Everything is Backwards

Between Two Worlds has this summary of a blog post by Curtis Allen. Curtis Allen, a black man, offers some of his insights regarding black people visiting mostly white churches.

Of particular note are these four challenges to African Americans joining a predominately white congregation.

From Between Two Worlds…

Here’s an outline of part 1:

George Yancey writes in One Body One Spirit that there are seven characteristics of multi-ethnic churches that are worth noting. Some of these were surprising.

1. Inclusive Worship. Music is so important to people that when they sing to God it needs to take on a form that is culturally meaningful for them. In the Euro-white culture, we have everything from Indie-Rock, to pipe organs, to Coldplay, to acoustic folk in our churches. But others prefer a keyboard and rhythm section driven sound. I suppose in India people would want a Sitar with Ravi Shankar sound. The point is that the musical style of the church must reflect the diversity of the people that come there.

2. Diverse Leadership. Yancey writes, “multiracial leadership is important because members of different racial groups desire to feel represented by the members of the church, especially racial minorities who historically have received a lack of respect for their opinions and perspectives.”

3. An Overarching Goal. Yancey observes that many multi-ethnic churches that he studied did not make racial diversity its highest goal, but rather a necessary component to achieving an even higher goal. He notes that “there is a certain amount of racial fatigue in our society. People are tired of discussing racial issues and trying to solve racial problems. But if members of a church are committed to another and higher goal – such as winning people to Christ or serving the community – then it becomes easier for those members to accept the importance of creating a multiracial environment.” This is right on point.

Another friend of mine who pastors a multi-racial church in Cincinnati recently told me that there is a generational element to this as well. Older people, who have long memories of segregation, bussing, and Jim Crow laws, need to have their racial prejudices more directly addressed. But it is the younger generation who grew up in the “Cosby Show” era and now the “Obama” era that grow fatigued, because they do not have these same experiences that were so difficult for their parents. There should be a sensitivity to where people are. But hopefully the days of addressing race will become less tense and emotionally charged.

In downtown Cincinnati, our goal is to reach the entire area, not just the white population. Thus in my context, we must build a multi-racial church to serve the unique needs of our diverse community.

4. Intentionality. Yancey writes, “it takes work to create and sustain multiracial churches. Their development does not just happen accidentally.” A church needs to know what they are trying to do and work to achieve it. Yancey notes that churches that became multiethnic almost by accident sustained the multiethnic environment by intentionally cultivating it.

5. Personal Skills. Some of this is simply having a well developed social IQ that understands the dynamics of relationships. Pastors especially have to have good personal skills since they are the ones who will be helping people to adjust to a multiethnic environment where conflicts arise from unexpected places. Specifically, Yancey identifies “sensitivity to different needs, patience, the ability to empower others and the ability to relate to those of different races” as key personal skills.

6. Location. You can’t create a multiethnic environment in a neighborhood that is almost completely monolithic. You have to be in a location that already has the diversity in the population. And all white or all black churches in all white or all black neighborhoods shouldn’t be regarded as inferior; they just reflect their neighborhoods.

7. Adaptability. Yancey says that “a monoracial church has only a single culture to adapt to. However, by definition, a multiracial church brings into it individuals from several different cultures. Learning how to blend these cultures together is an important part of adapting to the new social reality caused by the formation of a multiracial church.”

I would say that many of these fall into the biblical category of self-denial (Mk 8:34-35). We have to be willing to die to ourselves and our own cultural preferences and be willing to adopt, to some degree, the values and preferences of other cultures. This is the 1 Corinthians 12:12-15 vision of the church: we don’t merely tolerate one another, we need one another.

To do this not only requires spiritual maturity but it creates it as well.

Jorge Sedaca, who is on staff at the North American Mission Board in church planting, posted an article recently about visiting churches and experiencing some thoughts on why people don’t sing in church. I’ve summarized his thoughts below, but the whole article is worth a read for those of you who are interested in engaging a congregation in corporate worship. It is interesting to note that he likes many of the songs that I can’t stand, but hey, to each his own.

