(That Dude in the Worship Band Wearing the Turtleneck is Trying too Hard and Needs to Back-off the Wah-Wah Peddle.)

Beyond issues of thoughtful contextualization I’ve personally had to repent of a smug attitude in my service to the church. Somehow I’ve gotten stuck up about what an appropriate form for legitimate worship music looks like. The weird thing is I didn’t grow up in the church so it took me a while to figure out where this attitude came from.

Jesus found me in the middle of high school as a hyperactive, trouble making punk rocker. I went to a fire and brimstone Assemblies of God church for a few years where the average age was about 60. They had a country western styled worship band and no rhythm. If that weren’t bad enough, there was a commonly held belief amongst the aging cowpokes that drums were wrought in the bowels of hell. So not only was I eyed suspiciously for wearing studded leather accessories and combat boots, I was going to hell twice because I played the drums! (I’m kind of not joking.) A couple years later I attended a Calvary Chapel where the music was better but I wasn’t comfortable singing love songs to Jesus as if he were a boyfriend. (more…)

Who’s what now? OK, we’ll give you a little back ground. Northern Conspiracy is just a name for one of our worship bands led by Joe Day. Most of the time the Conspiracy are leading worship services up at our Shoreline campus (North of the Ballard campus hence the name) but from time to time TNC grace the Ballard campus as well. But what many people may not know about Joe Day is that he’s the man behind several of our most popular worship songs (The Glory of God and For Your Goodness to name a few) before he even joined our congregation. Learn more about the Conspiracy here.

Volume IV of the Mars Hill Live series CDs showcases the acoustic leaning song-craft goodness of Joe Day and his band and is available at the book table before and after services.

By Matt Johnson

Over the course of the next month or so we’ll be running a series called “Confessions”. Let’s face it, we’re all learning as we go as we figure out this worship department thing. Some of us were raised up in tiny Fundamentalist Pentecostal churches, some of us are burned out youth-group kids and maybe some of us didn’t come to Christ until later in life. Whatever the scenario we’ve all got learning (and unlearning) to do and we’ve all got enculturation baggage. Through this series our hope is that something here will resonate with your own stories as we grapple with the ideas of what it means to be an authentic worshipper in a particular place and in a particular time.

I.) Things Would Be So Much Easier If Ned Flanders Was Leading Worship (or Why I’m Lazy About Contextualization Even Though I Like The Idea of Contextualization

Sometimes I envy churches that can get by with 90s era pastel colored decorations and a worship pastor that plays all the Maranatha greats on acoustic guitar wearing khaki Dockers and a baby blue polo. But I attend Mars Hill church in Seattle where everyone’s a snob for aesthetics and prefer loud electric guitars. Effectively communicating the gospel with pink wallpaper as a backdrop to Ned Flanders wearing sensible business casual attire leading worship simply would not work at Mars Hill. Not to say that approach doesn’t connect with folks elsewhere, it just wouldn’t fly here.

There are a couple reasons why I wish our services were simpler. For one, I’ve played in a worship band with the same folks for almost a decade and Sunday service is a pretty big event that requires being on call all day long. Don’t get me wrong, I love serving in the church in the capacity that I do but the details that go into all of the technology to pull off a service without a hitch can get pretty complicated. Secondly, I’ve always struggled with the idea of serving in a public way that involves rocking out. But I’ll get to that later. (more…)