Dig in Deep

(This is Part 2 of a series on my experience with worship wars. To see a little bit of my background, see Part 1.)

When we began attending Faith over six years ago, the music style had one foot heavily placed in the traditional camp, and one foot lightly placed in the 80’s “praise and worship” camp. We started attending while Faith was still meeting in various places, but for our first year Faith was meeting in the elementary school. For that first year, I started playing bass. I really do enjoy playing bass when I get the chance.

As we got closer to moving into the new building, and as we hired our new lead pastor, I bought my first Martin acoustic guitar and started doing some leading in worship. We slowly began introducing some Passion songs and some other modern standards, as well as updating many of the hymns. We added drums within a couple of months of moving in, and worked towards a more modern approach. But we were never quite able to give up those feet in the traditional or praise and worship camps – too many people were too attached to it, both on and particularly off the stage.

It never seemed like much of a war, really, for us. Part of that was probably because I was just doing it, and enough people were willing to tolerate me doing it. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have our battles, though, and we got our share of complaints.

But the biggest problem we had was this – our direction was never clarified, or communicated. As I said, I was just doing what I wanted to do, whether or not anyone wanted me to do it. I was never THE leader, I just kind of worked my way in as one of two worship leaders, and there was always tension – we played both sides of the fence, between traditional and modern. As a result, few people were ever really happy.

I would try to do more hymns in a more modern style, but that simply wasn’t what some people wanted – they wanted their hymns in an OLD style. Many would simply prefer that the drums would just go away, they were too loud. Others would just complain that it felt like a rock concert – a comment which, if it came from someone in my generation, would be a compliment. But you can tell when people say something like that and it isn’t a compliment. Then there were the Sundays that we’d just do a little acoustic thing, and you’d have to tolerate the back-handed compliments when people that you knew hated what you normally did came and told you how much they LOVED the acoustic setting.

But meanwhile, visitors to the church were simply confused. If they loved traditional stuff, we had some of that, but then the modern stuff just turned them off. If they loved modern stuff, we had some of that, but the traditional stuff just turned them off.

As a result, if you attended a church like this, how much confidence would you have in inviting a friend? It’d have to be someone who liked a modern rock band, but could tolerate traditional styles as well. Or, it’d have to be someone who liked traditional church music, but could tolerate modern rock as well. Those people are few and far between.

Is it any wonder why the church hasn’t really grown since moving into a building?

When it comes to getting musicians involved, the problem increases exponentially. The problems I’ve had recruiting and retaining musicians have been incredible. If we were solidly traditional, it wouldn’t have been too much of a problem. If we were solidly modern, it would have been pretty easy. But trying to please everybody means that we please nobody, and musicians in particular aren’t interested in that. If a musician is going to get involved, they want to play for people who will enjoy what they’re doing. This is especially true if they’re volunteers.

Basically, we never had a worship war – but we SHOULD have had one. Instead, we silently compromised. As a result, nobody knew what to expect. And few people were ever really excited about what we were doing.

In reality, I’m as much to blame for the problem as anyone else is. Part of my personality is that if something seems obvious to me, I just move forward without really asking permission. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but things would have worked much more smoothly if I had really explained why we needed to change, and gotten people on board with those changes.

But I was not the person to do that six years ago. My experience with worship leading was just beginning. I’m extremely grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to grow in that capacity over the last six years. But there was simply no way I could have done what needed to be done to really start the discussion that would have been required.

In many ways, the problems I experienced at Faith Community came from inexperienced leaders (including myself) trying to bring changes into a church that had been pretty much set in its ways for at least thirty years. The young leaders didn’t know how to bring about changes in the right way, and the older congregation simply didn’t know how to accept changes. In this case, I’m pretty sure everyone is to blame.