Ya'll Are Confused

Or maybe I am just confused about you all

Okay, I will admit it. I am perplexed as I sit down to write this post. I asked around 40 worship leaders and 40 congregation members what emotions they thought were over and under emphasized in Christian worship. And I got back results that both make sense while being super confusing. What makes it confusing is that every emotion appears on both lists, from both sets of respondents. If you click on the word clouds below, you see that the same words come up with relatively the same frequency. Sadness might be a little bit bigger on the under-emphasized side, but not by much. That means worship both over and under emphasizes sadness. And maybe that is because we are not sure what we mean when we use these words.

Music is Emotionally Manipulative

One of the common complaints is that people’s emotions are being manipulated by the music and the lyrics. As I talked about back in November, the worship leaders are worried about appearing to be inauthentic and choosing songs that are manipulative. One of the laity responded that, “In my brain, the concept of “evoking emotion” amounts to emotional manipulation. If things are designed to invoke an emotional response…..that response is not natural or genuine.” That sentiment showed up a few more times in the laity responses, while also showing up in the concerns the worship leaders have.

But the problem is that music is manipulative. Music makes us feel things when we listen to them. Watch the two videos below, that are the same scene with different music. Does how you feel while watching them change?

What you are seeing visually does not change, but how you emotionally process and categorize what is happening should have changed. The music on the first clip is crafted to be haunting and produce some terror in the listener, while the second clip is meant to provoke mirth and a sense of fun.

The same thing happens in worship music. We match the music with the feeling that the lyrics are giving. You all probably have experienced singing an uplifting anthem at the pace of a dirge and know the frustration of such. If the music does not match, dissonance is created and further evokes a feeling. The root of the issue is that music makes us feel. It is part of being human.

Too Redemptive, Not Redemptive Enough

Another trend I am seeing is that some are complaining that the songs we sing in church are both too and not redemptive enough. Some people only want to sing about the grace and mercy of Christ and celebrate how God redeemed his people, while others want to sing about other things. I think one of the problems is that redemption has become the only thing the church can safely talk about. It is hard to confess to be a Christian without agreeing about some type of redemption occurring. Sure, we can argue about what that looks like and by what means redemption comes about through, but it seems that at the core, redemption is about what all can agree on.

That leaves us with a paradox and a problem. When we only sing about redemption we sing about it too much, but when we do not sing about, we sing about it too little.

Sadness Does Not Equal Repentance

Throughout my research, I am seeing the idea that sadness is connected with a few words that it should not be equated to. In the word clouds above, you can see the words lament, repentance, brokenness, and confession and these are often connected to both sadness and sin. When some of the people are saying that we do not have enough sadness in our worship, they mean that there is not enough confession, contrition, or repentance. That is partially confirmed by the way that both the laity and worship leaders speak about what emotions their churches do well or evoke the most.

There is more to be sad about then sin in the world, but it is easy to think piously at church and only think about sin at church. I can connect the idea that I was sad after lunch today that there were no cookies to be eaten to some form of gluttony and thus back to sin, but that seems to be a stretch to say that me wanting to end a relatively healthy lunch with some sweet is sinful. It’s just a thing that was, and I’m mostly over the loss by now, but I am still writing about wanting a cookie. Some losses are not sinful, and feeling sad over some losses is not sinful. Relating all sadness back to sin, however, might be sinful.

My confusion

I have had a difficult trying to figure how to write this post because of two further issues:

1. Congregations and Worship leaders agree with each other on what is over and under emphasized but neither know how to do anything about it.

   1. Just talk to each other and give each other permission to feel the way you all feel

   2. Work on creating space and resources for these feelings to be put in the right balance

2. There are some avoided topics in the conversations about worship

   1. Some topics just seem scary to people, such as sadness and emotions, as they do not want to open up.

   2. Some people are afraid that they might be less than pious if they answer in a non-churchy way (i.e. what they expect is expected from them.)

It is possible that people do not talk to each other because they do not know how to, and do not wish to be rude or upsetting or have to change. The worship leader is not just a professional, but is called by God to do this work, so who am I to question them? The same called-by-God-ness might get in the way of leaders talking to the laity. What would the average person know about God that I do not already know better?

I think that one reason people label music as manipulative is because they are worried that they have those feelings inside of them. Whether it is celebration, joy, sadness, or grief that is being brought out by the music, they seem concerned that they have those feelings inside of them, and that might because they are worried those are not sanctified feelings.

I think I am confused because we are all confused about worship.