Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

4 April, 2008   comments: (0) Today's Worship   I Confess: Wrong Motives For 'Rockin' Worship You might remember earlier last year when I posted the confession of a numbers-pastor who came clean and admitted his wrong motives for counting converts; he said his whole idea of 'success' was tied up in these stats, and went on to warn other pastors how easy it is to get caught up in the numbers. Well here's a similar confession from a technology guy who wanted his church's worship services to 'rock', and like the confessing numbers-pastor he did some soul searching and questioning of his true motives. If only more of today's pastors would examine their hearts like these men, and ask themselves "why am I doing this?" Perry Noble's ranting post from a while ago entitled "I Don't See How Someone Can Worship God With A Booming Sound System" (he says that's not true) and Steven Furtick's constant use of the term "Worship Experience" are clues to what's so wrong with the music aspect of many of today's worship gatherings. When you think about what they are saying, the priority seems to be what THEY want, what the people want, what would most please us, or WOW us as some like to say, and oh by the way - they want to worship God along the way. But that's entirely the wrong priority; Worship is for God. There's an "experience" we may have when we worship, but that's not the aim; our aim is to give Him the worship that is due Him. And the idea isn't to pick OUR favorite kind of music, and then let it JAM to (as Perry said at least once) bring the roof down; what we should be asking is what would be BEST for worshipping in spirit and in truth according to God. Well here's that email, from a church sound engineer who finally came to understand that his motives were out of place. I don't agree with all of his final conclusions, but his story is one that deserves to be re-told as a reminder to us all of where our motives should be as we serve in our churches. Email From a Church A/V Engineer: I wish to comment on the "Quote of the day" post on 1/3/08, where it was stated: "Worship is now an 'experience', and its an experience you have to reach multiple senses with. I think that's a step to reach the society where we are. Church, in the last five years, has really accelerated in the understanding that you have to be at least at pace with society technologically, if not ahead." A quick background. I have been a "videophile" all my life. I have been fascinated with video technology since my dad let me use a Super 8 mm format film camera when I was a kid. Since that time, I have been a video director, technical director, assistant director, camera operator on both standard definition and high definition systems, video engineer, CG operator, and recently audio "engineer" (just learning). I have used systems with screens that literally cost a million dollars and then some. Unfortunately, I made the sin of letting the technology dazzle me too much in church over praising God. And when I felt like my worship was hollow and worthless, and that "nothing was happening" when I went to the services I used to look forward to, I had to ask a very damning question: who, or WHAT was I worshiping? The answer wasn't God or Jesus. And that forced me to answer some really deep questions and bring some dark things to the Light. Let me warn anyone and everyone who is in video or sound production who will listen: I made the mistake of praising the creation, rather than the Creator. Don't be mistaken: my mission is to spread the true Gospel to the end of the earth, via video and audio and transmission by whatever means is available (including word of mouth, of course!). But instead of using equipment as a great *tool*, I let the means become the end. Thankfully, the Lord revealed this to me, and I have repented. In saying this, I am not asking you to throw any of your equipment away. I want you to consider this: what goes out on the "program", "preset" or "air" feed...or what goes over the sound system...or on TV and radio, for those in that area of ministry...is what God is watching and hearing. Every word. Every sound. Every pixel on the screen. Is it glorifying Him? Really? Are your videos edifying the body of Christ, full of quality teaching, or is it more like a laser light show? With all the technology we have, there is an incredible, I would dare say unprecedented opportunity to bypass secular media, who generally won't report on anything we do anyway these days (unless it's a scandal or other controversy), to preach the Gospel via multimedia. What I see on major "Christian TV" networks may look very professional in the world's eyes, but in terms of content, most of it is starving the people who are watching or listening of the real and true Gospel that this world so desperately needs to hear! So before you get that high-definition video, Dolby 7.1 or higher sound system (again, nothing wrong with these), please, for the sake of your soul, and of those in your church, seriously pray over this: 1. Is your church really grounded in the Word of God? If the answer is no, forget everything else. This needs fixing first. And NOW. Then, if AND ONLY IF #1 is true... 2. Is it your goal to "look great" with your video, or to have a system so that the message of the Gospel can be proclaimed clearly? 3. Is the goal of your sound system to make the church "rockin'", or to bring a sweet, sweet sound to our Lord's ear? 4. Is your goal in being online is to share to others the deep things of God, or to "be cool"? I'm now the audio engineer at my church (since no one else wants to do it, and I'm learning, baptism by fire!). I make sure everyone sounds their best, and that the recording goes well for our podcast. The purpose for this is so that our congregation is assisted in hearing the Word proclaimed, joyfully praising God, and for those who missed our services due to illness or whatever reason, can hear it online. And then, edify other saints and bring the Gospel to the world. I'm blessed and surprised to hear people from all over the world listen to our podcasts! So we're considering, for our small church, to get a small video system so that our tireless childcare servants in the basement can watch and hear the service while the very young ones are taken care of. They literally miss one service every several weeks because they can't watch or hear the service now. If we do get the system, we will not do it to keep pace with technology; but to edify the saints and the servants of God. That should be the underlying reason for any technology (or anything else) in the church, period. Sometimes, the bigger and better technology brought into the church just reflects the style over substance found there. Don't let that get into your hearts, brothers. Been there, done that. That email was originally posted on Slice's website and appears here with Ingrid's permission. I would also add to what's been said: Are you big screen churches using your technology for the whole counsel of God? Take the Jumbotron Challenge to help you assess whether that's the case. Side note: If you clicked through to the link at the top to megachurch pastor Perry Noble's website, you may have noticed him using the "hymns were bar songs" fallacy, as is common for contemporary churches to do in defending their innovative new music styles. The problem is, this has been historically refuted countless times; it was a rumor based on many hymns being written in "bar form" (a type of musical structure). Nothing to do with taverns. But since Perry has said in the past that he has a staff who screen-out any emails that are negative sounding, and his blog allows no comments, there's absolutely no way to get this historical correction through to him short of renting one of those sky-writer airplanes to put it in the clouds on his way out to lunch some day. With that said however, that's the last I'll say about hymns, as this post is not intended to proclaim any assumed superiority of hymns, so please keep that in mind when you comment. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/.id.2.pid.899   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism