We Are All Contemporary Worshippers

It’s a little sad how we turn words into villains. Some aspect of a word seems to be “against us,” so we become needless enemies of the whole of the word.  In church circles, one of those words is “contemporary.”

con·tem·po·rar·y  [kuhn-tem-puh-rer-ee]  adjective

1. of same time: existing at or dating from the same time period as something or somebody else.

2. existing: in existence now. 

3. modern in style.

4. of the same age: of the same or approximately the same age as somebody else.

Lots of church-going people hear it as a threat to tradition and even to theology. I think it is the third definition above that causes the uneasiness: modern in style.  The reality is, when you take the whole of the word, it is really a great descriptive word from which we can’t easily escape. And it is a word that describes us! Like it or not, we are (as every preceding generation has been) “contemporary” people.  There aren’t a plethora of options; we are contemporary, or we are dead! 

1.              We all exist here, right now, at the same period of time as one another, so we are Contemporary Worshippers!

2.              Even if some would prefer to go back in time and others forward, the reality is we exist in the NOW, so we are Contemporary Worshippers!

3.              We drive ourselves to worship, wear clothes of our modern current existence, email one another, talk on our cell phones, use our computers and tablets, and make donations at kiosks in the lobby because the vast majority of us don’t write checks and certainly don’t carry much cash.

4.              In our worship, we speak in a modern style, we like air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, and we use sound systems and lighting so, regardless of the “worship element,” we are Contemporary Worshippers!

5.              We are all of the same age range as some other persons in our worship.  We are Contemporary Worshippers!

Because we are contemporary people, we are contemporary worshippers:

·      Whether we are singing a brand new praise song or a hymn from the 1640’s

·      Whether we are reading a parable of Jesus or dramatically acting out a story

·      Whether we are accompanied in our singing by organ or sitar or banjo

·      Whether we are responsively reading scripture or a quote from today’s newspaper

·      Whether we are placing an envelope in the offering plate or giving on our cell phone

·      Whether we are seeing a pastoral scene or a movie clip on the big screen

·      Whether we are engaging with those gathered or taking a moment for God and us alone

IF we have come to worship God, then that is what we are doing, and corporately we are CONTEMPORARY WORSHIPPERS!

We can’t not be.  We can do worship re-enactments like those who re-enact the Civil War, and we can pretend to be in heaven surrounding the throne of God and act out what we believe that worship might be like some day.  But for us to worship, we only have the opportunity to be contemporary worshippers.  Adam and Eve were contemporary worshippers, Abraham, Daniel, Jesus, the Disciples, the Reformers—EVERYONE who has worshipped had only one option—to be a Contemporary Worshipper, there aren’t other options!

Now, as a Contemporary Worshipper, I might sometimes really connect if the music is a certain style, and even within a genre, a certain song might really move me into connection with God.  This same song might have no positive effect on the person seated next to me.  The reading of a text might move my seatmate to tears, and I might just not get it.  As a Contemporary Worshipper I am not mandated to use any and every most contemporary expression, nor am I locked into using only what has been used before. 

I seek to connect with God, and all the accouterments of a worship service are there to assist me in my connecting with God and giving him praise, adoration, worship.  Just as I appreciate people allowing me to sing and pray and worship in English, and I should allow others to worship in the language most meaningful to them, so with the elements of worship, music styles, use of the arts—just think of them as different languages that enable people to connect with God and worship him.

Hopefully, as a group of contemporary worshippers who are seeking God and who value one another, we will continually seek a wide variety of styles in worship. Of course, the greatest determiner of whether our contemporary corporate worship service will be a meaningful experience for each of us and for the God we worship is how contemporary our private worship was throughout the week in preparation for our corporate experience. May we be contemporary worshippers who worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.

Andy McDonald