Modern worship in church = apostasy?

We cannot have a debate, let alone a significant discussion,
until somebody defines 'modern worship'.

I know some who say the altar call was developed in the late
1800s so is 'modern worship. My church gives an altar call
both services on Sunday, every Sunday; sometimes on
Wednesday. is the altar call a 'modern worship'?

 

Please ask that pastor for his definition of modern worship. Then a discussion can ensue. Modern for someone in their 20's is quite different than for someone in their 70's.

Definitions, please.

 

Brother XDiscipleX:
//But where does the bible say that you
cannot worship with electric guitars?//

I thinkyou will find that in Opinions 17:8???

My church sings the old songs (older than 30 years).
The church ½-mile down the road sings CCM
(contempary Christian music)
The church ½-mile more down the road think
the Bible says you are a bad sinner if you use
any insturment including snapping your fingers.
Only Human voices can truly worship God
(though apparently angels can do fairly well).

I see nothing wrong with finding a church that
plays the kind of music you like. Of course,
I live in the Bible Belt of the USofA. The state
of Oklahoma has 50% of the adults members of
denominations that used to be Southern Baptist.

 

==I don't think much of it since there is nothing in Scripture that condemns different forms of music being used in worship. Music styles naturally change over time, and with culture, it would be a careless mistake to claim that all that music is of the devil and that using it in church is "apostasy".

==Very good questions. You should present such questions to those who believe that modern music in Church is apostasy. You should also ask them what Scripture(s) they base it on. I promise you the response will be interesting...

==Bingo.

==Take a glance at Psalm 150.

 

Worship is a Spiritual Encounter with our Most High God. Is it worship, or is it entertainment today? Am I in the presence of the Great I AM during a "Christian" rock concert? Is God's Love extended to me by singing the same words over and over and over and over again? Is this how one enters into the Spiritual Realm?

Think about music at the time of Bach, Beethoven. Think about the great operatic tenors and sopranos. Then look at what music has become since "rock 'n roll" arrived. Think about the incredible romance songs that Sinatra, Como, the Four Freshmen sang, compared to what we hear on radio today.

I use these examples to point out that the same thing is happening to worship music. It is "progressing" from pure worship to pure noise (or perhaps pure nonsense is more descriptive).

No, God doesn't prescribe our worship service music. He enters in to worship with us --- hard to do above all that noise, with all that clutter.

 

And in the discussion about what this pastor meant by "modern", let us not forget that for the past several years churches have been told they need to design worship to reach the POST-modern world .. the world of people who are far more interested in the experiential than they are the rational. It's a challenge to a preacher like me who still believes in logical presentations!

 

If it is, then count me in on the 'Modern Worship' side because our church does this also and even sometimes at funerals and weddings, depending on the familiy's wishes...

We're REALLY modern. :applause:

 

Gotcha. I'm with you so far.

Well, that depends. In your example, am I at church, about to open the Word and hear it preached? Or am I down at the local stadium with 40,000 others to hear Third Day or Casting Crowns? I can tell you truly that I have and do worship in both places.

Yes. At least I am, I don't know where you are. Is that you sitting two rows behind me, but with your fingers in your ears humming the "Great Speckled Bird?"

Is God's love extended to you even when you don't repeat any words? That maybe should be the main question. Worship is our response to the revealed glory and greatness of God, for who He is and what He has done. Revealed. Entering into the throne room of the Lord is for His glory and honor, not what you can get out of it, right?

Depending on the realm you're referring to... possibly.

Two VERY different composers... one of the 17th Century and one a few years later. Writing in completely different styles and periods of classical music. I'm with you.

What? No basses or contraltos? Are you discriminating? I once heard Samuel Ramey sing Mephistopholes, but you could hardly call that a spiritual experience even though it was magnificent. In fact, thinking about the "great" opera singers of all time, I find that many of them were/are self-centered, arrogant and extremely prideful. Is there a point to this?

I'm sure if you look hard enough, especially on satellite radio, you can still find these great singers being broadcast. What music has become? What, more diverse? Think about the music of John Williams, James Horner, and John Barry... Do you not hear the classical and romantic influence of those great composers of yesteryear? Alot of classical music, as well as scores of operas, musicals and "romance" songs have been written since the advent of rock and roll... and I'll point out that some of it (in my opinion) was excrement before 1950 just like there's excrement today. The fact is, you don't like rock music, so it's bad. You don't listen to it or partake in it, so it's a sad state of affairs for the world of worship music. It's YOUR OPINION. Don't listen to it, don't worship with it, don't go to a church that does... that it YOUR PREROGATIVE. But I'm sorry. I cut you off. Continue.

