outside is better

Contemporary influences Part 1: Southern California

Last week I started reflecting on the origins of what we consider to be contemporary worship in hopes of really defining what "contemporary" means. I wanted to take a couple of posts to look at a couple of major movements/influences in contemporary worship.

It is impossible to look at contemporary worship (that is explicitly congregational) without mentioning John Wimber and the Anaheim vineyard congregation. I have described this before (see The Vineyard Model), so I want rehash it out. I searched pretty far for some examples of this congregation, but wasn't able to find a great example from their first few years. What I did find was a video highlighting worship at several conferences a few years in the future.

 

What is interesting in the video (in the earlier segments) is the absence of screens or lyric sheets. I have had some great conversations with Dr. Lester Ruth about this congregation and the lack of lyrics can be considered a key component. Where many complain about the repetition in contemporary music, these simple songs allowed for a great engagement. If you want to listen to another track that does fit our time period in question, I blogged about the first Vineyard recording here. All of these songs fit inside this boundary.

To see how this style of worship still appears, lets check out the infamous Saddleback Church.

This fast fowards us 30 years into the future, our own current time. While the songs might be more complicated and require a screen to view the lyrics, the music still sits well within the Southern California beach culture. This was a noted quality with Wimber and the sequencing on Rick Muchow fits the paradigm.

Southern California has provided a musical (and theological) outline to both the early contemporary movement as well as how large churches "do" worship in congregational settings. These influential churches branded and marketed their worship to churches all across the world and led the way in the contemporary movement. It would be safe to say that without their songwriting, instrumentation and innovation as far as order of worship we might not have the contemporary church now. The success of these congregations engaging with God in this manner mainstreamed contemporary worship and gave permission to existing traditional congregations to begin new services.

I imagine this music might not appeal to everyone. But I don't want to start ripping apart some examples that have existed for decades. Lets just note this as we continue to think about how we can best continue to define contemporary worship.

Classics: The Eschatology of Hank Williams Jr.

While I am doing some site maintanence work with both blogs (I also run a blog on eschatology called World Without End), I decided to share some posts between the two, posting some of the best of 2010 at the other blog. This is from last June and it was one of my favorites.

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One of the classic country songs is the seminal "A Country Boy Can Survive".  I remember driving around listening to this song in college and loving it.  It was enough of a cultural marker to be parodied by the rantings of a homeless man in Canadian post-rock Godspeed You! Black Emperor's  song Providence. I think it functions as a great marker of a secular and escapist eschatology. 

 

The preacher man says it’s the end of time
And the Mississippi River she’s a goin’ dry
The interest is up and the Stock Markets down
And you only get mugged
If you go down town

I live back in the woods, you see
A woman and the kids, and the dogs and me
I got a shotgun rifle and a 4-wheel drive
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

I can plow a field all day long
I can catch catfish from dusk till dawn
We make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
Ain’t too many things these ole boys can’t do
We grow good ole tomatoes and homemade wine
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

Because you can’t starve us out
And you cant makes us run
Cause one-of- ‘em old boys raisin ole shotgun
And we say grace and we say Ma’am
And if you ain’t into that we don’t give a damn

We came from the West Virginia coalmines
And the Rocky Mountains and the and the western skies
And we can skin a buck; we can run a trot-line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

I had a good friend in New York City
He never called me by my name, just hillbilly
My grandpa taught me how to live off the land
And his taught him to be a businessman
He used to send me pictures of the Broadway nights
And I’d send him some homemade wine

But he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife
For 43 dollars my friend lost his life
Id love to spit some beechnut in that dudes eyes
And shoot him with my old 45
Cause a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

We’re from North California and south Alabam
And little towns all around this land
And we can skin a buck; we can run a trot-line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

The interesting thing about this song (written in 1981) is the cultural ideas of both escapism and separatism, manifest in Williams thematic description of the city as a dangerous and ruthless place.  It was also re-written and re-released in 1999 by Chad Brock in reference to the supposed Y2K catastrophe.

For those who live in the country, life skills held are what separate them from those who have migrated to the city.  It will be these skills that will allow them to function inside an apocalyptic scenario, and ultimately be the holders of power (another interesting marker).  If anything, this song serves as an introduction to the phenomena of survivalism.  

For Christians, this isn't a good view because it places the realm of trust inside of self-sufficiency, either individual or cultural.  The mark of individuality makes Bocephus thoroughly postmodern, although I imagine I would get chewing tobacco spit in my eye if I accused him of such. One of the patterns that needs to be developing in the current church culture is the reliance and separation from current systems and instead placed in Christ and His kingdom.  The Church is the alternative city, instead of a set of skills and a cultural marker. Where Hank mentions saying "grace", it is placed in the context of a general moral structure, looped in with niceties such as "ma'am".  Faith is mentioned as a passing nod towards a cultural system that is propped up instead by distinction and self-reliance.  To a Christian, faith in the promise of God as well as reliance on His faithfulness is the foundation of a hope centered eschatology.

