Bonnie,

John 15:14-15
You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Luke 12:4a
I tell you, my “friends”, ...

If buddy still means friend, then yes, God is our friend.

Leonard, I have a daughter who is almost 14 and she too has grown up in internet, digital age.  However, she still speaks English, which is the language we use in church for singing and it’s also the language our pastor speaks when he is preaching.  God’s Word, whether spoken, written, or sung in the language of our nation or region, is all we need regardless of the age we live in.  That’s one of the reasons why God’s Word is timeless.

Bonnie writes [ I am pointing out the difference between excellence that is measurable to us as humans, and excellence that only God can know and see because His ways are higher than our ways.] I’m sorry, but I’ve seen TOO often that kind of argument used to justify keeping someone in a choir who can’t sing when people who are very gifted are sitting in the pews wanting to serve. We are supposed to worship God with all our skill, that means making sure people with a lot of skill have plenty of opportunity to serve.

Suzanne writes [But it saddens me to hear someone say that the hymns and songs and liturgies that have sustained generations of believers for hundreds of years now must be completely thrown by the wayside because they are too dull and irrelevant for the current generation.] Uh, I don’t think anybody here that uses more contemporary forms of worship are saying that. I use hymns whenever I can. I dress them up in “new clothes” but often use them because they do indeed have wonderful stuff in them that will sustain the next generation like it did previous ones.

But those hymns are far from being “scripture” and are often treated as such. Some of the old hymns can, imho, go away. Others, “Jesus Paid it All”, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”, “Crown Him with Many Crowns”, and others like that, will never fade. (And they are being written even today. Check out “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townend for instance.)

But I really doubt that those who wrote them, in the contemporary musical idiom of their day in most cases, would be pleased if we didn’t play and sing them the way music is played and sung in our day, in our idiom, in our culture.

Both of you, Bonnie and Suzanne, seem to be rather judgmental about the way some of us have chosen to worship. I won’t return that. I’m certain the way you worship is wonderful and pleasing to God, and I bet if I were in your churches’ midst, I would be moved, my heart would rejoice in God my Savior, and yes, I would be entertained, too.

Bonnie,

Excellence is excellence.  Like someone pointed out before - shouldn’t God have a higher standard than us when it comes to excellence?

What I believe to be excellent may not seem excellent to God because his standards are higher and yes God is most interested in the heart (we completely agree)

Now, far too many times our hearts are right but our quality is not.  What should we do?  Give it to God anyway?  Pretend that God is not concerned with the quality or our service because he only cares about the heart?

I say no.  We should raise the bar of our quality, both in skill and in heart.  Wouldn’t you say the same thing?

I’m a musician and it’s taken me over 20 years to perfect my skill, and I could still use more work.  At this point I could give God a song that can sound better than many people but that’s not my goal.  My goal is to give God my absolute best.  So what do I do?  I continue to perfect my skill, not for my glory but for his.

Does this mean my heart is wrong because I desire to give God my best performance?  No, in fact it makes my heart all the more right because I’m not giving God my scraps like Cain did but rather I’m giving him my first fruits like Abel.

You may criticize me for doing it better than you or others.  You may say I’m just an entertainer.  But the reality is that I’m giving God my best while others settle for mediocrity. 

I’m not being boastful or arrogant, just honest.

Robert said:  “You may criticize me for doing it better than you or others.  You may say I’m just an entertainer.  But the reality is that I’m giving God my best while others settle for mediocrity”

But who is to say?  I’ve been to worship services with bands or soloists who truly believed they were gifted, talented, and surely thought they were doing it better.  Often, they weren’t.  But this is the problem with trying to entertain in worship.  You have to keep topping yourselves or the “audience” becomes bored, and when they stop having fun, they are gone.  Worship should not be a consumer product, but it seems many are trying to make it so.

Wow Suzanne,

You have taken what I said way out of context.

Based on your comments back to me it sounds like you’re completely judging me by stating that we’re entertaining.  Whether my heart is right or not is not up to you but up to God.

If I play skillfully, it’s not for you, it’s for God.  The reality is that it’s easier to focus on God when the music is uplifting and well performed. 

When Saul had an evil spirit tormenting him, they got David to play for him.  Why?  Because David was a talented musician.

If you believe you’re good and you’re not, you have issues.  When you do something well, you know it.  As long as you’re not some conceited and arrogant person.

Besides, if you’re honestly worshipping, should what I’m doing matter?  If you’re not there for the show, then how is that you have even noticed that someone thought they were doing something well but weren’t.

With all due respect, could it be that you go for the show and come out with your two thumbs up or down. 

Let’s face it, if we’ve ever said a service was good or bad (and most of us have) we’ve just judged it’s entertainment.  It was good if we liked it, but it was bad if we didn’t.

If worship isn’t about us, then shouldn’t we just leave it to God to decide whether something in worship is right or wrong, good or bad.

