Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Gospel Music and Beer

Okay, not the kind you're thinking of with a mass choir, whirling organs and a horn section. No, what I'm talking about is worship that preaches the Gospel.

I've been thinking, if there is prophetic worship, could there be evangelistic worship, or even apostolic, pastoral or teaching worship? Well, we know that protestant reformers like Martin Luther used worship as a mechanism to teach theology. Why would he do that? Well, because most of the people in his church couldn't read. And in addition to preaching, another way to teach them doctrine was through hymns, that's why hymns are so full of rich theology. So he took music from his favorite drinking songs that he sang with his buddies at his favorite watering hole and wrote songs like the famed, A Mighty Fortress. He took truth, put them into plain-language, and put it to familiar tunes that ordinary people could connect with. We take hymns as a traditional style that helps us connect with our spiritual past and our conservative, contemplative side. But to Luther and his contemporaries, it was the rock 'n roll of their day that he used to teach truth, but also pushed the boundaries of their old-school, latin liturgy. As Luther once said, "why should the devil have all the good music."

My paradigm for worship is being demolished. Church-planting is all about getting people saved. In fact, I guess that should be the point of everything we do on this earth. My sunday-morning worship is beginning to conform to that. It's not an easy transition, but it's how God is leading me in the context of planting churches. Even as I was pondering this in my own heart, during a praying meeting, Rich, not knowing what I've been wrestling with, felt like God was going to use the worship to evangelize. That's all the confirmation I needed to let go of the old, and to hit the pavement seeking out the new.