The Stones Cry Out

I keep meaning to sit down and write something from our lives (lots going on at the moment) but when I plan to, something leaps out at me from the world. In this case, it’s a line from a technophile blog called BoingBoing Gadgets.

John Brownlee is a rather snarky contributor to BBGadgets, and he loves his tech toys. So, when a version of the video game Guitar Hero came out that’s aimed at Christians, he was sure to comment. What he has to say is very interesting.

I used to be a Christian. Born of atheist parents, I stumbled upon this on my own. But there was a day my faith disintegrated: it was when I realized that the exact same sensation of God’s love that I felt at Christian gatherings was absolutely indistinguishable from the adrenaline rush and sense of cultural belonging that I felt at a rock concert.

This has been a long-held belief of mine (I’ve alluded to it here before) but it’s interesting to see it outside of the usual Christian navel-gazing blogosphere.

So how do we as Christians deliberately distinguish musical worship from a rock concert? I don’t think you can just say “but it’s about God!” and hope that the congregation can tell the difference. At the time Brownlee honestly thought that the rush he got from the church worship band was “the sensation of God’s love”. No matter how many times you say “The whole service is worship.” and “You can worship anywhere!” they ring completely false because the deliberately crafted mood of “adrenaline rush and cultural belonging” that a leader creates, and the amount of focus and money and time and effort that are spent on the concert part of worship shows the truth lurking below the talk.

We struggled for years with “Well, we just need to educate people.”. But we never did beyond token efforts because really, music was popular. People liked it. New people came because of it. It got people in the seats so we were succeeding and growing as a church. And people could hear the Message.

Question: If we need to draw people to our message with music, what are we saying about our message? What does “We draw them in with the music and then they hear the Gospel.” really say about what we think about our message?

I’m starting to realize as I edit and chop this entry down to size that there are two issues mixed up and blended here: (1) problems with the “church growth” model, and (2) “music as worship”. I’ll leave this ramble with a question: Is it better to have smaller congregations full of people seeking the message, or buildings full of people seeking adrenaline rush and cultural belonging?

False dichotomy, I know. Attractive ministry can bear fruit. But scripturally, is it what the church is called to?