Again,

Psalm 66:2
says to make his praise Glorious

God must want it to be an exciting event!

entertainment and worship are two opposites…

it’s sad to see so many Christians caught up in this worldly stuff… The Church was never and would never be a place where one can come to be entertained…

reach the unsaved with the Word of God...not with entertainment...because if you reach them with entertainment, then you’ll have to keep entertaining them to keep them...but if you reach them with the Word of God, then all you have to do is keep giving them the Word of God…

many have replaced prayer with entertainment...what happened to the times when we prayed for a revival? Now, man thinks he could help God by entertaining folks…

The Great Proclomation...go and preach and batize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...God didn’t tell us to go and entertain people....

no human entertainment can’t accomplish the ultimate and eternal work of God...it is the Holy Spirit that draws…

Christian believers and Christian congregations must be throughly consecrated to Christ’s glory alone...This means absolutely turning our backs on contemporary insistence on human glory and recognition...if we reach the unsaved through entertainment, then man get’s the glory and not God…

we must keep the “performers” out of our pulpits and out of our churches…

I’m confident our Lord never meant for the Christian church to provide a kind of religious stage where performers proudly take their bows, seeking personal recognition and entertainment…

That’s not God’s way to an eternal work...He has never indicated that proclamation of the gospel is to be dependent upon human entertainment…

It is the power of the Holy Spirit that reaches, converts and transforms…

one of our problems is lack of patience...we want instant results...but God doesn’t work like that...some plant, some water, but God gives the increase...our job is to plant the Word of God in the hearts of man…

Worshipping God is a spiritual thing...we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth…
most of that other stuff gets in the way of our worshipping God…

When you have a spiritual relationship with God, you won’t need a 10 band musical or a 100 voice choir..you won’t need a praise team to get you pumped up or praise dancers....all you’ll need is space and opportunity...when you have a relationship with God you’ll enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise...you wouldn’t have time to think about who’s there to entertain you, or what performance is up next…

worship is an outward expression of an inward manifestation…

Min KAC, nobody talked about the church being a place that put on entertainment. You are arguing against something that none of us who do “entertaining worship” would argue for.

Bonnie,

I never said that. With all due respect, you are reading into my posts. Please go back and re-read and think about it again.

Bonnie writes

[ If that were the reason, then we would also see an exodus from high school and college because teachers and professors still require our kids to sit through lectures and read books.] There is a serious flaw in your logic, Bonnie. Kids are generally required to attend high school, and those who go to college do so with the promise of a worldly benefit, that is, a better-paying and more fulfilling (they hope) job.

The church is entirely voluntary, and does not promise such worldly benefits.

[How sad that we have taught our kids that it’s vital to sit through boring lectures and read books that do not hold their interest because their future is at stake, while God has become an “option” they can add to their benefit package.]

Nobody here has taught kids this thinking.

Bonnie,

I want to first off say thanks for the dialog.  Secondly I simply think you are reaching.  I am a parent of teens, spent 18 years working with teens as both a youth pastor and a missionary, speak all over the country to teens, men, families and other conferences and have been a senior pastor for over 11 years.  In my experience and in my working with students and adults, one of the top three answers for why people do not go to church is “boring/irrelevant.  When asked why, they will often site how boring the music is, singing from some book song that are at times older than their grandmother and then listening to some guy, who does not even know their name lecture from a book that is thousands of years old. 

In the course of a year I will run across personally over 1000 people whose first sentence describing their faith journey begins with… “I used to go to church…” when explored further, I find a huge number of people who simply lost interest in God because church was boring. 

Should we entertain?  Not for the purpose of entertaining.  Should we strive to as creatively and authentically speak the timeless unchanging life altering truth of God’s word to people?  ABSOLUTELY!  My best teachers in school, Bible College and Seminary have always been the ones who were NOT BORING.  The ones who engaged my mind and my heart were the most influential.  The ones who understood how to say the truth in a way that I would willingly engage were the ones who shaped my future.  I think it is downright sinful to be boring at church, no one should not have to labor through a worship service, I should be engaged.

I understand your point, Leonard, but I don’t believe I am reaching.  Worship is about God, not us, and I think it’s sinful to disobey God by refusing to attend church because it’s boring or irrelevant.  By doing so, we are putting our own feelings before God’s commands.  I always found Shakespeare’s writings to be boring and irrelevant to my life but that did not give me a valid excuse to refuse to attend English Literature classes.  There were unpleasant consequences for that, just as there are unpleasant consequences for disobeying God.  I realize we are not going to agree on this issue, but if huge numbers of people are losing interest in God because church is boring, how much did they really love and honor Him in the first place?

Only on MMI can an April Fools joke turn into a lively and valuable dialogue.  Good discussion folks.

Wendi

Hey Bonnie,

I made the comment that if we’re not enjoying the worship experience, perhaps God isn’t either and I stand by that comment.

I believe in a relational God.  A God that has created me to be me and not someone else.  The Bible encourages us to delight ourselves in the Lord.  Does God want me to be bored as I please him.  I don’t think so, I think he wants me to enjoy the experience as much as He enjoys it. 

And I must correct you.  Worship is not about God alone.  It’s about me having communion with Him.  In worship I bless him and he blesses me.