trying to figure out what worship is , what it isn ’ t . What kind of offering is going to be pleasing to the Lord ?
And there ’ s times where it would be easy to say , I learned the lesson years ago about relying on production too much , or the skills of the band becoming my dependence rather than trusting in God . But actually , I think it ’ s a lesson that you keep learning . And one thing I love about that line is it can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people sometimes .
I remember someone talking about Bono ’ s lyric writing , where they said the key thing is he writes patently and specifically enough so that it does have his own story in it , but he doesn ’ t write so specifically that other people can ’ t attach their own stories to the lyric .
And I think that ’ s such a key thing . And I love with that song , it means one thing to one congregation , it means another thing slightly different to another , or one person will take one thing from that lyric to another person . It ’ ll have a different resonance .
And I think your general question is right though that actually … what is worship in 2024 ? Is it as Biblical as it can be ? And the key question is where are we taking our cues from ? Are we taking our cues from scripture or from culture ? And obviously you ’ ll do a bit of both because for cultural relevance , you will want to keep one eye on what ’ s happening in the world . You want people to relate to what you ’ re doing , you want ‘ em to feel at home when they come into a worship service and all those things .
But obviously it must be far outweighed by taking your cues from scripture and what does ( okay , we ’ ve got to reimagine it for 2024 ), but what does Biblical worship really look like ? And it would be easy to look at the worship music scene in this day and age and say , “ Wow , we ’ ve been taking a lot more cues from culture than we should have been , and maybe not enough from scripture as we should have been ”.
It is that old saying , “ It ’ s not the ship in the sea that sinks the ship , because the ship ’ s meant to be in the sea . It ’ s the sea in the ship that sinks the ship ”.
And how much worldly values have seeped into worship ? We ’ ve been trying so hard to get our worship into the world . Is there a danger that some of the world ’ s got into our worship ? And I mean particularly in terms of things like performance , culture , overreliance on production , they ’ re good questions to ask . I think there ’ s no simple answer . And one of the reasons for that is because a lot of it ’ s about motives . You could have one band doing something outwardly with a lot of professional musical approach and production excellence ,
18 June 2024 Subscribe for Free ...