Judging Worship

• Steven Félix-Jäger, Renewal Worship
• Steven Félix-Jäger, How to Worship For All Its Worth (forthcoming)

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
People make bank when they do it like ASMR content.

(00:03):
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Welcome to TikTok Theology,
a podcast that tackles the major trending topics
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I'm Meagan.
And I'm Steven.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less,

(00:23):
but those videos can identify current issues.
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and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
Hello friends, welcome back.
Today we're going to be chatting about judging worship.
Those words don't seem to go together.
I know.

(00:44):
We're always either on the one half of,
nobody can judge me but God,
or worship falls in one of those categories
that you almost feel a little bit,
you're like, oh, I don't know if I should,
I don't know if I can.
Cause somebody wrote this with an intention
to glorify God.
So how do we go about this, right?
And I think this arises from, as always,
why Gen Z cares what's on social media, all the stuff.
Recently, broad term, but we've seen the fall of Hillsong

(01:08):
or different things that have been trending from Bethel
that have been a little bit weird
or that one time that thing it was Bethel
who their pastors like baby died
and then they all gathered for marathon worship sessions
to try and pray and back to life, stuff like that.
So it's like, there's been a lot of things
that have caused some degree of controversy on the internet,

(01:28):
especially involving something like worship.
And I think that worship is such a powerful tool
and it is a command and it is what we're meant to do
as Christians and as people.
And so I think that finding out a healthy way
to judge worship I think is really, really important.
Yeah, cause they'll see the things that,
any scandals or anything like that
and then they'll really, really, really condemn

(01:49):
that worshiping tradition.
And sometimes it's unfair and sometimes it's fair.
Like condemning certain teachings or whatever is one thing,
but like, hey, you shouldn't listen to them at all
because they do this and blah, blah, blah.
So that's a little bit of trouble, I think.
Yeah, and this is your soapbox.
Yeah, a little bit.
So I'm writing a book called
How to worship for Aldsworth for Zondervan academic.

(02:09):
And it was actually grant funded
with the Calvin Institute of Christian worship.
And me and my research assistant, Josh, what up Josh?
We're able to go and travel
and assess different worship traditions.
We did a AME church,
the African Methodist Episcopalian Church in Atlanta.
We did a charismatic Catholic church in Colorado Springs,
a Reformed church in Holland, Michigan,

(02:32):
a Pentecostal church in Lancaster, California.
That was actually Tim Lee's church.
And then a Southern Baptist church in Titusville, Florida.
And so we assessed them under metrics
where we were able to kind of see
what everything means for that tradition
and then gauge them against themselves
and there was so much goodness that like we experienced

(02:55):
and saw so much commonality and so much like,
man, you just felt like family,
like literally everywhere you went
because we were all centered on Jesus.
And so I wanna talk about judging worship
because I think we can make judgments
that are good and critical.
It's like constructive and even the reason
why you wouldn't go to a certain church or whatever,
while still holding a gracious attitude

(03:18):
and heart towards what they're doing to honor God
in their own community.
So let me ask, have you come across the term worship wars?
No. No?
I haven't specifically.
Maybe I'm not in the worship scene enough.
Yeah, so that's like a big deal in worship studies.
And like, no, it's, I think it's indicative
that people aren't talking about it much anymore.
But like in the 90s and 2000s

(03:38):
and maybe even earlier,
probably going all the way back from the Jesus movement,
there was this worship wars
and it was between contemporary and traditional worship.
And they were just battling
on what is the most true sense of worship,
what is most appropriate or whatever.
And it was, a lot of the argument was kind of ridiculous.
It was about style and not about like substance
and what you do, you know what I'm saying?
Interesting. Yeah.
I know some people like, I remember my mom telling me

(04:01):
like older folks got really resistant
even when like churches brought in like drums
or like different instruments.
So it's like to me, I've understood that kind of stuff
as a stylistic battle more so than what is actually being said
in a worship song.
So it seems like that is true.
Yeah.
There's probably still a little bit of that going on,
but like I would say a lot of young people, Gen Z,

(04:23):
especially in our circles that are like generally
Pentecostal evangelical,
like that conversation didn't really happen that much anymore.
It seems more generational, doesn't it?
I think so.
I would say that.
I won't speak on behalf,
but I have been,
I definitely have not been having that conversation.
You just don't see it very much.
Yeah, you don't see it too much.
No.
Yeah. So let's talk about judgment.
I would say judgment we have to see

(04:44):
is not necessarily a bad thing.
You know what I mean?
Like we see judgment all over the place
and use it in a lot of different ways.
We're not talking about the sort of judgment
that is haphazard and laden with biases and misconceptions.
That's bad judgment.
That's like, that's just using judgment
without knowing all the facts,
like jumping to a conclusion or something like that.
That's bad.