Here’s his observations of why people don’t sing in church:

1. The congregation is unfamiliar with the songs being used.

2. The use of too many new songs week after week.

3. The songs selected are not suitable for congregational singing.

4. The overall quality of the songs is very poor.

Hey worship leaders, your congregations want to sing. If you ever find yourself looking out at a group of people while leading worship and find yourself thinking, “man, it’s dead out there. They don’t get it,” Maybe you don’t get it and need to tweak how you’re leading them.

John G. Stackhouse, Jr. at Christianity Today has made an interesting comparison. He says that many worship bands in contemporary churches actually have a lot in common with the Catholic church before the Reformation: the music was sung by professionals and the congregants sat and watched but didn’t participate. Luther used tavern melodies to write hymns because they were singable. Contemporary worship bands often “perform” their church music in such a way as to make them unsingable to the everyday person. I have made the same argument here. Good worship songs should be (1) singable, (2) playable by the musicians, and (3) have good content.

Stackhouse then argues that the best thing for worship bands to do is to turn the volume down. He offers these five reasons.

1. Cranking up the volume is just a cheap trick to add energy to a room.

2. Turning up the volume on an out of tune singer doesn’t cover up the problem but actually makes it sound even worse.

3. Cheap church speakers can’t handle the pressure!

4. Older people are marginalized.

5. Most people can’t sing along.

Read the whole thing here, it’s pretty funny.

HT: Peter Smith at the Courier-Journal.

I wrote this in about thirty seconds in response to a comment on a previous post. Seriously, time yourself and see how long it takes you to crank out a stanza of rhymed cliches for a worship song.

I feel your presence in this place
Come and fill us in this space
Surround us with your love and grace
Touch us with your warm embrace

Bob Kauflin gives his list (as summarized on Between Two Worlds).

1. Aim to write the next worldwide worship hit.
2. Spend all your time working on the music, not the words.
3. Spend all your time working on the words, not the music.
4. Don’t consider the range and capabilities of the average human voice.
5. Never let anyone alter the way God originally gave your song to you.
6. Make sure the majority of your songs talk about what we do and feel rather than who God is and what he’s done.
7. Try to use as many Scriptural phrases as you can, and don’t worry about how they fit together.
8. Cover as many themes as possible.
9. Use phrases and words that are included in 95% of all worship songs.
10. Forget about Jesus and what he accomplished at the cross.

The number one reason why I’m planting a racially diverse church in Cincinnati is simply this: It’s Biblical. I’m not doing this because a focus group survey revealed a “market niche” for a racially diverse church. I’m doing this because I simply cannot escape what the Bible has to say about race.

All the way back in the very beginning of things, back when God spoke to Abraham and made a covenant with him, God promised that Abraham would be a blessing to every nation on the earth (Genesis 12). And then God gives us a flash forward glimpse into the future, when Jesus is praised in heaven precisely because he “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” God’s worth is demonstrated by the diversity of His admirers.

Between these two major events in the beginning of all things and at the end of all things, God gives us the biblical story of redemption. He begins with one man, who becomes a family, which becomes a nation, through whom comes the Messiah, who is the blessing to all nations. Some of those nations were dreaded enemies of God’s people.

Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles fought their own racial conflicts in the early church as well. In Acts 2, “devout men from every nation under heaven” accept the gospel and believe in Jesus. A few chapters later in Acts 6, we find that “a complaint by the Hellenists ?arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in ?the daily distribution [of food].” There it is; racial discrimination. The minority group responded with a peaceful protest and the apostles appointed a racially diverse group of deacons to oversee food distribution. The result? “The word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly (Acts 6:7).”

The ministry God has given to us as Christians is labeled the “ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5).” We are first reconciled to God through Jesus, but then are reconciled to each other through Jesus.

In Jesus, God has broken down the barrier walls of hostility between the races, creating “one new man” in place of the two (Eph 2). The “mystery” of the gospel is not merely that non-Jews are part of God’s kingdom. That message is as old as the Bible itself. The “mystery” that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 3 is that there is no master race; every person derives his worth and forgiveness through Christ directly. Gentiles are just as worthy and have equal access to God through the Spirit. That, however, was a mystery.

