What is Contemporary Worship and What's it For?

I have recently had a number of people ask me about contemporary worship. This is something a bit new for the Unitarian church, and so I find that people have many different understandings of what contemporary worship is , and what it is for. I launched a contemporary service a few years back in Texas, and learned many lessons about it "the hard way." I want to use this column to share the most important lesson that I've learned.

Worship flows from mission

A traditional church that starts contemporary worship does not become a contemporary church. Often times I have seen contemporary worship created as a program within a traditional church. It is created as something for a few folks already there who would like something new. It is one program among many, like a covenant group of sorts.

This sort of program that gets called "contemporary worship" tends to have limited success because it doesn't flow from mission.

Contemporary worship would be better described as missional worship. It is worship the flows from a mission to reach a contemporary population. When we understand this, we can begin to realize it is not about having rock and roll, it is about being relevant to a particular demographic that is different than the demographic already attracted to the dominant church culture. If you're trying to reach cowboys, you want worship to be relevant to the rodeo/honky tonk culture. If you're trying to reach twenty-something goths, you want worship to feel like the underground punk scene.

Imagine a river where on one shore you have a spiritual direction and destination and on the other shore you have the community and culture that is the focus of your mission. Worship should effectively build a bridge between the two, introducing the church's theology to the people right where they are. That could be called contemporary worship, or we could just say that the worship flows from the mission.

This is not just a matter of aesthetics.

This is about the spiritual condition and concerns of the people you are trying to reach. What are people really dealing with, and is our church relevant to those issues. For example, our contemporary language reveals what we wish we could hide.

Remember when the word dysfunctional was not common usage? Neither was neurotic, psychotic, manic, bi-polar, phobia, stress, addiction, breakdown, therapy, 12-step, recovery, burn-out, mid-life crisis, hyperactive, repressed, depression, disorder, A.D.D., A.D.H.D, etc. . . What does that say to us about a contemporary mission?

This is the reality and the challenge that we are being called to. It's not just about singing songs that people like, it is about inviting them to discover that even at their most broken, they still matter. They matter to a God whose love is unbounded. Their life and what they do matters. No matter what their condition of brokenness, there is a hidden wholeness to which they are being called. The criteria for success of contemporary worship is the same as any worship, and the same as for the church in general.

Success is judged by whether we have created every opportunity for people to follow God's call to wholeness.

Does it matter what we call worship that offers that?