(05:06):
It's not that judgment is bad.
You're just judging badly, right?
You're just actually judging poorly.
Yeah. You're just poorly assessing something.
And we're not also talking about judgmentalism.
Now that's something that we see all the time with Christians.
I couldn't stand that.
I would always react so strongly against that
when I was a little guy is when I saw Christians
being judgmental, I would argue,

(05:26):
like when I was a little guy,
I would argue with like adults and stuff
if they're judgmental towards people and stuff like that.
You were always going to end up being this, huh?
Even as a small little guy.
There was no question about that.
There was no questions asked.
But I think that is a good differentiation.
Judgment to me always seems to carry
a negative connotation almost.

(05:46):
It's like if someone's like,
oh, well I'm going to judge something.
Like that almost is like, right?
Like that feels very like a,
like one of those words that like brings up emotion in you.
So I think it is good to define the terms again.
So we're once again not talking past each other.
So like when we're talking about somebody being judgmental,
we're usually saying that they have a critical attitude

(06:07):
of superiority or they lack open-mindedness
or empathy towards others.
Like that's what we're talking about.
And that's not what we're saying
when we're talking about judging worship appropriately.
You should not have.
I feel like that's what people have been doing.
That's why we're here in different cultural wars and stuff.
Yeah, all that.
The wrong kind of judgment.

(06:27):
So the academic sense of judgment,
the judgment that philosophers, theologians,
you know, all sorts of different traditions we use.
It means the critical assessment of something
to determine its value or significance.
Which that makes a lot of sense.
You're judging to see its worth.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
You make split judgments all the time

(06:49):
to see if something is worth something, right?
Like you watch trailers and movies
to see if you want to watch it.
You're actually making a judgment after you watch a trailer.
Yes.
And I've watched trailers and not been like,
that looks bad, but being like, that's not for me.
Right.
You know, you're like, oh, that looks interesting,
but not necessarily that I want to see it.
Yeah, like scary movies.
I don't want to watch that.
Oh no, I'm a Moini.
Sorry, sorry team.

(07:09):
My wife loves them.
Really?
Yeah, she loves them.
Coani girl.
She loves them.
Have you hide in the corner to this day?
My grown age, hide in the corner.
I don't mind scary movies
if they like have a coherent story.
Some scary movies are just like the dumbest stories ever.
They're just to be scary.
And I just can't, I can't with those.
So, but anyways, if you adopt this critical sense

(07:29):
of judgment, then you're going to look
at congregational worship music and determine its value
for its worshiping community.
So like you can actually look at something
and be like, yo, for who y'all are,
y'all are not doing this well.
And you can actually legitimately say that, right?
Or say like, you know, this isn't my cup of tea,

(07:49):
but it totally works for y'all.
People are getting ministered to like crazy.
Crazy, yeah.
You know what I mean?
So that's a different way of thinking about it.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
I think that's great.
We should kind of use that
in a lot of different fields though too.
Yeah, it also pushes you in this sense
to step outside your community
and your understanding and your things
where it's like, okay, just cause it's not your style,
doesn't it mean it's not good?

(08:12):
Absolutely.
So I think it's good.
It's a simultaneous challenge,
but also this definition of judgment
is not in and of itself negative.
It's not negative.
No, it's a critical assessment essentially.
Yeah.
But people take critical and they make it just like,
how could I bully this thing?
Right, right.
But like critical and that negative connotation,
like it's rooted in the similar terms of critique,

(08:32):
doesn't seem as bad, you know what I'm saying?
Like Emmanuel Kant has a trilogy of books
and one of them was the critique of judgment
and it's literally like he's using all of those terms
and he kind of developed those terms for philosophy
and for Western thought.
And they just kind of morphed into judgmentalism
or just like not having all the facts
and making a quick thing about something,
but that's not what it is.
When you carry it all the way back to its roots,

(08:53):
it's just making an assessment.
Making an assessment and for us,
I think we have a positive spin.
We make an assessment for the betterment of the kingdom.
Like we want those churches to worship in spirit and truth.
We want to celebrate when churches are doing that,
when our brothers and sisters
in different congregations are doing that.
We want to celebrate that.
Absolutely.
So how do we assess?
How do we assess?

(09:15):
Good question.
Glad that you asked.
Glad that you asked.
Oh, you call me so.
I've got it.
Did not come at all prepared for this.
So I'm not going to say that I have the end all method for this.
I have a method for it
and a method that I think works pretty well.
So you guys can take it.
Maybe you want to add stuff to it,
but I don't want to add too much to it.
I want it to be kind of...
Yeah.

(09:35):
Like just a few areas of assessment
that can help us to broadly understand a tradition,
I think is necessary.
If we have like a million,
then you're just going to like always be in the state
of just assessing something.
Like, you know what I mean?
So I see four different types of judgment we can use
to really understand what's happening in the music.
So first, you do want to get acquainted with the church first.

