Why worship wars break out

Show Notes

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👉🏼 Nairobi Statement https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/articles/nairobi-statement-worship-and-culture-full-text

What is Study Worship?

"Let us offer to God acceptable worship."

Caleb: 00:00

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a worship war or maybe a worship battle or skirmish? I think the classic example is of a church member coming up to a worship leader at the end of a service and voicing their concerns about maybe a particular song that they chose or a song that they didn't choose, the volume of the music, maybe even what they're wearing and who's a part of the worship team and so on and so forth. And these things can get really, really big and end up splitting churches entirely. So what causes worship wars? What's kind of underneath all of these conflicts and disagreements that come up?

Caleb: 00:43

I think at least one of the things that is at the bottom and at the framework is that there's a difference in the understanding or emphasis on how worship relates with culture. I'll say that again. I think worship wars often start because there's a difference in understanding on how worship relates to culture. So in this video, I'm going to break down the four ways that worship relates to culture. And I take these from the Nairobi statement, which was put together by a study group of the Lutheran World Foundation.

Caleb: 01:21

I think it's Lutheran World Foundation. But I'll put the link to that in the description below so you can read the full thing for yourself. But I'm just going to walk through the four major points that they laid out in that statement. But before I do that, please like this video, subscribe to this channel, and let me know about your craziest worship skirmish in the comments below. Also, if you'd like to learn how to write a biblical theology of worship for yourself or for your church, I've put together a short mini course that walks you through the steps to do that.

Caleb: 01:57

And I want to make that available to you for free. So just go to the description below, click the link there at the top, and you'll be enrolled in that immediately. So you can start writing your own theology of worship. Alright, here we go on the first way that worship relates with culture. So the first way that worship relates to culture is that worship transcends culture.

Caleb: 02:20

The Nairobi statement calls this transcultural. Worship is transcultural. By that they mean that there are elements of worship, Christian worship, that are required and ought to be in every culture everywhere. It doesn't matter where you are on this planet. It doesn't matter what you do day in and day out.

Caleb: 02:42

If you don't have these particular elements, it simply is not Christian worship. So that includes who we worship, worshiping the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But that also includes the activities that we partake in when we gather together or even just gathering together in and of itself. But this includes scripture reading, preaching, singing, praying, and so forth. All of these transcultural elements of worship are commanded in Scripture.

Caleb: 03:14

And therefore, if they are not done when we gather, then that worship service is lacking or it's not a Christian worship service at all. The second way that worship relates to culture is worship inhabits culture. The Nairobi statement calls this contextual worship. Worship is contextual. What they mean by that is even though there are elements of worship that are commanded to be done in every single culture, they may look, sound, feel, taste, and smell different because every culture looks, sounds, smells, feels, and tastes different.

Caleb: 03:58

So you can have one thing commanded to all people and it look different in every single circumstance. For example, let's take scripture reading. And I say scripture reading because I think it's the easiest one for everybody to grasp. The scripture itself commands for scriptures to be read publicly when you gather. However, the scriptures do not say that we all need to be reading scripture from one particular language, as if every single culture needed to learn Greek and Hebrew and be able to understand Greek and Hebrew whenever they came together.

Caleb: 04:38

No, in fact, there's no mention of that specifically in Scripture. And historically, what the Church has understood by that is we can take the Scripture and translate it into the language of a different culture. And we've done that time and time and time again for every single culture that we're able to access. And this is actually praised as a good thing because it's a way to get the Scripture to more people because not everybody speaks the same language. Now this translates over to other elements of worship.

Caleb: 05:12

Not every culture preaches the same, as in even just the way that they communicate something to somebody else. Not every culture sings the same way, that's for sure. Not every culture even prays the same way. Now there certain parts of each of these elements that are commanded are given more fully in scripture. But in general, every culture's worship is going to look and sound and feel and again taste and even smell different than worship in other cultures.

Caleb: 05:48

And yet they are still true worshipers. All right. So the third way that worship relates to culture is worship counters culture. The Nairobi statement says worship is counter cultural. So there are some trans cultural elements of worship that are inherently counter cultural.

Caleb: 06:14

Think about the particular teachings that we're called to teach when we gather together as a body. A lot of those teachings go against what our culture is teaching us on a regular basis. But worship is also countercultural in other ways. You may have different ways of singing that you decide to engage in that look different than the culture that you're actually in. So the church does not gather to do a rave now, let's say, because a rave, they would say, doesn't satisfy what the scripture calls us to do musically when we gather.

Caleb: 06:59

So in this way, when you come together, you're going to choose to sing in a particular way that is understandable by the people in your congregation that may look completely different than culture and actually show different values than the culture itself. And in this way, your worship and every culture somehow pushes against the culture that you live in. And finally, worship crosses cultures. So worship is cross cultural. What the Nairobi statement means by this is that once you have worship established in various cultures, Because we are brothers and sisters united in Christ, it is good that we share cultural elements with one another so we can understand each other more and even see and glorify God in ways that we couldn't do if we were just confined to our own particular culture.