I hope this little piece shows how much these ideas have crept into mainstream society, even in a 30 year old country song.

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

An individual eschatology: Singing like Johnny Cash pt 2.

The last couple of days have been an experiment in cross posting between my two blogs, this and World Without End.  Over at World Without End, I have been exploring the eschatology of Johnny Cash...focusing on his last few records.  Yesterday I wrote here about the influence of revivalism and the American Church.  These seem like history lessons, but the singing of the late 19th and early 20th century determined our current theological landscape.  Here are a few points from the previous post.

1.  The Theology of Revivalism was focused on individual decision.
2.  It was highly developed by gospel singing, songs different from hymns.
3.  It existed across denominational lines.

When we look at Cash's record My Mother's Hymn Book (check out World Without End for a deeper look into this record), we see differences that are thematic across revivalism.  They show a concern for an afterlife that is separated from a sinful body, the "otherness" of heaven, and a pretty hardcore sentimentality.  The songs about death that were sung at these meetings (and crept their way into mainstream Sunday morning) weren't dark, but they were evangelistic songs about death.  The mass religious culture that was being formed was simply trying to find a way to make sense of their lives, and dealing with mortality was a serious issue. Remember this is a generation that isn't that removed from the Civil War, and life was still very hard. This is a deconstructed formal religion that was rebuilt to make sense in the camp meetings.

These songs weren't about formal institutions, or a clerical structure, but a deeply personal relationship with God.  One of the markers of the inner-denominational cooperation was the absence of distinct (and controversial) theology of the unified church.  Often, the absence of many intense theological topics shows the common ground that people wanted to stand on.

Death was seen as the platform for the believer to meet with God in eternity. The fascination with earth and heaven began to draw a serious line and the celebrated the distance between the two. Even as this is sung, many of the songs have an attitude of the hope of the journey towards heaven.  The Arminian influence is found in the stories of triumph over sin but the "real destination to be sought"(Marini).

This developed a very individual eschatology, that was focused not on the Church or restoration of earth-but upon each persons place in heaven.  Again, we realize that these songs and meetings were not originally seen as official worship services, but evangelistic meetings with a specific goal of conversation.  Just as the preachers words were evangelistic, the songs sung by the believer were designed to lead people towards Christ.

The greatest influences of these songs are slight, but important.  It is in revivalism that the American church became fascinated with individual experience and thematic personal singing.  We sang about relationship, faith and promise...and slowly lost songs describing Father, Son and Spirit.  The songs found in many of the hymnals are also absent from anything regarding the nature of God as Triune, as well as the communal nature of the Church in relation to each other and to God.  

The lesson to be learned here is that culture will influence worship, and the measures that we take now to better understand faith might become so crucial that we leave out assumed things for other generations. Meaning-things that we automatically believe and know might not be proclaimed in song that much, but after a generation or two they could be interpreted as not important or fundamental to faith.  We are who we worship-and we need to remember the personal AND communal nature of our God.

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2 works were great sources for these posts.
Honky-Tonk Gospel: The Story of Sin and Salvation in Country Music
Hymnody as history: early evangelical hymns and the recovery of American popular religion-Stephen Martini

A Theology of Song: Singing like Johnny Cash

This post is part of a cross post at my other blog World Without End, regarding the eschatology of Johnny Cash.  Since one of my main focus here is worship, we will be looking at some of the background that helps better explain part of my post at World Without End. Read it there, and I hope this style of posting works out well.

Today we will be looking at the influence on revivalism upon Christian singing and the worship service. Tomorrow, we will look at the specific eschatological views of this time period.  This seems like a history lesson, but for those interested in contemporary worship issues...it is this background that formed the way our churches look at Christian singing and how we are "supposed" to worship.

One of Johnny Cash’s last records was “My Mothers Hymn Book”.  In this record, we find that most of the track listing is proclaiming a very unique and widespread view of heaven, the end of time and an apocalyptic vision.  Coupled with his other songs, we find a very robust and thoughtful vision of how Cash thought about the end of time and the place of the believer.  The biggest influence on Cash was the revival spirit of American Christian singing.