(09:57):
So like you want to know a little bit about its history,
its tradition, you know, like what does it do socially
in the community?
You know, how do people view themselves in that community?
Oh, so I'm not supposed to just walk up in there,
hear one song and start...
Judging.
Absolutely laying gentle hands on this place.
Right.
Got it.
Understood.
Like for example, the AME church that we went to,

(10:17):
they mixed some hymns and contemporary gospel songs,
but they did them all with like a super jubilant
gospel flavor, which was outstanding.
It was so, so good.
But the hymns, they make a whole lot of sense for them
because they're Methodist.
So they have this longstanding Methodist tradition
and those hymns mean a lot to them.
Yeah.
Like they start with the doxology,
but that may not mean a lot to a contemporary church

(10:39):
or whatever.
And they blend, they do a lot of contemporary too,
but so you have to know the tradition a little bit
to even know why this is functioning for what it is.
Correct.
That's part of their color worship.
That's how they get into it, right?
So here's the four things I would say.
Once you understand the context of the church pretty well,
we can use biblical judgment, aesthetic judgment,
theological judgment and pastoral judgment.

(11:00):
Yeah. Yeah. So first one, biblical.
So here's a story that happened at LPU.
Many moons ago, there was this student, good student,
good kid, we did this gospel song at chapel.
We used to have a gospel worship team.
We had some really, really just anointed worship leaders

(11:20):
that kind of grew up in the gospel tradition
and blended into one of our worship things.
And they did Travis Green's song Intentional.
Intentional.
Yes.
Remember the story?
Dude, I ate intentional up so aggressively.
Right.
So aggressively, I thought it was so good.
Dude, I went nuts.
That went crazy.
So intentional.

(11:41):
Great song.
And the lyrics say this.
They say, I know that all things are working for my good.
He's intentional.
Never failing.
Oh, things are working for my...
Yeah.
Yeah, you know it.
I know it.
And if you just keep going, he just adlibs so,
like it's very, it doesn't have a whole lot of lyrics,
but it has a whole lot of like adlibbing flow,

(12:02):
situational things that you're praying over
that God is like actually working out in your life.
Yes.
You know what I'm saying?
But that's very common.
It's very common, especially in gospel.
Yeah.
And even like, this isn't necessarily gospel,
but like Maverick City does that a bunch.
Yeah, but that's their gospel influence.
Oh, a hundred percent.
Yeah.
They blend contemporary and gospel.
Like that's intentional.
And so that kind of stuff happens all the time
in that context.
I can, at this point now, like also like sing the adlib

(12:25):
aspects of those songs because it's like, oh, that's good.
So I had a student that had somewhat of a gripe about it
when we did it because Travis Green is referencing
Romans 828.
We know that all things work for the good for those who
love God, who are called according to his purpose.
And so Paul is talking about being called
and God paving away for you and your calling, right?

(12:48):
Yeah.
And there is an assumption there.
It's not all things for just anyone who's singing this song.
It's for the people who are in covenant with God,
who is doing his plan.
But that's biblical.
Right.
Like you wouldn't just pop open the Bible and be like,
the student though was upset that Travis Green basically
like quoted only part of the verse.
Oh, okay.
And so like, like it kind of left open the other aspects
of like, well, this could be for anyone.

(13:09):
This could be, you know, this and that.
Sure.
And then I had to explain to him,
but this is a gospel song and in gospel worship music,
the congregation is assumed as the peace people of God.
That's, that's who assumed.
So when they're singing this,
it's not like an evangelistic thing.
It's not like for all people to listen to whatever.
This is not an evangelistic song.
And they're going to call all the stuff so that way

(13:30):
those words wash over you.
It's repeated over and over and over again
because whatever is going on in their lives
and they're striving and also how God is calling them
to step out into things, God is working all those things out.
And so that's essentially how that is.
And when I told him that he understood a lot more,
he was just like, oh, okay, I get that.
One of the issues there is that there was a reading of scripture

(13:54):
that he didn't quite get.
He was reading scripture
from his kind of pent evangelical perspective.
But that song was written from a black gospel perspective.
And part of it is like,
so we have like this basic Christian story,
the basic Christian narrative.
And that's very, very simple, right?
So we talk about God as creator, humans fall,

(14:16):
but like the crux of the story
of the basic Christian narrative is that we're sinners.
Jesus died on the cross for our sins,
rose again, defeated death,
and we can have salvation through Christ.
That's the crux, the climax, like the base of the story, right?
Every Christian tradition holds that
as kind of the gospel message
that's the climax of the story.
That's where everybody's united biblically.

