us not neglect ordinary beauty.
8. In the church all that we do falls somewhere on the continuum between fine culture and folk culture. Our music, our architecture, our furnishings, our dress, our written materials, our preaching and teaching, our conversation between services, etc.
9. In thinking about our worship forms and about the general tone and atmosphere of our church, we should take the possible weaknesses and potential strengths of fine culture and folk culture into account. We will hopefully be able to affirm all that is good in both cultures, to find a way both to “be ourselves” (which is partly inevitable) and be what we need to be to honor the excellence and truth and beauty of God, and to reach out to all the kinds of people God is calling us to touch.
10. This will be an ongoing process, not a once-for-all discovery.
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Kairah James, a personal trainer and body confidence coach, speaks on the intersection between fitness and worship.
12 Elements Of A Thriving Worship Culture
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Every church has a culture, and every worship ministry within a church has a culture as well. Our worship culture determines our long-term effectiveness at loving each other deeply, making beautiful music, creating environments that disciple, mentor, and release others (often to replace us), and building consistent spaces that empower our community in Kingdom worship. I put together the following “Our Worship Culture” statement for our own worship community at the Vineyard Church of Franklin in TN, and am posting it here if it can be helpful in forming your own for your church.
The following ideas remind us who we are, and where we are going, as a worship tribe.
Every church has a culture, and every worship ministry within a church has a culture as well. The following ideas remind us who we are, and where we are going, as a worship tribe. If we all put apply our hearts to embodying each of these ideas personally, our worship community will thrive over the years.
1. We Are A Worship Tribe First, And A Team Second
We function as a tribe more than a team, carrying our church’s story with us, caring for our personal health and growth, praying for each other, and serving where needed, as needed. We all want to be like Jesus – and that makes us a family more than a team.
2. We Have A Weekly Worship Culture, Not Just A Sunday Event
We serve our family through many worship experiences, not just on Sunday mornings. We see our other events, large and small, with just as much significance as a Sunday morning. We don’t covet stages or platforms – they are just one context in which we lead.
3. We See The Worship Experience As An Invitation To A Table, Not A Service Or Experience
We recognize that people have come to “meet with God” (Ps. 42:2). As worship leaders, musicians, and techs, our posture is one of hospitality – we help set a Table for meeting.
4. We Mentor Others, Rather Than Being Self-Focused
We do not cling to our roles, but rather look for opportunities to develop others and, when they are trained and ready, release them to be involved. We give away stages as others are trained.
5. We Actively Pursue Personal & Musical Growth
We are self-motivated to grow – on every level. We are teachable, even the most professionally skilled among us, and receive input graciously. We model the pursuit of Kingdom greatness. We choose to get better month after month, on our instruments, musicality, leadership, and more by taking consistent, small steps toward growth.
6. We Serve Our Community, And Each Other, With No Competition
We nurture servanthood in word and deed, and champion each other. We have a distinct lack of ambition/competition among us. We trust God with our callings, and find opportunities to serve. Praying for one another keeps us us tender to, and safe for, one another.
7. We Have An Open-Handed Ministry Model
We believe that an Open-Handed Ministry model, where we make room for others to be involved, lead, play, or participate, is vital. For health and growth, we choose to be flexible. We step on an off of stages easily, without fighting for platform. Our hearts and hands are open to all that God may be doing – in us, in others, and our church.
8. We Celebrate Creativity And Excellence, Without Sacrificing Community
We celebrate excellence in all aspects of personal spirituality and music, and yet we are also open to inviting others in and discipling – with all the mess it can bring. Creativity is a high value for us, and while it is always subject to the needs of our community when it comes to worship, we want to fan into flame the the creative passions of one another.
9. We Keep The Bar High On Musicality, Heart, And Skill On Our Team
We believe that excellence in Christlikeness, and excellence in musical skill, are both vital qualities in every worship ministry member. We keep the bar high on both of these for ourselves, all the while working to create environments in which people at all stages of progress can succeed along the way.
10. We Embrace Relational and Interpersonal Purity
We are vitally connected in relationships, in small groups, and in our church family. We pursue accountable relationships, we keep short accounts, and we are teachable. Family wins. Always.
11. We Care For The Poor, And Invite Them Into Our Lives
[While this may seem out of place, for those who practice it, you will understand how this empowers a worship community culture.] We see the poor as “us,” not “them” – and allow this Kingdom perspective to change us. As a church community, and as a church family, we lean toward the poor, building community with them. This community-building includes us as a worship community. Our hearts and attitudes are softened by the felt-needs of the poor. We will continue learning to become like Christ in this as we go, and connection with the poor will shape our songs and ways of leading worship.
12. We Communicate Honestly, But With Grace And A Willingness To Learn
We choose to be very difficult to offend. We don’t do politics or complaining; we serve where we can, honor the direction of leaders, communicate with grace and honesty, assume the best of others, and give grace generously and freely as we bring our best gifts to an imperfect Table.
These are some starter ideas to help you form your own worship culture, and it’s my prayer you find your worship expression growing in richness, quality, passion, intimacy – and a sense of the Lord’s power in your midst.
Question: What other elements, in your experience, help a worship culture growth in strength over time?
Resources: Ideas on building a Worship Philosophy for your church are covered in the Essentials In Worship Ministry study (part of Essentials ).
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Sheltering Mercy helps us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation.
The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. This book contains 75 prayers drawn from Psalms 1-75, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning in the Psalms. Each prayer is a response to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life.
This artful, poetic, and classic devotional book features compelling custom illustrations and foil-stamped hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms. Co-written with Ryan Whitaker Smith, Brazos Publishing.
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