These are all simple hymns, but what they really show us is the development of evangelical singing in the late 1900’s and early 20th century.  This is the affect of circuit riding preachers, tent meetings and an explosion of church growth.  In the 40 or so years that can be described as the 2nd Great Awakening, we find a distinct shift in church worship practice.  The high church Presbyterians and Episcopalians kept much of their high church liturgical developments.  In the lower church, such as Baptists and various strains of Methodism, the revival spirit began controlling the hearts of the believer and changing many of the ways that people worshiped.  Unlike the hymns of the church, the gospel song that developed in the campmeetings and revivals served as a personal evangelical statement.  These services were not seen as worship, but outreach tools, and the singing was an intentional evangelical moment.

These were individual songs-distinct and not practiced within community.  Since they were attempting to elicit an individual response, a communal theology was not important. Also-since these meetings were extremely inner-denominational, complex theological issues (such as predestination, and eternal security) were not often present lyrically.  These songs were written to proclaim an individuals saving experience with God, the life that it gives them now, and the hope towards a future.

It is during this time that popular American faith became a sung theology.  It was a religion en masse. It wasn't a new development, but a modified belief system that had wide appeal.  It offered answers to tough questions, and the spirit of invitation pervaded the entire religious system.  The individual decision made was no longer thought of the entrance into a corporate body, but the beginning of a privatized religion practiced in public. As the 2nd Great Awakening transitioned into formal church, the revival meetings turned into Sunday meetings and many of the thoughts transitioned over.  The best way to look at the theological developments in this 50 year period is to look at the songs that were sung, and they show a distinct development of worship as well as general theology.

The songs in My Mothers Hymnbook are all very individual.  When not, it is about a relationship between a few people that will hopefully be existing in heaven.  Tomorrow, I want to look specifically at the relationship with revival worship, Johnny Cash, and Eschatology.

Late night thoughts on Worship

Been doing some reading lately, one of the books being Many Colored Kingdom, A: Multicultural Dynamics for Spiritual Formation.  This is a culmination of some thoughts, as well as a continuation of a thought from earlier this year.  I just wanted to throw it out there for the folks here.

If Christianity is the language, then the communal worship of the people provides the grammar?

Lets roll this one around now.

Preaching, Mindmapping, and the Apocalypse of John

Revelation 7:9-17 Mindmap
Originally uploaded by chadbrooks

I have the opportunity to preach from my favorite book of the bible this week, St. John's Apocalypse...or as most people know it Revelation.

Usually when I actually have time to prepare a sermon, I like to do a mind map before I start writing the sermon. It is another way of doing an outline, but it helps me trace a non-linear pattern through the text. It works for folks that are scatter brained like I am.

I have different sorts of annotations that I use, and the scan didn't show some highlighted colors, but this style works well for me. I imagine I could preach from the mind map if I needed, but I am trying to become more of a wordsmith, and that requires doing some writing beforehand.

Revelation is a non-linear book, and I think that in this particular situation mind-mapping works well.  One of the major ways to tie the book together is the Μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον passages (translated as After this I saw/looked in many English translations).  These phrases string together a series of visionary experiences that weren't sequential, but descriptive of an "all at once" experience (seen in 4:1,7:1,7:9.15:, 18:1 and 19:1).  Due to the cycliromatic nature of Revelation and it's ordering-mind mapping allows you to preach from the same style as the visions are portrayed.

What is Contemporary?

On Twitter yesterday I posed the question “What is contemporary?” in reference to worship design.  That came from some thoughts I have had regarding one of the places I lead worship semi-regularly.

Hopefully, we are at the end of the worship wars.  My primary place of worship, Asbury Seminary, managed to traverse those times without to many casualties.  We are able to have really different services and have folks who have communally learned to worship in a variety of settings.

Most churches response to the issue was to create different services, or branch out to new congregations.  It is in these “new” services that I think the question is really relevant.  What makes worship “contemporary” in these congregations.  Most of the literature I have read mentions things such as “pop tunes”, highly syncopated rhythm, drums and guitars, etc....

But how do we just simple attach music styles to what is called “contemporary”?  I have said before if you use the term contemporary you aren’t.  We could use another buzzword “contextual”, but that would be falling into the same trap.  To whom is your service contemporary to? At a lecture at Asbury Seminary, N.T.Wright said we shouldn’t sing more than 1 song from a century in worship.  While I think that is taking it a little to far, he might be on to something.

In my twitter survey, a good friend responded with the idea that it might be a better idea to describe what isn’t contemporary?

So what would we say isn’t contemporary....and what is the regulations of the reality in which we use to define contemporary?

These are alot of questions, and they mean we take seriously that act of looking at our worshiping communities.  These are important steps to take in design, because we have to think outside of the songs we want to lead,sing, or shore up our sermon.  This is bigger than music.  What is our primary responsibility when Christians come to gather? 

