The Death of Praise and Worship

I finished Cross Purposes by Anthony Bartlett few days back. Enlightening book – some parts were overly philosophical but others were really great, particularly chapters two and three.

I have witnessed the death of praise and worship twice now. Once in the 80s and more recently around four years ago. The first time around, there was an explosion of authentic “scripture songs” in the 70s that were central to the rise of the charismatic movement. Since this was the first contemporary praise music, no one had taught courses on “how” to create a worship song. Most of the songs were taken straight from the scriptures. In the late 70s/early 80s, contemporary Christian music (CCM) came along as well. At first it seemed a match made in heaven. Not only did you have juggernauts like Keith Green tearing it up - inside every Petra, Evie, Amy Grant, Allies, and Russ Taff album there were scriptures listed to “support” each song’s message.

But then in the mid-80s, things began to dry up. Many of the same companies that were releasing praise and worship were also into CCM. Somehow, as the charismatic movement grew and worship music spread to the masses, it became thin in its message and power. I don’t know how to describe that to you, really. Integrity Music put out a new album…simply because it was what they did. The two groups became indistinguishable, and so there was at least a partial dry spell for worship music. 

Things drudged along until around 1995. Hillsongs released “Shout the Lord,” Darrell Evans released “Let the River Flow,” and the Vineyard movement released the “Touching the Father’s Heart” series. Delirious hit the scene. BOOM! Worship music returned – inspired, authentic, and powerful. Worship music, supported by the charismatic “third wave” movement, became pure again – worship for worship’s sake.

Luckily, something else really important for praise and worship happened: lyrical ambiguity in the secular grunge music scene. What? Just stick with me. No longer was it fashionable to have transparent lyrics – obscured content was the new thing. No one knew what Kurt Cobain or Eddie Vedder was saying…and, just like the Kingsmen in the 60s, it became all the rage. CCM hopped on the bandwagon as soon as it encountered the success of Jars of Clay on mainstream radio. Secular radio became a “mission” once again similar to Amy Grant’s attempt in 1985 and Stryper in 1986. Only this time, rather than busting down the front doors with strong lyrics, CCM attempted sneak in the back door with ambiguous ones. We still see this today: bands on the Tooth and Nail label still can’t tell us for sure if they’re Christians. Because of this, CCM and praise and worship parted ways for about a decade.

Recently, CCM and praise and worship have merged again. Now, CCM groups are putting out worship albums and include at least one possible worship track on each release. Press releases tout these as the “new” worship song for churches, like Leeland or Michael W. Smith.  The problem is that Leeland is not praise and worship…he’s merely returning CCM to the poignant, straightforward genre it was 30 years ago. Tragically, CCM has strayed so far from its origins that it doesn’t recognize its own sound. So now that they’ve stumbled across it again, they mistakenly call it “praise and worship.”

Churches pick these CCM worship songs up and incorporate them into their services. K-Love and other radio stations play Casting Crowns and David Crowder back to back…but you can’t tell the difference. There have been some bright spots along the way like Passion or Chris Tomlin, but even now those have recently become parodies of themselves. Just for the record, I still stand by Paul Baloche though.

In general, church worship is suffering, forcing worship leaders to write their own stuff or seek out the “Jason Uptons” of the underground worship world from which to draw new material. That makes worship leading difficult to say the least. Furthermore, amateur musicians have to attempt to compete with session musicians that congregations hear on the radio. Understandably, people have trouble “entering in” when it doesn’t sound like the radio.

So, what’s next? For now, the CCM music industry still sees worship music as “fiscally sound.” But over the next few years, CCM will get tired of hearing themselves sing songs that worship leaders have written and they’ll go back to writing something else. At that point, they’ll separate again and worship music will regain its intimacy and depth. All we have to do is wait, say…another 5 years. Until then, we’ll have to endure such gems as “WOW Worship 57.”