Again, your opinion. Some modern worship is junk... I'll admit that. But not having heard all of it, you cannot write the entire genre off. There are good people writing good new songs for the good of the Kingdom. There are churches writing good material to be sung from the pews in honor of the Most High God. I'm sorry you haven't had that experience, but don't write off my church's worship until you've been here... and incidentally, even if you don't like it, that's ok. The worship time isn't for you anyway. It's for the Lord.

Actually, I serve a God who can pretty much do whatever He wants. He builds His throne on the praise of His people. Nothing's too hard for Him. :thumbs:

 

I think alot of the modern worship with the type music they use seems more like trying to draw humans to each other and to the music itself than to God...


You have to remember Satan who used to be Lucifer knows all about music and how to use it to his own advantage:

Ezekiel 28:
1: The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2: Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3: Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4: With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5: By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7: Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8: They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9: Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10: Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11: Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12: Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13: Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14: Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15: Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16: By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17: Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.


I read this study one time a music expert did and it was saying that the beat of music can excite your lower nature rather than your higher... it was really interesting... it has to do with alpha and theta waves or something like that. The bad kind of beat to the music calls out your carnal nature... and songs like Martin Luther liked... call out the mind rather than the body... "A Mighty Fortress is Our God"... is an example of the old style music which leads one's mind to God.

It was a truly interesting study... I wish you all could read it.


I also wish I had all my studies I did myself around here still and I'd share them with you. The Catholic Church talks about how they got rid of their Catholic style music and replaced it to make their church more like the Protestant Churchs...

The Protestant Churches are becoming more like the Catholic Churches in doing the Stations of the Cross and using Rosaries, etc.


One is called Inculturation and the other is called Acculturation. Infiltrating other places to make them become more like yourself and also adapted your self to become more like the other places until finally there isnt much difference.


Claudia

 

==A person certainly could be. I have heard some of the old hymns put to modern rock and it is powerful. While many have turned worship into entertainment that has nothing to do with the style of music. Worship can still be entertainment with a piano or a pipe organ. With organ music I have to be really careful because I "LOVE" pipe organs, they send chills up my spine. At my church we only have a piano. The organ is never played. Anyway my point is that worship can be turned into entertainment with any form of music, so it is not the form of music that matters. A person can be in the presence of God with no music, with rock music, with southern gospel, or with organs and pianos. Music is not the issue.

==I believe some of the Psalms repeat phrases over and over again, do they not? Read through them.

==While I am with you in that I LOVE classical music like Bach (etc) I am also very aware of the subjective nature of that. The idea that music has gone down hill is "your opinion" and not objective fact.

==I think if you look back into history you will find that the exact same thing was said about many of the hymns you love when they first came out. Pure worship is in the heart not in the music.

==Well organs, horns, and pianos can be very loud as well. Not to mention the fact that Psalm 150 talks about praising the Lord with trumpets, dancing, timbrel, lyre, harps, stringed instruments, pipes, "LOUD" and resounding cymbals. That sounds very loud to me...

I am afraid that you are trying to turn your subjective taste into objective law.

 

well I just found some of my own stuff online about this, you might notice this modern music frequently has the word "Celebration Movement" associated with it. It all begins to fit together when one realizes the connection between the Catholic Church, New Age Movement and Protestantism all joining hands together. The New Age Movement has to do with all mankind "becoming one" which together is supposedly their pantheistic "God". The idea with the music is to get everyone all doing the same things so that you cannot tell them apart anymore:

