Worship as Christian Distinction | Expanding Worship pt. 2
The past 2 years have done many things. As a pastor, leading a church through #Coronaland, I have seen many of these things. As I look at the many ways things have shifted for so many of us, much less our various cultures, economy, education system, and much more…the best word I can use is “flattening”. Things have been pressed together and assembled to really function across many different environments they used to, and in places they typically haven’t.
But this isn’t new. I think most of our culture over the last 20 years has been a flattening event. It’s been brought about by the internet, postmodern thought, and a larger experience of homogenization even as we experience a tremendous amount of individualization. To step away from the $100 words I always find myself using…we have access to so many things we find ourselves getting more generic in pretty much everything we consume and where we consume them. Access has drastically changed for many different things. Amazon Prime, Netflix, and YouTube have pretty much flattened our access to anything we eat, drink, watch, listen or subscribe to.
So about worship…
Remember. Christian Pastor.
I think about worship a bunch. And C19 has totally flattened it. I also think C19 has served as an accelerator. Anything that was bound to happen ended up getting about a 5 year boost in things. As a church leader, I see the digital revolution of how church is done and how faith is worked out, absolutely accelerating the first few months of the pandemic, massive innovation and then the change in worship attendance (but not necessarily Christian practice. Or then again, absolutely changing Christian practice) and the flattening of many aspects of faith leading to generic consumption practice. Again, to simplify, when church seems to be everywhere as Jesus followers…we struggle to make it anywhere.
Flattening always begins as innovation. It is answering a unique problem. It takes advantage of technological advances that allow greater access. But over time, what was monumental and giant becomes generic as the idea is poked, prodded and manipulated outside the space of the innovators and early adopters. While innovation is calculated and exact, flattening is the process of something becoming generic, passable to the largest body of people in the easiest way.
For example...
A few months ago in the midst of a craving for anything sweet, I dug through some MRE’s I got from the National Guard when Hurricane Laura did its work in my community. After finding a pack of Skittles and tearing into them I suddenly realized I had popped a crown off of a tooth. A couple of days later I saw sitting in the dentist office getting it reattached in and I pretty much sat through a worship set at any given church on a Sunday morning, with the Dental Hygienist singing along to a veritable greatest hits of Modern Worship. It was really interesting getting that crown de-glued and polished while she enthusiastically hummed “Reckless Love.”
While I love to think about how songs of praise are available in any space, and I had a technician who loved Jesus clearly, I also find the situation highly ironic. I don’t think Cory Asbury ever imagined how a Dremel tool with a polishing bit would accent his song.
So about that worship flattening…
In his book “Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns”, T. David Gordon presents the idea that in prior times, people listened and engaged with several different types of music in several environments. Most people were familiar with all types of music and the places they were appropriate. Folk music was the music of the home and of family. Pop music might be played and enjoyed at a dance or other celebration. Classical music was the soundtrack of formal events, learning music education, and civic celebrations. Hymns were sung and enjoyed while in worship services. Gordon argued that as the 20th century progressed and people gained access to music in any environment and at any time, our understanding began to flatten. All music became more and more generic, people lost the ability to interact with other forms. So hymns slowly changed into pop or folk music, and the ability to read music and engage with more “complicated” songs became harder and harder. What was once a diverse, personal level of engagement with multiply types of music became one more generic one. It is a textbook example (literally) of the idea of how flattening has already affected Christian worship.