(14:38):
Everybody reads the Bible,
but it's not like everybody reads the whole Bible
in one setting every single time.
We all have like, I think it's disparaging to say
we have a canon within a canon,
like those passages that we just use over and over again.
But there's a sense where we do have a lens
from which we read it.
So something that speaks very strongly to our own tradition.
So for the black gospel tradition,

(14:58):
they're reading their Bible very specifically
from the black experience.
Now, some might say it's just as important as the reader
than the biblical context,
but then others will say, no,
the biblical context is more important.
And I actually really, really love the book,
Reading While Black by Esau McCauley, highly recommend it.
He talks about like, yeah,
you're reading it from the black experience,

(15:19):
but you still need to have this openness
towards the Bible to actually change and affect
and transform you and your situation.
So he talks about that.
He calls it the black ecclesial tradition.
But basically, if you're reading that same passage
of Jesus is the savior from the black experience
where they come from various levels of enslavement,
colonizations, all those kinds of stuff,

(15:39):
like that kind of suppression,
then your sense of salvation
is gonna have a very material element.
It's gonna be about being saved
even from the atrocities in the world today.
So it's not just about this future, like avoiding hell.
It's also being saved in this day.
There is this heavy focus and all the liberative passages
that Jesus says that is Jesus saying it.

(16:01):
Like for instance, when Jesus is a Nazareth
and he's teaching and then he quotes for himself, right?
He is quoting Isaiah and applying it to himself,
the very famous Jubilee passage.
So you can find it as Luke 4, 18.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me
because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

(16:22):
He has set me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
This is verse 20.
Then he rolled up the scroll,
gave it back to the attendant and sat down.
The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened to him.
He began by saying to them,
today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

(16:42):
So like those passages where Jesus is totally claiming
that Jubilee passage where it's like, you know,
healing the blind, setting free the prisoners,
you know, like setting the oppressed free,
like that right there,
they really grapple onto those very pertinent things.
But guess who says it?
Jesus, right?
The savior.
It's still the cross narrative.

(17:03):
It still is a salvation gospel narrative,
but they are reading it from a particular lens
of the black experience.
And then they also will look at like Exodus passages
and the references of Exodus
that the New Testament scholars will use all the time.
They'll use Paul a little less actually,
but they'll use Jesus a whole lot.
Like the word Jesus said,
because of the deliberative things,
but it's not like they ignore Paul,

(17:24):
but they kind of like read it through that kind of a framework.
If you know that,
then you kind of know that like intentional, that song,
that has a heavy, liberative thing.
Like God is working these things out in your life.
You're going to be freed from this and that and blah, blah, blah.
Like it's speaking to the community in that way, right?
A reform tradition,
they kind of fall under this creation, fall redemption,

(17:47):
consummation narrative.
So they try to do that like in every service too.
Like so they try to show the whole full arc
every single time of what's going on
and in their worship it's very, very present in that.
Pentecostals will read the cross of course as crucial,
but we don't end the story there.
We actually look at Luke X.
We look at them together.

(18:07):
So it's Jesus dying on the cross and then ascending
and then pouring his own spirit out on all flesh.
So that way we are baptized in the Holy spirit
and so that way the church is birthed
and we can go do an evangelism.
So it still is the gospel message, right?
Of Jesus dying on the cross,
but we don't really leave Jesus on the cross.
We hear that in sermons all the time, right?
Like that's not...

(18:28):
Don't leave Jesus on the cross.
Yes.
We hear that all the time.
And so that's kind of this now and not yet.
The kingdom is proclaimed now and this day
and is yet to come.
And we are supposed to do our ministry here.
So it is this eschatological Luke X reading.
I can talk about that all day.
We're coming from Pentecostal tradition.
So it's really much more on our wheelhouse.
Bread and butter if you will.
Then the evangelical tradition,
they do have a heavy emphasis on the cross.

(18:49):
You see this all the time.
So less focus on Pentecost,
on even the ascension or anything like that,
but it is coming back to the cross all the time.
It's overcoming certain sins and stuff like that
by the power of the cross.
And so very Bible focused,
but specifically on that message.
And then the charismatic Catholic,
this was super interesting that I realized,
but the mass is divided into,

(19:11):
the Catholic mass in general is divided
into the liturgy of the word
and the liturgy of the Eucharist.
Eucharist is like communion.
Even charismatic Catholics,
they exist within regular parishes typically.
So they're just doing their own like worship services
outside of it that they'll call like prayer meetings.
And then they'll still go to mass on Sunday.
But the heavy emphasis for them theologically,
you have the cross, you have all that stuff,

(19:32):
but it's specifically communion.
Yes.
So communion is the big deal.
It's the communion homies.
Yeah.
So like, and it's just like,
do this in remembrance of me.
And you're not just remembering the last supper,
but you're remembering the cross,
what's about to happen, all that kind of stuff.
So you see all of these traditions,
they do the very basic gospel story of Jesus,
but they're all reading it from a different lens.
And that's when it gets contextual.

(19:52):
Yep.
You know what I mean?
It's good.
So knowing that, do you think that helps to shape even,
even if you know how traditions
could read the Bible differently,
how does that help shape you
when you're understanding their worship practice?
That has to shape it.
I mean, it has to shape the little,
what songs they are choosing to sing,
like intentional or whatever.
That is such an incredible,

(20:13):
like I can't, for their tradition,
that's an incredible like anthem song.
That's gonna minister to every aspect
of their heart, their life,
like what reaches them specifically.
And it might not be that much of an anthem for us
if we say it, but still be good.
It'd still be good.
And you could, if you're sitting in there and being like,
oh, this is, and you're like nitpicking the theology,
quote unquote, or the incomplete,

(20:34):
like, oh, you didn't use the whole verse or whatever.
I think we do limit our ability
to understand different Christians experiences
as a culture context.
This also happens a lot.
We're a global movement.
Yeah, like not even just in the US.
I'm like, you're not, you're gonna go
and not find worship in the same space.
Like I just walked, I walked for my masters in England

(20:57):
and I had just finished, which was funny
because we had just done graduation out here
and graduation at LPU was completely different.
Like we had the contemporary worship,
you know, the three worship songs, big, like,
woohoo, love it, good vibes, all the things.
And then at my graduation,
they did choirs who sang all hymns.
And you're like, oh.
Kind of Anglicanish.

(21:18):
Yeah, and was it different?
Yes.
Was it great?
Yes.
And I can appreciate both,
but to sit in like an older church
and like sing an older hymn in like this British church
that had been up for a really long time.
It's like, it's a completely different experience.
Like they're not gonna sing contemporary worship
in the same way, but it's beautiful.

(21:41):
And it reflects a completely different like understanding
and tradition of worship in a space and a culture
that I'm not from.
Yeah, that's good.
That also leads into the second form of judgment, aesthetic,
because you can see beauty,
aesthetic beauty in all these different traditions.
And this is something that I think people
don't quite grasp as much,

(22:01):
because I think people are not as trained to judge them.
Yeah, that's valid.
You know what I'm saying?
Like we have, like everybody has an aesthetic sense,
but they might say like, oh, I like it,
or I don't like it, and they kind of leave it at that.
Yeah.
But like, I'm, you know, a visual artist.
So like we're trained in this kind of thing.
So like that's the application that I was bringing to it.
So in music, there are basic formal elements
that everybody uses.

(22:22):
So everybody uses rhythm, pitch, timbre, dynamics,
texture, form, melody, and harmony.
Everybody uses that.
But for instance, like a punk song,
if you like punk, which I like punk, I like metal.
I know you do.
In my defense of metal.
In my defense of metal.
So many people are like, I don't like metal.
And I'm like, why?
And they're like, because you can't understand the words.

(22:45):
My bro, that is not the point of metal.
That's not.
That's the point, like that's important for pop, for hip hop.
Not for metal.
Metal is cathartic.
We throw each other around,
and then love each other afterwards and fun.
You know what I'm saying?
Like we release, we have this aggression stuff like that.
There's different aesthetic reasons.
So are they using rhythm, pitch, timbre, dynamics and stuff?

(23:05):
Yeah, they are.
But like in metal, what are your dynamics?
Loud, right?
Aggressive.
Whereas some other ones might have like a full range
of dynamics that doesn't mean that metal doesn't like dynamics.
They're purposefully choosing loud dynamics, right?
Yeah.
Part of what it is to assess this beyond the general
and go towards the contextual

(23:26):
is a very important aesthetic category
that Nicholas Wolterstorff talks about.
And he calls it aesthetic fit.
People will realize sometimes that the right thing
doesn't actually determine if it's good or bad,
but it's actually if it fits or not.
Like for instance, I'll use this example,
sometimes you might have like this baller oboist,
you know what I'm saying?
Just so good at obo.
She tries to play the obo in like a metal song or something.

(23:49):
It's really, really, really not gonna fit.
But if you try to play that in a Philharmonic orchestra,
and she plays it beautifully,
then it's really gonna fit.
And so sometimes you can mix those genres.
You can actually create fusions
that like fit surprisingly well.
Like when electric guitar happens in orchestras,
like you hear Carol the Bells or whatever
with electric guitar and stuff like that.
And they fit really well.
Or like BB King when he first used an orchestra for blues.

(24:12):
Like stuff like that where like,
oh, this blended really, really well.
Or like Mav City example,
when they blended gospel and contemporary,
like they mixed it really well.
And so those fusions do exist,
but they have to kind of like exist authentically
within each other and to each other.
And some things just don't work well.
Like in art and color, color theory,
the colors that work really well together
are called complementary colors.

(24:33):
And those are the ones that are directly across
from each other on the color wheel.
So if you remember like grade school, the color wheel,
it's like blue and orange.
They work really well.
And so you have like the Florida Gators
and like those colors, right?
Red and green.
So you have like Christmas.
And different versions of it.
Like I was in a Cuban restaurant that was super good
in Miami recently when we went to Florida.
And they use green and pink, white and gold.

(24:54):
You would really love the vibe.
And it was very feminine looking.
It was really, really nice, like really beautifully done.
But that's because pink is a tint of red.
So they are compliments.
And so they worked really, really well with each other.
And so, and it looked tropical and stuff.
It was just really cool.
Fit the vibe, if you will.
It did.
It was like a chic tropical vibe.
It was really, really nice.
So that's color theory.

(25:15):
So what doesn't work well together
is if like imagine homeboy just coming up in here,
wearing an orange shirt and red pants.
You would be like, bro, what's wrong with you?
Like you need to cool yourself down.
Right?
Like because those are called analogous
when they're together.
And you can like, if you're painting fire or something,
you're going to use analogous colors.

(25:35):
Like you're going to use analogous things
for certain things, but you have to balance it out.
It feels very unbalanced, feel very warm.
And so compliments actually balance each other out.
And so it's the same thing here.
It's like what fits aesthetically, musically,
but specifically, not just in the music,
what fits for your community.
So if your community loves rock

(25:56):
and you keep like pushing certain styles to them,
they're going to not respond well.
Because, and this depends on you knowing your church community.
You know in the community of which you come from.
So like there is the one thing of like,
you have your esoteric church community,
but then like you also have the broader community
of who you're trying to reach for the Lord, right?
That's like my church that I go to,
they're big time rock people.

(26:17):
Like they've grown rock all the time,
but it's in Pasadena.
So it's a very kind of multicultural environment.
So there needs to be a blending of like who they've been
and the community that they're coming to now.
That kind of intentionality is really important
for understanding what is appropriate for worship.
So that's fit.
Have you seen any things where like things didn't fit?
I mean, I think I went to, when my home church,

(26:38):
it was like a much older church.
And so they loved the older songs.
And so there was like this almost like funny little divide
between like the young adults who went to the church
and like the rest of the church
because they were all older.
So they would sing like older songs.
And then the young adults would be like,
what's going on?
Can we get a Hillsong or a Maverick sitting in the chat

(27:00):
on this one?
And so it was like, it did technically like fit,
it fit the audience.
It did.
But then there were like those of us who were like,
oh, hey, how y'all doing?
That's why you have to kind of know your people.
You have to read the room, you gotta do whatever.
Maybe you have to have a mix.
Maybe you have to, who knows, but like,
and then like maybe that's not gonna be for everybody.

(27:22):
Like maybe the worship of that church
isn't gonna necessarily be for every person
who walks in the door.
And communities also change through the year.
So like sometimes I think churches can get stuck
doing a certain thing when their community around them
has already changed.
Yes.
You know what I'm saying?
You're supposed to reach your community.
So aesthetic fit is important.
So the third level of judgment would be theological judgment.

(27:42):
So we actually talked about this a little bit
in our first episode on deconstruction.
And it's basically the idea that we have a general view
of theology and those are your primary Christian beliefs
that we might find in the creeds, right?
Every Christian affirms that God is creator,
kind of similar to the Bible thing,
but like there was fall, Christ redeemed,
he established church and we'll return again, right?

(28:04):
Like so those are kind of your basic primary
Christian beliefs, first order theological issues.
So what happens is context changes
when we start getting into denominations stuff
and they start like having very important secondary issues.
And so, and I mentioned this
in actually our first podcast on worship,
somebody might crap all over a Pentecostal church
or something because of the theology saying

(28:26):
there are the theology is wrong and this and that,
blah, blah, blah, blah, but like, no, it's just different.
It's just, it's just, you're not used to how Pentecostals
think through their already not yet kind of like
Lugax, Luken reading, right?
That requires grace to see and understand
their theological perspective.
A lot of reform traditions are Calvinist,
but seeing in action is very interesting.
You still can worship if you're not a Calvinist with them.

(28:48):
You know, if you're not a Catholic,
you can still worship with the charismatic Catholics
and like where they're coming from.
So you don't have to become a Catholic.
You don't have to become reform.
You can still worship God in the primary way, right?
As brothers and sisters primarily speaking
without having to say like, yeah,
I totally agree with this secondary theological issue.
You know what I mean?
So there is that theologically confusing

(29:08):
also doesn't mean theologically wrong.
Like you might be confused.
Then again, also churches are imperfect all over the place.
People are not all theologians.
They're not all like gone through Bible school
and stuff like that.
They might say stuff that's not coherent.
They might say one thing that talks about,
that sounds like free will.
And the other one that sounds like predestination
in the same breath.
They'll say things all the time.

(29:29):
Yeah, that almost seems like abundantly like,
oh, you can choose,
but then like the flip of the coin is like,
well actually like,
You can't and it was determined.
Yeah, they'll do that all the time.
But it's because they're just like not as theologically
trained doesn't mean they don't love Jesus.
It doesn't mean they don't have foundational beliefs
in God and who they are.
And so we got to have a little grace there too.

(29:50):
Cause they might be,
there might be some theological confusion.
Doesn't mean that they are just heretics
or something like that.
Correct.
Cause we're working with real people.
Yes.
That are come with their all their messes
and all sorts of stuff and understanding.
If you are a trained theologian or pastor or whatever
and you have that understanding,
you can bring it into dialogue.
Hey, let's think about this.
Let's talk about this.
I do that all the time, literally all the time.

(30:10):
Yeah, especially you do the songwriting thing every year.
So I'm sure there's a lot of like, okay, love the start.
Let's unpack this.
Yeah.
One example I have for songwriting.
One student, good dude, love the guy.
He had this song and he wrote in it.
The lyrics says, I know a man named Jesus.
El Shaddai Elohim, Jeshua.
And I was like,

(30:31):
Hey, you should change some of those terms.
And then he's like, why?
Cause he was just kind of like looking at biblical terms
because there's inconsistency on the persons of the training
that's being talked about there.
For instance, El Shaddai means God who is sovereign.
Elohim, the Old Testament name for God.
And so those two are in reference typically to the father.
Yes.
In a Trinitarian dialogue.

(30:51):
Whereas Jeshua.
Is Jesus.
It is Jesus.
It means savior in Hebrew.
It's a boy's name, right?
I told him, I was like,
I was like your song starts with,
I know a man named Jesus.
And then you start quoting.
Names for God.
Names for the father, right?
And so theologically, can you get to that?
Of course you can.
Jesus is the invisible image of God.
Like you can get to it, but you didn't get to it.

(31:13):
You didn't explain that in your song.
So that means it's probably going to be confusing to people.
And so after explaining that, he was like, oh, cool, cool.
And he changed it to, I know a man named Jesus,
Emmanuel, risen one, Jeshua.
There you go.
Emmanuel's God is with us.
And it usually means the incarnation.
And then he talks about risen one and then his name.
And so that works so much better.

(31:33):
It's a Christological emphasis.
So right there,
I see so many songs that they're not bad theology,
but they're confusing theology, mixing names of Jesus.
It's essentially mixing metaphors.
That's what they're doing.
It's like they're writing poetry poorly.
And but not intentional.
Like they're doing it out of a place where they love God,
but they don't, maybe they just don't have a complete sense

(31:54):
of the implications of what they're doing.
I think that's a huge piece though,
is like remembering that every time that you're critiquing
or whatever, if you're being judgmental to a worship song,
like someone had an encounter with the Lord and wrote that.
Like somebody somewhere or a group of somebodies,
right, are pouring out a part of their heart

(32:16):
in worship and ministry with the Lord.
It's expression of their love.
Yeah, like that, like worship songs are attached
to people to a degree of like who wrote them
in a moment where they felt compelled.
And they were like, I love the Lord.
And this is going to be an expression of that love.
So I think if that's a way that we frame it as well,
like that will caution us quite a bit
with being judgmental or being overly critical

(32:38):
because someone loved the Lord so deeply
and intentionally that they wrote this.
And it may not be perfect, right?
Like we're not perfect,
but it's out of such a genuine expression
and love for the Lord that I think that should carry
a tremendous amount of weight.
And the point about judging worship,
like the student that I had, I affirmed him in the song,

(32:58):
it was a great song.
He's a great student.
He's a good dude and he understood
and he was not like felt attacked.
And he didn't feel like his inspiration
and his love letter to God was stifled.
He just kind of like, yeah, you're right.
And then changed it and it was all good.
So this is a good way to be constructive
and how we're using judgment in a good way,
in a constructive way, you know?

(33:19):
Yeah, so the final one, the pastoral judgment.
Here we can think about intentional again.
Bring it back.
So they were using it, obviously they were reading scripture
in a certain way, have a theological sense in a certain way,
but they also were pastoring and shepherding in a certain way.
They were using that song as a prayer,
as a way to confer a new identity onto the people

(33:44):
that were in the congregation,
that were struggling with all sorts of different things.
And so when we talk about the pastoral import
of why somebody would say something,
there is the definite like, okay,
all the worship that we do is meant to glorify God,
to love God.
And when we do this, we as pastors are shepherding the people

(34:05):
to be in right relation with God.
We're leading them there to the still waters,
to the good food, to what they need to grow.
That's the heart and goal for any pastoral ministry
in doing worship, right?
So that's the general, we're all shepherding,
we're all doing that, we're all doing that for our community.
But then contextually, you gotta ask,
what does music do in the shepherding process?

(34:27):
Because for a reform tradition,
music is really like prayers.
In the Pentecostal tradition,
music are these proclamations
that lead to transformation a lot.
In the gospel, there are proclamations,
there are these things, but there are also these things
that create new identities onto people,
like they're spoken and over people, right?
So they all have different functions.