The Real Purpose Behind the Celebration Movement​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Inculturation:[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]One of the major activities of the Jesuits involved something called "Inculturation".[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Malachi Martin explains it like this:[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The idea was to adapt so severely to the culture of the alien (one who was not a Catholic) that the missionary would acquire the mind of that culture, and would revamp both doctrine and moral practice to fit that alien culture." - The Jesuits, Malachi Martin.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This actually means that the Jesuit would try to be as much like the people in the particular group that he was seeking to win over to his side-as he could. But all the while, he was sneaking in Catholic doctrines, little by little, until the church or group became Catholic in their thinking-without even realizing it! This is one of the tactics that the Jesuits are notorious for.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Acculturation:[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And then there is another tactic that the Roman Catholic Church is using called "Acculturation". This is something that means to adapt the practices of your own church-such as your worship format-to the practices of the different cultures or denominations that you are seeking to win over to Catholicism.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In this way, they believe, people will feel "comfortable" in the Catholic church and perhaps eventually join the catholic faith. For instance, Malachi Martin, former Jesuit, tells of how in some Catholic churches now they have coffee afterwards for "socialization time". Their bands play "Blues music-using trombones, kazoos, saxophones and top it off with drums to add a rhythmic foundation." - The Encounter, Malachi Martin.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And a Catholic priest, Andrew Greeley, tells a story of how things have changed in the Catholic church, for the purpose of enlarging their congregations:[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"In many new Catholic churches, statutes, the stations (of the cross), and the stained glass windows have either been swept away or reduced to the diagrams or abstractions that would not offend the most fundamental protestant. Reverence and awe have been replaced by often cloying informality; solemnity by 'letting it all hang out' manners. Great music has been replaced by bad pseudo-folk music... As part of the final phase of our acculturation into American life, it became appropriate to abandon the whole mess, to... eliminate the mysteries and the medals, the invocations and the pieties, the blessings and the rosaries, the May crownings and the mumbo jumbo." - How to Save the Catholic Church, Andrew Greeley.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Then we see people in Protestant churches complaining because some of their churches have adapted by doing the Eucharist, selling rosaries in our hospitals, doing the stations of the cross... then there is the celebration movement.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I'll come back if I can and explain that tie-in to you, and what it is they are 'REALLY' celebrating and the incorporation of the Charismatic Movement into the churches.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]--------------------- ------------[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Celebration Part 2[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Usually we associate the word "celebration" with having a party or a general "high time". But in the Catholic mind, the word "celebration" means something else entirely.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I have done extensive research on the subject.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In the book "How to Save the Catholic Church" by Andrew Greeley, the word "celebration" used over and over. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]


[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"...the natural world is a sign of God, not merely because God created it, but because God, somehow actually is IN it." How to Save the Catholic Church, pg. 40. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The catholic religious imagination says that God lurks in every place." - Ibid. pg. 43.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Just like the Baal worshippers of old, the Catholic church (whose teachings were adopted from the ancient mystery religion of Babylon, by the way) sees God in all of nature. "...in the sticks and stones, the sky and the stars, the caves, the dances, in conception, birth, growth, and death... God is still there-not totally encompassed by these material realities but nonetheless totally present in and among them." How to Save the Catholic Church, pg. 48.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, believed that one could see God in all things, and spent much of his time trying to do just that. You see, the Catholic church believes that because God supposedly is "in" everything... that this means that everything is something to "celebrate". In fact, when explaining what a true catholic who understands his religion would say if you ask him what his religion means:[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"...it means that God loves us and celebrates our life with us and comes to be with us and our families as we celebrate the passage of life and the fact of His love." Ibid. pg. 80,81.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (who's ideas were said by Malachi Martin to be what was behind the idea of Vatican II) believed in the evolution of humankind towards the "Ultra Human"... He taught that all things were progressing toward perfect unity, until there was "The Omega Cosmic (pantheistic) Christ" which meant that all of mankind together was "God".[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Two more quotes and I think you will get the picture:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The Catholic theologian Richard Mc Brien says, 'The Catholic vision sees God in and through all things: other people, communities, movements, events, places, objects, the world at large, the whole cosmos.... all these are potential carriers of the Divine Presence.." How to Save the Catholic Church, pg. 41.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From the Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Celebration is not noise. It is not just a spinning head. it is not just individual kicks. it is the creation of a common identity, a common consciousness. Celebration is everybody making joy..."[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Celebration Movement has to do really with creating a common identity, where everyone in all churches are doing the same thing, together. [/FONT]

 

Claudia, with all due respect, my church isn't modeling our worship after anyone. There isn't anything new age or catholic about our worship times... we are wholeheartedly about the worship of God. We use old songs, new songs and drama to direct people to the throne room of God. I have a choir, praise team and drama team preparing to present the Gospel in musical format around Easter. Not every church is submitting to this movement you've discovered.

 

Joshua,

I didnt say everyone was.

 

Thanks for the clarification. :smilewinkgrin: The bottom line in the worship discussion is that it's not about what we like or prefer, it's about the Lord and His praise, and an encounter with Him that brings about change in our lives.

 

Not always about that actually, thats my point. Others in control may have different motivations. Just something to think about.

 

Joshua,
That's always the problem with worship music - we tend to like only what we like. One man told me "I know what I like" when in reality it was more "I like what I know." Outside the setting on the A/C, this will always be the most controversial thing in the church.

The main thing is, does worship take place, and what does it take for that to happen. I thank God that there's worship music available in all different styles!

 

Praise God, I agree bro!

 

Yes Claudia, I merely meant that SHOULD be what worship is about. :jesus: