“Whats the deal with Contemporary Worship?”

“What is the deal with airplane food?” A phrase immortalized by the game show Stand-Up and Win. I look at this joke and how it has been applied to so many different things in a joking manner. Then I find myself asking a similar question, “Whats the deal with contemporary worship?”

Growing up, I went to a small Baptist church up the street from my house. We sang hymns, had a form of liturgy, heard that good ole fashioned hell fire preaching, shook hands and hugged, then we went home. I raised on this “old-fashioned” worship that helped me encounter scripture and theology to the point I pursued them for my degree. While in pursuit of this greater knowledge of scripture, I found myself at a school that was sponsored by another denomination. I encountered a whole new form of worship and honestly was enthralled. My emotions ran rampant, I began to feel emotional, and (very much against te stereotypical Baptist preacher boy) I raised my hands in worship. I would start worship on fire for God, listen to the sermon as I cooled down, then at the end of the sermon they would play this very emotional background music during the altar call. I would leave the service wanting to go back, but now that I have had the chance to think on it I believe that what I was searching for was not exactly what I thought.

In this section of Christianity, we hear the terms referring to the Holy Spirit as falling on, entering, being welcomed in, and many other inviting mentalities. They, and I at the time, believe that the Spirit shows up while we worship in this manner. My question would be simply, where was the Holy Spirit in the first place? Secondly, I pose that with the knowledge of how music affects our brains that we experience something close to a ‘high’ rather than true spiritual impact.

When it comes to the first claim of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. I am in full agreement that the Holy Spirit indwells all believers of Christ at the point of salvation (or regeneration depending on prefered terms). This point of baptism in the Spirit is refuted by different denominations, some believe that it happens later on and an initial sign of this would be speaking in tongues. This can be supported by Romans 8, more specifically in verses 9-11:

⁹ But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.¹⁰ And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.¹¹ But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Here we see that if we are in Christ the Spirit dwells in us. If the Spirit does not indwell in us then we are not of Christ. This also is supported by Paul who talks to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:14. In this passage, Paul recognizes the Spirit’s indwelling in both himself and Timothy.  There is plenty more scripture to support this aspect, but for sake of time I will make my point. If the Holy Spirit indwells us, then in our time of worship the Spirit is already present. There are not specific moments where the Spirit falls like we see in Acts chapter 2 for at that moment the Holy Spirit continued to indwell all believers. That was a ‘one and done’ moment in scripture. The Holy Spirit can do miracles, but we are not without the presence of the Spirit outside of our worship. It is a continual relationship that helps to sanctify us and without the Holy Spirit being in our lives we would not be able to be considered Christians.

So, what is going on in worship? A lot of salvation experiences that I have been privileged to hear have had a tone of extremely high emotion especially when it comes to true repentance and miraculous life changes. My thoughts would be that maybe we are trying to recreate these emotions in our worship. The love of God is a very impactful and emotional thing, and can manifest itself in very emotional ways. Psychology has many theories on this aspect of emotions tend to affect our memories. People tend to remember more details about certain events if it was traumatic or emotional. We see this supported in the aspect of tragic events like 9/11 or the assassination of JFK (www.psychologistworld.com/emotion/emotion-memory-psychology). This brings me to think that maybe we are trying to remember what the Love of God felt like for we are straying to far away from pursuing God.

Another idea that may be the reason for the emotional aspects of the modern contemporary worship would lie with the idea of an emotional high. After college students and teens come out of big worship events, you may hear the phrase “I am so high on God right now.” This has been used by many people to discuss the emotional intensity or “high emotion” as being a byproduct of the worship experience. This emotional high brings us back to constantly wanting to experience it over and over again. We become addicted to this constant intensity and want to keep coming back. What is contemporary worship doing to us? Well this falls into two areas: Music’s Affects on Brain Chemistry and Emotional Manipulation.

If you ask anyone what they do to calm down or get themselves energized, you may find that many people use music. Music has a massive impact on our brains and can cause them to change in chemistry. We see in the theories of playing Mozart to infants to increase development, or in playing classical music during tests or study time to help with memory. Music has been used to help the brain. Yet, how does contemporary music affect us? Music can release many hormones into the brain that can affect the way we feel at the time (https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/music-and-the-brain-affects-mood/). These hormones cause us to reach emotional peaks and can in was simulate the same feeling as someone who uses recreational drugs. When we reach that high, our addictive persona may be engaged to wanting to constantly be there. We naturally want to feel the best we can and if this helps then we want more. Thus, we become addicted to this high.

Emotional manipulation is the basis of using emotionally charged music to affect the way the audience reacts to the message. Hyping a congregation to its intensity so that they are only thinking with emotion can cause major damage.

We mistakenly assume that a state of high emotion is a state where heart change will more readily. I have attended worship services where emotional manipulation was used to induce dramatic responses to an invitation. One powerful speaker would use highly emotional language, scare tactics, and passionate speaking. Then, he would invite people to come down the aisle in response to his invitation. At this point, the instrumentalist would play a slow, reflective piece. The response was predictable — people poured down the aisles in droves. Many people were weeping. There are many instances where such outpouring of emotion and mass response is good and right. Truly God does work through emotions, and He uses powerful speakers to prompt change in hearts. However, in some cases, the skills of the speaker and the talents of the musicians combine to stir up strong feelings and cultivate an intentional atmosphere of high emotion. In such emotional situations, people are much more ready to make a “decision.” However, in states of high emotion, such “decisions” may become unmoored from careful thinking or soul searching. An “emotional decision” is not a true decision. Why? Because it is a decision predicated on one’s emotion alone, exclusive of other critical decision-making faculties.

(https://www.sharefaith.com/blog/2014/01/avoid-emotional-manipulation-worship/)

We must be careful how we lead our worship services and what our purpose of worship is. If we do not lead with the right heart, we can lead many people down the wrong path to decisions that are only ran by emotions. This relies heavily on the leaders and bands, and requires true meditation and prayer on this manner before leading.

To conclude, is contemporary worship bad? My answer is no. Many people can say the same thing about Southern Gospel music or hymns. We just need to be careful how we use our music selections. Many artists post many songs for the profit that comes with it. Their entire point is to manipulate your emotions so that you may buy their album. On the other hand, many artists are releasing moments of their own worship for you. My litmus test would simply be this: If it is scriptural and doctrinally sound, use it. If they are just emotionally charged noises, leave it alone. There are many artists out there who are using scripture and biblically accurate phrases to help teach and reach the next generations. Maybe we need to give them a look.