Worship Quote of the Week: Marva Dawn on the Folly of Dumbing Down Worship

Last updated on: February 26, 2017 at 1:29 am by Jonathan Aigner

Worship Quote of the Week: Marva Dawn on the Folly of Dumbing Down Worship 2017-02-26T01:29:52-05:00 Jonathan Aigner

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“Evelyn Waugh once remarked that the West is dying of sloth, not wrath. For the most part institutions are lost, not because they are stormed by hostile outsiders, but because their custodians, overcome by apathy, rdiffidence, and intellectual fecklessness, simply give them away. Will we give away the Church and its gospel power by dumbing it down or by failing to reach out?… Truly, all of us who serve the Church want to be faithful and not to be dumbing down the Church. The question is whether we know when or if we might be doing it. Teachers in schools know that they are dumbing down the work and tests, and many educators are trying to counteract the societal forces that necessitate it. Do pastors, musicians, worship participants, and parish leaders know when we are dumbing down the Church? Do we sometimes know that we are dumbing down worship, but think that we must do so in order to appeal to persons in our culture?… Most of all, let us all together always be asking this basic question: Do our efforts in worship lead to genuine praise of God and the growth of character in the members and the whole body of this Christian community?… Out of concern for character formation, churches must think very carefully in planning the liturgy. We must not ask, ‘Is this liturgy attractive?’ but always, ‘What kind of character does this nurture? Does our liturgy focus on feelings rather than on God’s character, which evokes those feelings?’ If so, it will nurture a faith that depends on emotions rather than a faith that can cling to who God is in spite of human experiences of sorrow or estrangement.” – Marva Dawn

Are we dumbing down worship?

Would we even know if we were?

Those questions are haunting, to say the least. And in my mind, they beg a few other questions.

Will we let it continue, church? Will we keep giving our indenture away until there’s nothing of value left?

Is worship really something that can be recreated in the image of each generation?

Will we continue substituting our story for God’s?

I think the key to avoiding the dumbing down is to quit relying on worship to be evangelism. Let’s get back to what it is supposed to be: liturgy. We aren’t there because we can add anything to God’s substance and character. We show up and participate because it places us as participants in God’s story. And we linger there for a few brief moments, caught up in the drama, recalling the acts that shape us as God’s people. We feast on the Word, and dine at Christ’s own Table.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not relevant. It cannot be made relevant. While the ad hoc worship experiences sell you on an answer key to the great mystery of faith, the liturgy calls you into something much deeper, much more dangerous. The finished work of Christ is treason, and all of us who participate in the liturgy become co-conspirators. And then, we are sent back out into the world to become God’s subversive prayer for it. So worship must be true, it must be weighty, it must be saturated in the substance of our faith, or it will never carry us through the evil and ugliness we see around us.

May we take Jesus at his word, and stop pretending we know better. May we not be the generation of Christians that coughs up our institutional identity in search for a wider commercial appeal. Rather, may we leave the church building carrying a vital, subversive Christian presence into our neighborhoods and around the world.

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