It was very odd to sit in a conference room and listen to a praise band sing in between various parts of the Episcopal liturgy and to see the words to the liturgy projected on PowerPoint screens. The Episcopal liturgy on POWERPOINT??? I'm sorry, there's just some kind of cognitive dissonance there for me! At one point they even had incense going. Incense, priests in vestments... and... PowerPoint??!?!
Not that there's anything WRONG with PowerPoint, of course, it's just the associations I have with it from my past. I also realized that there's nothing really wrong with many of the songs I used to sing during that time period of my life... in many ways the theology found in them isn't objectionable to me, but I DO worry about using ONLY the praise songs from the contemporary Christian radio stations and whatnot (which is where they said they were getting most of their music).
So many of these songs used often in the Evangelical communities are highly individualistic, and focus almost solely on the majesty and grandeur of God, and paint Jesus as entirely divine, with little attention to his humanity (this may not be true of their theology as a whole, but it seems to be true of the songs). While all these things are all well and good, one of the things I really appreciated about the Episcopal Church when I first became involved with it in Boston was its focus on serving the poor and concern with social justice. At St. James, this theology was reflected in much of our music -- which was NOT all traditional Anglican hymns, but was also not contemporary praise songs either.
For an example of what I'm talking about, let's look at two different songs that could be sung in the context of a Christian worship setting. The first, "Prince of Peace," is a common praise hymn in Evangelical circles, and was one of my favorites when I was a part of one of those communities. The second, "God is in the daily struggles," is a hymn written by Pat Michaels, the music director at St. James Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Mass.
Prince of Peace
You are Lord of Lords
You are King of Kings
You are mighty God
Lord of everything
You're Emmanuel
You're the great "I Am"
You're the Prince of Peace
Who is the Lamb
You're the living God
You're my saving grace
You will reign forever
You are Ancient of Days
You are Alpha, Omega, beginning and end
You're my savior, Messiah, redeemer and friend
You're my Prince of Peace
And I will live my life for you
God is in the Daily Struggles
God is in the daily struggles
Of the poor and dispossessed;
Just as in the ancient stories,
signs and wonders still attest:
food and freedom, food and freedom --
God supplies them on their quest.
In the desert-land, as strangers,
powerless as refugees,
fleeing politics of danger
former slaves but newly freed --
bread for bodies, bread for bodies! --
God provided for their need.
Jesus lived among the poorest,
raising hope that all be fed
asking God to nourish wholeness:
"Give us now our daily bread."
Many thousands, many thousands
ate the feast that God had spread.
At the great commission dinner,
that this feeding ministry
might live on in saint and sinner,
Jesus said, "Remember."
(Feed the hungry, feed the hungry.)
"When you eat, remember me."
Still the poor are God's beloved,
still the poor are sign and key
showing Christians what is needful,
what God's realm is meant to be.
Hear the calling, hear the calling,
"Feed me now and set me free."
Now, if the example of these two hymns doesn't show you how strikingly different the theology presented in different songs can be, I don't know what will! The first song is entirely about God as other-worldly, as divine "king on high," and about the speaker's "personal relationship" with God ("my savior, Messiah, redeemer and friend"). It is about proclaiming all the things God (or more specifically, Jesus) is, and affirming Jesus's significance in that person's life. Now, I would argue that if Jesus truly is significant in one's life, that one's life should reflect the kind of scripturally sound calling and ideas represented in the second hymn. The second hymn is set to the tune of a traditional hymn (I can't remember which one right now), but with different words. So it's not exactly a "contemporary praise song," but it does bring a fresh take on a familiar hymn tune. Other songs we sang at St. James weren't even hymn tunes at all, but African praise songs or Asian-influenced music.
My concern, then, is that using these "contemporary praise songs" in Episcopal churches might lead to a theology that looks too much like "Prince of Peace" and not enough like "God is in the daily struggles."
I think it's a mistake to think that just because the megachurches are herding in thousands of people every Sunday that we should just imitate what they're doing. Just because something is drawing in large numbers doesn't mean that there is any value to it. Now, I'm not saying there is NO value in what the megachurches have to offer, but I'm just pointing out an error in logic. Thousands of people might herd into a stadium to go to a Marilyn Manson concert, but does this mean that this is something we should imitate? Drawing in mass numbers of people does not necessarily indicate quality or goodness of an event or program. This is not to compare megachurches to Marilyn Manson concerts (That would be quite laughable!!), but just to say that as Episcopalians (and other "mainline" Christians), we should be wary of just running to follow the herds into what everyone else is doing simply because there are mass numbers of people being drawn into that culture.
Instead of focusing on and worrying about all the people who are attending megachurches (and not OUR churches) every week, we should focus on all the people who do not attend ANY church every week. Many of these people are turned off to Christianity precisely by the type of model offered in the megachurches; not everyone is drawn to that type of "entertainment" Christianity. Some people see it as inauthentic or may have had an experience where they were part of a huge, large church and then when the times got tough (like when they lost a family member or something), no one in the church even knew their name or were there to offer help, because instead of a community, they were just another spectator in the auditorium every week. Again, obviously this is not the case with ALL megachurches, but I have heard these kinds of stories from people and experienced some of these kinds of disillusions myself.
My point is that the megachurch model doesn't work for everyone. Instead of trying to imitate things they're doing, we should focus on how we as the Episcopal Church (and other mainline churches) can offer an alternative, a viable, welcoming and relevant alternative. Whatever you want to call us -- "mainline," "liberal," "progressive," "moderate" -- I think we have something to offer to the wider "catholic church" (lowercase "catholic," meaning the church as a whole, including ALL Christians of all denominations).
Worrying too much about the success of the megachurches or trying to imitate them will only stifle our God-given role in the world, I believe, of being a different voice to the faithful. We need to turn our eyes outward to those who are not within the fold and not try to reach out to the same segment that the megachurches have already "cornered the market" on, so to speak. Sure, there are thousands of people attending megachurches every week, but there are even MORE people who are not attending church at all and who are not a part of any kind of meaningful faith community. I think we have a way of being Christian that is different and may offer them a place where they feel they can truly fit in and find an experience of God and God's peace and forgiveness. And isn't that what we're ALL after, mainliners and Evangelicals alike? Do we really want to sacrifice that possibility for outreach by mindlessly mimicing someone else's model?
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