Many people today believe that we should make worship services fit the times in order to bring people to Christ. Why? Because the traditional form of worship doesn’t seem to be “working.” Individuals want results in their churches, and they want it now. It’s as if everyone is racing to see who can “convert” the most people in the least amount of time. While we can’t just crawl into a hole, cross our fingers, and hope everything turns out alright in the end, we aren’t going to get very far by changing the gospel so that it fits different individuals’ needs.
At this time I will present two arguments on why I believe that Christians should not have “contemporary” worship services in order to “reach” postmodernists.
My first argument for not having contemporary worship services in order to reach postmodernists has to do with worship: the purpose of worship, the focus of worship, and the blessings of proper worship.
So what is the purpose of worship? The purpose of worship is to glorify God. It is for believers to come together to worship God corporately. In his book Postmodern Times, Gene Edward Veith says, “…as those who worshiped in traditional churches were always reminded, it [worship] is a matter of being gathered into His cross.”1 Psalm 100 calls us to worship the Lord. “Come into his presence with singing . . .enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!” (v. 2b, 4a) The purpose of worship is to enter into the Lord’s presence and praise Him.
Knowing the purpose of worship should make it plain as to whom we should focus on when we worship. If our purpose is to come into God’s presence, then when we meet together we should be focusing on God. Sadly, in contemporary services the focus tends to be on man. The focus is placed on how the service makes you feel, what you come away with, or how much your desire is gratified. It’s all about man not God. Because people believe worship should be focused on them, they look for entertainment in worship.
“Our tendency in the postmodern age is to evaluate everything in terms of its entertainment value. Judging a worship service according to how entertaining it is misses the point…worship is not entertainment, but coming into the presence of a holy God. A relationship with Christ is not contingent upon how good we feel.”
One of the ways in which postmodernists entertain in worship is with church praise bands, or worship bands. Music is a powerful tool in engaging our emotions. Praise bands perform contemporary music and therefore it appeals to the crowds because they can relate to it. This idea seems intriguing when Robert Godfrey explains that people believe that making church services entertaining will bring unbelievers into Christianity. It seems to be a very effective mode of evangelism. Godfrey goes on to say, however, that while there certainly is nothing wrong with evangelism, church services on Sunday mornings are not the place for this.
“Faithful worship where the primary purpose is the meeting of God with his people through His word, may well have the secondary result that unbelievers will come to faith. But worship must not be constructed for the unbeliever. Rather, it is for God and the church.”
When we come to worship we are in the presence of a holy God and our emphasis should be on Him. God promises us that if we remember what we have come to do, then He will bless us.
Through proper worship come the blessings of joy in the Lord and strength to go forth in His grace. The Holy Spirit imparts the blessings to believers as they receive the Word of God and partake of the sacraments.
“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob…” Isaiah 58:13, 14
My Second reason for not having contemporary worship services in order to reach postmodernists has to do with sin. In contemporary worship services people are told that they can be saved and all their sins will be forgiven if they just accept Christ. Individuals are called to step forward and invite Christ into their hearts. This is a false teaching. It causes people to believe that salvation is something they can obtain; all you have to do is make a choice. But Paul tells us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
These same people are led to believe that after they have “accepted” Christ, they never have to do anything else in their Christian walk. They falsely believe that because they have accepted Christ they are saved forever, that they can continue on in their wicked ways and never go to church again. This is all a false view of sin and salvation. In his book Holiness, J. C. Ryle says there is more to Christianity than realizing our sinfulness. Once we have convinced someone of their sin, we need to also shine the light on their Savior.
“When. . .our conscience is really awake and alive, I find it hard to believe that a sensuous ceremonial Christianity will thoroughly satisfy us . . . Music, and flowers, and candles, and incense, and banners, and processions, and beautiful vestments and confessionals and man-made ceremonies of a semi-Romish character, may do well enough for him under certain conditions. But once let him “awake and rise from the dead,” and he will not rest content with these things. . .once let him see his sin, and he must see his Saviour. . .he hungers and thirsts, and he must have nothing less than the bread of life.”
In order to come to Christ, people must be made aware of their sin, but once they are aware of it, they must all learn of Jesus’ work on the cross, and they must continue to grow in sanctification and grace. Christians grow in grace through the reading of the word of God, and hearing it preached among other means. That being said, it is easy to see that worship services are not to persuade us of our sin over and over again, but to help us to grow in the salvation we have already been given.
In 1 Corinthians 14:24-25, Paul warns against changing worship in order to entertain unbelievers. He says an unbeliever is more likely to be convicted of sin and to come and worship God if our worship is righteous and according to God’s word.
“If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.”
It is not through bringing in worship teams and entertaining that we draw people to Christ. It is through the revealing of sin and our need for Christ, the proclaiming of God’s wonderful salvation through Christ’s death on the cross, and the gathering of believers in corporate worship.
