What Constitutes Renewal?

     

What constitutes spiritual renewal?  Are we not talking about authenticity, about integrity in worship and in life?  I am renewed when I am most genuine before God, when I am laid bare before God and He has poured out His Spirit upon me.   Renewal is ultimately wayless and formless, but that does not mean that in corporate worship traditional forms have to be replaced by contemporary forms that have an illusion of being wayless and formless, if only because they are both poorly conceived and poorly formed.  Does “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9) actually demand that we abandon beauty in favor of T-shirts and jeans?

            While there was some need to revise the BCP, perhaps even some need to enrich its selection of canticles, did wholesale revision of either the BCP, or the Hymnal leave us with something more, or something less?  In using both the new BCP and Hymnal over the past few years, my soul (nephesh ~ my inner man) cries out for the something more because instinctively I recognize that I have ended up with something less.

            The same is true of worship music and hymnody.  How much contextualization is actually constructive?  Why do I spend so much time listening to classical music?  Why do I still prefer, greatly prefer, Handel’s Messiah to the current offerings of contemporary gospel?  Something identifiable, and negative, has happened to Gospel praise music in the last twenty years.  It has moved from praise, ranging from simple to almost, but not quite lofty praise of Maranatha and other groups; to the current stuff with insipid melodies and clanging rhythms often featuring pseudotestimonial songs about me and Jesus, and us and Jesus, and what he done did for ME, all of which is often told in a rambling sentimental personal stories.  Did I say sappy?  I meant to!  You can listen for quite a while on Christian radio and never hear actual praise, and when you do hear it, it seems noisy, cold and incomprehensible.  When did contemporary gospel music move from being group led (Maranatha and many others) to individual praise leaders, and is that necessarily an advantage?  Is it not rather a symptom that contemporary praise music has moved away from congregational singing to professional performance?

 Why should I just pick on contemporary gospel?  The other day someone told me of a “glorious” service at one of our large downtown churches that “wow” even had “paid singers”.  Of course what I want to know is what does that have to do with worship?  That by the way is also reflected in the shift from the 1940 Hymnal to the 1982 Hymnal.  In the former about 50% at most was singable in the average congregation, and in the latter 30% is singable if you are lucky.  It was of course actually put together by professional church musicians from that school that advises that you tighten your buttocks in order to better project your voice.  Woops.  That was uncalled for and perhaps unjust, but it certainly reflects the attitude of one very influential seminary music professor who it turns out actually became the General Editor of the 1982 Hymnal.  Having “sat under” his instruction I can easily see why the 1982 Hymnal is so ineffective for the average congregation.  It was all just too precious to be well balanced!