Caleb: 08:05

An example of this is taking songs from churches in Africa or churches in Asia and singing those in your church, even though you live in America and generally speak English in your services. In this way, you're not only able to learn about other Christians who you are united with, but you may even be able to witness the unifying nature of the church across all bounds. So those are the four ways that worship relates to culture. And I believe that most worship wars begin because there's either a lack of recognition that all four of these exist or there's a highlighting or an exalting of one of these four over and against or to the detriment or complete expulsion, if you will, of the other aspects of worship. So I'm going to give some really quick examples of these, of how kind of denominations have gathered around each one of these four ways that worship relates with culture.

Caleb: 09:13

So transcultural worship, I think a really good example would be the Church of Christ. So the Church of Christ sees the command or no command in the New Testament for the church to use musical instruments. And so all they do is sing in their worship services acapella. Now, this is a highlighting of transcultural worship because they're saying whatever the Scriptures say, no matter what we see in culture, doesn't matter whatsoever because we are only going to focus on what the Bible specifically teaches us about worship. And we're just going to do that and nothing beyond what it directly states.

Caleb: 09:56

So they highlight transcultural worship to the detriment of contextual worship and saying, Well, there are good things within culture that God has given us that we can use to praise Him. So that's the first example. So for contextual worship, a good example would be seeker sensitive churches. Seeker sensitive churches, which are not saying no to most transcultural aspects of worship, but are saying yes over and again, yes and amen, to highlighting the contextual aspect of worship. How can we make all these particular commands that God has given look and sound and feel and smell and taste exactly like our culture, so that those who are looking for a church actually feel completely at home when they come here.

Caleb: 10:55

And they go to the risk of kind of setting aside countercultural measures to show that Christ is actually not all for everything that the culture is about. So even if you are a seeker sensitive church, in order to be biblical, you still have to teach things that are contrary to the culture to still be faithful and Christian. So that's an example of one kind of stream of churches that highlights contextual worship. So what about countercultural worship? I think fundamentalist churches would be a good example of this, where they know and they believe fully that the church is in the world, but not of it.

Caleb: 11:42

And so the church looking like the world is actually a way in which we defame the gospel or defame Christ in some sense. And so we're going to do everything that we do or a lot of what we do on a normal Sunday to show how we are different than the world. So not even just what we teach, but also how we dress, how we act, and all of these different things go complete fly in the face of the culture to the end of not only being faithful to Christ, but also attracting outsiders who see something different and want to know what that's all about. So that would be a good example for kind of a worship culture built on the counter cultural aspects of worship. And then finally, churches that highlight how worship crosses cultures.

Caleb: 12:39

I think any church that has ecumenicalism as one of their pillar values would fit into this, where they want to show that Christ is unified across all bounds. There's no distinction between any Christian. And therefore, we're going to pull together songs and prayers and scripture readings and everything from every different culture, and kind of develop a culture that is based off of maybe culture less ness in some sense, where we don't particularly have a culture except that we are always looking and engaging with every other culture around us. And usually this is also to the pushing away of the culture that that particular church is in to some extent. But that would be a good example of kind of denominational or a value bent for some churches to show that worship crosses cultures.

Caleb: 13:45

Now, am I saying that any of these are bad or wrong or evil or missing the mark or something like that? Not exactly. I do think that the ideal scenario would be for all four of these ways to be equally balanced with one another. I think that's ideal. I don't think that's possible in any given church unless you focus on this at all times through, you know, with every decision that you make, thinking about these four quadrants and going after it.

Caleb: 14:18

But I bring this up because I want you to be equipped in the next conversation that you have with someone who disagrees with you about a particular worship practice or song or aspect of the worship in general, whether it's the color of the carpet or whether we do pews or chairs or all of these different things. The reason why you disagree with the person that you're talking with is probably because they're focusing on one of these other ways that worship relates to culture. And so at least with this framework, can go into that conversation and know that you can understand their side and potentially even be able to explain your side better. So there you go. That's how worship relates with culture.

Caleb: 15:12

And I believe that if you have this framework in mind as you go into conflict or disagreements over worship aspects that you can prevent or even just de escalate just really difficult conversations, and hopefully get to worshiping with one another more than just experiencing the dissension or even splitting up because of issues that surround this. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I don't know if a lot of people have heard of the Nairobi statement before. And I want to know, yeah, comment with this down below. I'd like to hear if you find your church to be more trans culturally focused, or contextually focused, or counter cultural, or cross cultural?

Caleb: 16:04

Like Which one of these quadrants does your church tend to fit into? And let me know kind of experiences that you've had. Maybe you have a different bent and there have been difficult conversations. I'd love to hear about that and even maybe work through with you different conflicts that you have with the people in your church. So if you enjoyed this video and found value out of it, please give it a like, subscribe to the channel so you'll be notified when I put out my next video, and comment below again with your thoughts.

Caleb: 16:41

Also, I forgot to say this at the beginning, and so I'll probably put in an edit there. If you're a worship leader or a worshipper or a pastor, and you want to learn how to write your own theology of worship, I've created a free course that I'd like to give to you. All you have to do is click the link in the description below in this video, and you'll be enrolled into it immediately. And you can watch that course as soon as you're able. Thank you for watching.

Caleb: 17:10

I'll see you next time.