No matter what-when designing worship we have to learn to ask questions and learn what questions others are asking.  Remember-this is bigger than us.

Book Review:Oxford Dictionary of the Bible 2nd ed.

Oxford University press has a great reputation for publishing dictionaries.  For those who haven't used a dictionary since they were in middle school, these aren't book full of word definitions, but small scale thematic encyclopedia's.

A Dictionary of the Bible by W.R.F Browning is in it's second edition.  It is a single volume work that is directed at those in the education sector (students and teachers). It focuses on brief explanations of the books, themes, people and places that are part of the Christian scriptures.  It appears that the entries are the work of Browning. 

Pros;  This is a small, but good volume.  If you have a limited library or space for books, this would be a good edition to offer a different scope of commentary.  I myself own many religious dictionaries that are a great deal larger than this book.  It is written out of the Anglican perspective, so many American or Evangelical Christians can find this to be a different look at things, without journeying to far from what is considered acceptable in their own circles.  The entries offer the usual suspects; such as Jerusalem, Assyria, and Moses.  But it also has entries on other topics involving the early Church, Hellenistic influence and contemporary cultures. 

This volume puts a different spin on what some might not find in their research on particular topics, and that sort of resource is worthwhile.

Cons;  I don't know that much about the entries in this book.  One of the main reasons that I use Dictionaries is they can be trusted pieces of scholastic information.  If the entry has something odd, I can look at the bibliography and the end of the essay and do further research.  Usually, they are also written (in the case of the Anchor and various IVP volumes) by many different authors and have a variety of theological spectrum's represented.  But these are also large multi-volume sets. 

Sometimes, heavy entries (such as Christ) are given 2 short paragraphs.  I understand the sake of brevity, but their seems to be an unequal weighting between some entries.  Also, only having one author means that you are dealing with a specific view of the Biblical economy. This works both ways, and must be dealt with carefully when doing academic research.

Conclusion: To end, I think this is a good volume to have, especially for the undergraduate student or armchair theologian that wants an accessible academic Bible dictionary.  The tone is not devotional, and that is fitting in regards to what the Dictionary is.  The benefit of such a short, but respected volume, is the quick research that can be done using it.  It's size is also the main detractor, as the required information for graduate and post-graduate level work simply isn't possible. 

Since the book is written by a NT lecturer, the information is given from the perspective of Biblical interpretation.  This isn't a wide grasp portal of Biblical information, but rather a volume directed at interpretation.  I find it offers significant help in regard to social situations and cultural patterns.

The best use would be during low level research, the type done when a project is starting out, and these types of resources are important.  My advice-if you are thinking about widening your own theological library, you should look into the volume to see if it may fill a gap in your books.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

Cross Post: Taking the Book Back

Some of you know that I also run a blog devoted to understanding Eschatology in a postmodern context.  That means that I talk about the End of the World in relation to our current society.  I rarely cross post here, but I decided to today, just to point you at what I imagine might be an interesting series of writings.  It also references worship design and implementing scripture using the Lectionary.

From PostmodernEschatology.com

Forming An Eschatological Community: Taking the Book Back

As a worship designer, I often point folk to the Vanderbilt Lectionary website (an online RCL help), to find scripture to use throughout a service.  This is great even if they are in a thematic service, because it will allow them to have a wide spread of scripture available to them.

You might have noticed that the Easter readings for this year take people through five passages in Revelation. These happen to be five of my favorite parts of the book  This is a great way to jump into Revelation for the first time.

Just last night I was having a conversation with a friend and mentioned that much of my fascination with Revelation is the deep desire to help the church take back this book.  I really think I went for at least 18 years without a sermon or lesson on Revelation.  This is our Book.  The fear that has been given to the book of Revelation can only be eradicated by reading the book.  This verses are a great primer.

The 5 readings give a great overview of the book, and follow redemption’s story.  You get some hymnic passages and the great narrative in 21 that I have preached on before.  You miss chapter 19, but that is my only real complaint.

Take the book back. 

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

Radical Hospitality and the Eschatology of God and his People

I wrote a paper this last semester on Hospitality and Eschatology.  My professor first thought it would be a hard topic to write on, but after I spent around a month thinking about it, I realized that it would be the opposite.  I usually do post series when I write an academic paper here on the blog, but since it is 17+ pages I will refrain.  I uploaded the entire paper to my scribd.com account, and I will link to it at the bottom.

I also decided instead to post a reduced version of it this week over at postmoderneschatology.com.  I am growing towards an understanding that simpler is always better, and realizing that I am not an academic (and I like it that way). 

Radical Hospitality and the Eschatology of God and His people (via scribd.com)

Where Justice and Eschatology Collide (via postmoderneschatology.com)