Winter 2004
Examples That Inspire | Their Calling. Their work. Their Impact.
Opening Doors | Happening Upon the "Comanche Buffalo Prophet"
Worship: A Verb That Needs a Foundation | Role Player | Lost in Paradise | Profiles in Excellence: Corrinne Stewart, '52, Kenda Jazek, '67, Hart Morris, '69

Online Extras
What Relationships Are Built Or Destroyed In Worship? | Should Our Worship Be Relevant To Our Culture?

Kent Carlson founded Oak Hills Church in Folsom, CA in 1984. As his church crossed into the new millennium, they reached a philosophical crisis. They created the perfect mega-church with plenty of people and money, but discovered they had plenty of nothing. His leadership team believed there had to be more to experiencing God than highly produced and culturally reflective "worship" events.

A second defining moment occurred in July of 2000 during a leadership retreat. According to Carlson, he and his elder board experienced an encounter with God that initiated a second transition. "I think we began to become disillusioned with the consumer-based style of much of the evangelical movement in the United States," Carlson said. "The idea that if you give people what they want and you keep doing it in an excellent manner, they'll keep coming."

The leadership retreat provided Carlson and other Oak Hills Church leaders with an opportunity to re-evaluate their church strategy.

"We asked the question, ‘if God didn't show up, how would we know,'" Carlson said. "We had a hard time answering that because we were so good at doing church … God could not be a part of this and we would still be growing, so we decided on another way to do church in such a way that if God doesn't show up, we're in deep weeds."

Oak Hills Church's previous mission statement was to turn unchurched people into a community of fully devoted followers of Christ. Now their mission statement is to invite people to experience the reality of life in God's kingdom. In order to insure God's intervention within their services, Oak Hills Church dropped their seeker service on the weekends and replaced it with their New Community worship service.

"Mega-church structures" for church small groups were not effective within Oak Hills Church, Carlson said. "It creates a bureaucracy and an artificiality of relationships that just did not work," he said. "After two or three years we realized it was not really functioning."

If you come from a traditional church background, you may not like the music at his church, but can relate to the philosophical quandary his leadership team encountered. In traditional, blended, and contemporary settings, we have become so proficient at producing worship events that we miss the point of gathering together. Crossing to the new millennium, Carlson's church had to redefine the church's existence. Would it be driven by high quality worship production targeting the population demographic of Folsom, or would it be relational: God to human, human to God, human to human? They chose to be relational with the goal to experience God's transformation of their own lives. This may seem a bit pie-in-the-sky, but it shifts the emphasis from events to people, programs to persons, and spectator outreach to relational experience. In addition, they eliminated the dual worship strategy of seeker service on the weekend and believer service during the week in favor of a single community worship service. People were simply invited to come and worship God rather than come to a target-market service. So far, the result has been a dramatic increase in their church members' compassion for fellow humans, and expressed itself through practical ministry. Changing to a God-centered worship philosophy created a relational ministry philosophy.

Does relational ministry mean worship is relevant to or reflective of the culture? Because we live in our culture, certain aspects (like sound systems and air conditioning) will be a part of a church worship service. However, the differences between relevance and reflection create serious problems. To have relevance, worship connects to the culture. To be reflective, worship includes the culture. There is a difference. Relevance - I can speak with my 13-year old son in a manner he understands and we can have a great time together. Reflection - I dress like my 13-year-old son (complete with zip-off pants), throw in a few off-color words he hears at school, utilize adolescent peer pressure, be cool and speak to him with lots of background video. He might relate to that, but I have just given up my role as a mentor for his mental, physical, and spiritual maturity.

The relevance of worship directly correlates with the actions of the believers. Had Christ stayed in a continual introspective worship mode with close friends, would his ministry reach both Jew and Gentile? Also, I cannot imagine the Sermon on the Mount being led by disciples with closed eyes singing narcissistic songs and Jesus delivering his sermon backed by a team of techno-warriors using power point, theatrical lighting and media. Instead, he speaks plainly, tells stories, then models what he said.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16

This example of relevance is powerful and I encourage you to read the entire sermon (Matthew 5:1-8:1). In the above excerpt, Christ used images of a city on a hill and a lampstand to connect with first century people, and re-enforced his point - Live in a way that glorifies God. For me, the important part of the story happens after he delivered the message. Instead of gathering with his disciples to evaluate the event, improve the delivery, or talk about the daily collection, Jesus walks down the hillside, and heals a leper. In fact, he healed the leper in private, and asked the leper not say anything about the event. Christ's earthly ministry was relevant in both word and deed.

Culturally relevant worship includes corporate singing. Jesus understood the value of song. For example, the disciples and Jesus sang a hymn as they departed from the event we call "The Lord's Supper." In addition, first century Christians sang as they worshiped God. Corporate song unifies, instructs, and matures. In church music, our concern should be a question of discipleship rather than style. As artistic ministers, worship leaders should be on the leading edge of composition, conducting, and pedagogy. The argument that praise music is nothing more than an I-IV-V-I chord progression with terrible poetry would be a thing of the past had artistic ministers engaged with the youth of the 1980s. In 2003, we are faced by a generation of young adults who never learned the joy of diverse melodic, harmonic, and poetic textures. This directly correlates with the self-centered "I-ness" of the typical praise chorus. Worship leaders using simple melodies with basic chordal support (called monody) do not teach the concept of different parts serving a unified whole. The only important voice is the person singing. Therefore, it is alright to close your eyes and ignore the human to human component of worship. The difference between pragmatic target-marketed worship and culturally relevant worship is as stark as a telephone pole and a maple tree in autumn: One has a specific utilitarian purpose. The other exists because God made it. One is dead and held together by chemicals. The other is living, changing, and growing. One is a straight line and mono-color. The other includes a wide variety of shapes, forms, and colors.

Should worship be relevant to our culture? Yes, just as God is relevant to daily living. In addition, cultural relevance is not an issue of style and image, but one of practice and purpose. Why? Your actions are the ultimate revealers of what you truly believe. As first century Christians taught us, worship is relationship based. It builds bonds between believers, destroys habits and relationships that impede God's transforming power, teaches us to listen and respond to God's will, and brings relevance to our existence as we live in a sinful culture. As for the future of worship, church music, and the church, I do not know. However, I know that God's work will move forward by His grace, and not our strategic marketing abilities. The foundation of the worship verb is a living relationship with God. From that relationship, we learn how to communicate with God, have empathy for others, and share God's grace.