Many Jews feared what a Gentile church would look like. Perhaps they wondered to themselves, “what if we don’t like their music? We don’t like their preaching. They are too noisy and out of control. Their theology is weak. They need to be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses. ” Perhaps the Gentiles wondered, “why are they having such a hard time simply obeying Jesus’ command to love their neighbors? We love Jesus as much as they do.”

Peter also draws Paul’s rebuke for cultural and racial prejudice in Galatians 2, where Peter favored “certain men from James” because of their cultural heritage. In Galatians 2:14, the true problem with racial division is revealed: it compromises the gospel. When Paul rebuked Peter, he did not rebuke him for breaking the “no racism” rule; Paul rebuked him for not living “in step with the truth of the gospel.” In essence, racial division in the church tells the world that Christ is good enough to save us, but not good enough to unite us.

We American Christians owe a lot to the apostles for standing their ground against racism. Because of this, we Gentile Americans are a part of the Kingdom of God. We Gentile Americans can look at Acts 2, Acts 6, Acts 15, and see the story of the oppression of a minority Christian group and identify with them as my people. The Judaizers lost control of their version of Christianity, the thing they feared most.

That’s probably a similar fear many face about a racially reconciled church. White people might fear losing their music, their traditions, their comfort. Black people might fear losing their unique and wonderful spiritual heritage through assimilation with the dominant culture.

The Bible says that perhaps both races have made idols out of their cultural religious preferences and allowed them prominence over the gospel of Christ.

Can we worship with Fred Hammond instead of Matt Redman? Can we get used to “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” throughout church? Can we get used to preaching that is louder than we’re used to? Can we worship with acoustic guitars? Can we enjoy a quiet moment of sober reflection in a worship service?

That’s the number one reason why I want to build a racially diverse church. Racial division in the body of Christ diminishes God’s glory in our lives, and I want no part of that.

Racial unity in the body of Christ tells the world that our common allegiance to Jesus is greater than any potential division. It glorifies God.

Now that we have the number one reason out of the way, I have nine other reasons that are more practical in their orientation. These will appear in the next post.

[Acknowledgment: many of these insights are the result of studying Spencer Perkins, Chris Rice (not the singer), and Tim Keller.]

My favorite moment in all of the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis is the last part of the final book, The Last Battle. The children enter into the “real Narnia” through a narrow door and find that this new Narnia is even more beautiful and more real than the one they had known.

They are constantly invited to come “further up and further in.” At each successive turn, just when they think they had arrived at their destination, they found that something more spectacular was yet beyond and they needed to go even further in to reach it. And so it went, journeying further up and further in, always more elated than the moment before.

From the book:

For them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the on before.

This part of the book really made me long for heaven, because that is what the New Creation (aka “heaven”) will be like. We will be totally fulfilled and joyous and lacking nothing, yet each day will bring greater experiences of that fulfillment in God than the day before. The life we have been living for as many years as we have been alive is merely the title page and cover. Everything you have ever done in your life will amount to little more than a publisher’s stamp in eternity.

So I wrote a song about it and would like to share it with you. We have sung it at my church in Louisville the last couple of weeks and it has gone over pretty well, I think. I hope these lyrics make you long for God in eternity like it does me.

Further Up and Further In
written by Michael Clary and Andy Barlow

Further up and further in
The master bids us come
To see and taste the foreign fruit
The savior’s blood has won

Come and drink your heart’s content
The water without price
Recline and dine, the finest wine;
The blood of sacrifice

[Chorus]
Further up and further in
So much deeper than you’ve ever been
Further up and further in
Into the love that washed away our sin

The Bride adorned from those reborn;
Dressed in her proud array
Ascending glories of the Lamb
Are burning new each day

Clothed in linen, pure and bright,
And crowned in righteousness
The bridegroom loves her, his delight
Eternal love to her express

Perfect Eden; perfect rest
God’s dwelling place with man
The work of Christ has been fulfilled
He sits at God’s right hand

A thousand years now distant past
The joys have just begun
Yet further up and further in
The master bids us come!

When your church gathers for worship, what are you really doing? If you truly want to worship, then you should be giving ascent to the things God says are important.

What, then, are the things God really wants to see from you when you gather for worship? Does he want to see good musicians and a talented vocalists? Does he want to hear skillful arrangements and prayers laced with tender piano music, led by an up and coming worship leader with diving board hair?

If you have a kick-butt worship band, and everybody comes and raises their hands and sings out really loud, and the offering plate is overflowing, and everybody is having a great time… if you have all of this but your church does not have any sort of outreach to the poor, needy, broken, psychologically troubled, physically handicapped, or the otherwise down-and-out, and your church favors the affluent, pretty, smart, creative, educated, white, sophisticated, and/or the otherwise resourceful and well-to-do…

Your worship music will suck.

Amos 5:23-24

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Worship is primarily theological and secondarily musical. If you have great music but a man-centered, do it yourself, I’m OK and you’re OK bankrupt theology, God doesn’t want to hear it.

The advice of this series is intended to make leading worship a joy. Once you come to the Sunday morning (or whenever you meet) worship service, you should be confident and well prepared spiritually and musically.

A worship leader needs to be able to think of a lot of things all at the same time: playing the right chords and rhythms, singing the right notes and words, upcoming changes and dynamics, transitions, reading the response of the congregation, and giving yourself the freedom and flexibility to make changes on the fly as the situation warrants.

Oh yeah, and you need to attuned to the Spirit of God and the meaning of the songs you are leading!

This is a lot to keep track of at the same time, but being organized and having a plan can make a big difference.

There are a few other random notes I want to squeeze in here at the end, since they don’t really fit anywhere else.

1. Your voice is an instrument. Self-centered worship leaders want to lead worship in ways that best suit their own musical preferences. If you’re a gifted vocalist, then you’ll be constantly faced with the temptation to throw in your own pop-inspired ad-libs and runs.

If you try to do some acrobatic vocal tricks in the microphone, then the congregation will probably just drop out, stop participating and start watching you. This is an eclipse of God’s glory, because their gaze is directed towards the skillful musician rather than the God who gave him that skill.

Stick to the simple melody, and you’ll be a better worship leader.

2. Check the PowerPoint.

One obvious facet of worship leading that I have not addressed here, is the fact that one of the worship leader’s biggest responsibilities is to make sure that the words to the songs are reproduced in PowerPoint.

I recently led a new song for three weeks in a row when I was finally told that the words were wrong on the screen. For 3 weeks! I dropped the ball here. If the words on the screen are wrong, then all your hard work in practice goes down the drain.

3. Scripture during musical breaks.

I’m not a fan of musical breaks or guitar solos during worship. It shines the spotlight of the congregation’s attention on something other than God. But some songs need a break because it makes sense musically.

I suggest a compromise, which has worked very well in our church. During musical breaks, have a scripture reading that fits the worship theme to display. This keeps the congregation’s focus in the right place but allows you to keep the musical break.

4. Always be prepared to break a guitar string.

I always break my G-string.

[I'll pause while you finish giggling like a 3rd grader]

If you always break the same string, like I do, then try this. Take a used, unbroken string off your guitar that you normally break, and keep it in your guitar case. When you lead worship, have this string in your back pocket. If you break a string, then you will have a pre-stretched string that you can put on quickly.

If you break a lot of strings, practice changing it while standing up and see how fast you can do it.

Also, it may help to have an in-case-of-emergency backup plan. Have the band learn a 2 minute, instrumental song that can be played on a moment’s notice without you. If you break a string, ask the congregation to continue in prayer or reflection for a moment while you change the string (with the one in your pocket) and the band plays softly. This will be a lot less awkward than you abruptly stopping the service.

5. Conclude the set with a meaningful prayer.

This signals to the congregation that the musical set is over and you’re moving to the next element in the worship service. When you do this, talk to God like a man. You don’t want to sound like the guy who is more comfortable singing to God than talking to God.

If you have to, write out a prayer that captures your desire for the worship service and pray that. Public prayers are different from private prayers. You don’t want to nervously ramble on about whatever pops into your head on the spur of the moment. Save that for your devotion time.

Prepared prayers are no less spiritual than impromptu prayers.

God bless, and to God be all the glory!