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A number of years ago “worship wars” were causing great discord and even church splits. Would churches continue to primarily use hymns in worship? Would they move to more contemporary worship music? Would it be a combination of the two? Disagreements over how to lead the congregation in corporate worship became knock-down, drag-out battles.

It seems to me that the issue isn’t nearly as divisive as it used to be, but perhaps it’s just that I’m in a place where I love the music we worship to, miss what we don’t include, but am happy to find few people arguing about it. I wish I had found this quote during the height of the wars. C.S. Lewis wrote the following about his worship experience in his (Anglican) church:

I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it….I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.
(from his book of essays God in the Dock)

Now that’s a Godly perspective about worship in a corporate setting! Lord forgive my conceit and bless the saints.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 18th, 2010 at 11:48 am and is filed under worship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.