(34:48):
I think it's important to know how the worship is functioning
in the community before you can quickly judge it.
Because if you're like, oh, well, music
should always function this way,
and you're looking from your own very narrow tradition,
well, they're maybe not doing it like that.
Yeah, like if you, us as like Pentecostals,
whatever, Four Squares specifically,
like walked into a place and were like,
oh, well, this is not really tickling my emotions.

(35:09):
Like I feel like this worship is not helping me
be emotional and encounter the Lord in that way.
Maybe it's not meant to.
And then the friends who are like using it
as literally a form of prayer,
are like, well, because it's not.
Like that's not what this is about.
Exactly.
Because there's different expressions of it.
So that's the basic four elements that I have here
that I think if we can judge with those four things,

(35:31):
the biblical, aesthetic, theological,
and pastoral judgments,
I think we can really come to understand
what's happening in that community,
really come to appreciate it.
And even develop a respect
and a love towards those traditions.
What do you think?
Do you like those?
Yeah, I think if we go through this judgment
with all four of these,

(35:51):
it's way more holistic than I don't like it.
Yeah, for sure.
If our entire judgment of worship starts and ends
with whether or not you like what you're hearing,
then you're kind of missing the whole point, honestly.
So I think that you can, whether or not you like it,
if you're even encountering
or you're looking through these four aspects,

(36:11):
you can become appreciative.
Where you're not like, that's not my thing,
but I can appreciate what they're doing.
I can appreciate how they're meeting their community.
I can appreciate the musicality of it.
Like I can appreciate what the pastor's doing.
Like there's levels here
of what can be understood and appreciated about worship
that doesn't just rely on the subjective,

(36:34):
oh, well, whether or not you like it when you hear it.
Yeah, but you can also more authoritatively
call out the things that are wrong.
Yes.
Because now you have actual evidence.
Yes, it'll give you literacy
and verbiage to actually being able to explain,
oh, well, this feels off, right?
Like this sounds weird or whatever.
And you can ask the right questions.

(36:56):
These are questions that aren't gonna be as like inflammatory.
It's not gonna be like, oh, I didn't like that.
So I feel like it's bad.
Or I feel like it's not communicating
what we wanna communicate.
I think that actually being able to engage
in dialogue surrounding these aspects
will prepare us to be able to understand

(37:17):
whether or not these worship songs are appropriate.
Appropriate, fitting, fitting, exactly.
And not just, oh, well, I don't like it.
So we should move it.
I think it will help us be better believers,
better worshipers, better people who engage
in their church community.
Like it helps us, it helps make us better.
Yeah, agreed, agreed.

(37:37):
Do you think this can open the door for ecumenism?
So ecumenism is kind of the theological working across aisles
for the common goal of ministering the gospel to the world.
Like working with other traditions.
In fact, our tradition, Four Square,
on the first building that Amy Sebel MacPherson built,
Angel's Temple, like the first church,

(37:58):
like it's still on the walls there.
That it was meant to be an interdenominational force
for the whole world, right?
So like to work with other denominations,
other groups and stuff like that
in order to spread the gospel in order,
because there's a whole bunch of people that need Jesus.
Yes.
And I think I'd rather work alongside every other Christian
than just silo myself and say, this is the one true way.

(38:19):
Yeah, I want people to love Jesus.
I don't want people to love Four Square.
Like I want people to fall in love and be saved
by Jesus Christ, not Amy Sebel MacPherson.
I'm like, and if that means that we partner
with somebody else or a different group or whatever
to do it, then we should be about that.
We should be about our father's business.

(38:40):
That's good.
The ones that I feel like most intentionally,
this was very surprising to me before I did this,
but most intentionally look for ecumenical dialogue
or the charismatic Catholic, which is crazy
because you hear so much anathema
like between Protestants and Catholics,
like they won't, someone won't even call
the other ones Christians and stuff like that.
But the charismatic Catholics,
they do like quarterly, sometimes monthly meetings

(39:03):
and they reach out to Protestant groups
and they're like, let's worship together.
Let's get together and just worship God.
And it's like, man, they're amazing.
I was interviewing for the book project,
this group called One Hope Project.
You guys should check them out.
And so they do contemporary worship
and it's really good.
It's charismatic, it's a little like Bethel-ish,
but it's also like catered towards the mass

(39:24):
and like how Catholics do worship.
And so it's super interesting
and just seeing all these young people raise their hands,
singing, they even like will speak in tongues
and they'll like pray over each other
and they'll prophesy and they'll do all sorts of stuff
like that.
Like it's very familiar to people
who have a Pentecostal charismatic backgrounds,
in interviews with them, man,
because I interviewed several charismatic Catholics.

(39:46):
When you just start talking to them,
you hear this like, man, it's so cool, ecumenical.
They always bring it back to the Holy Spirit.
Every single one of them be like, yeah,
and they have like a huge grin on their face always.
And like their eyes glisten, like they just are like,
yeah, that's because that's what the Holy Spirit wants.
And they always come back to that.
That sounds like it's Holy Spirit working in the world,
bringing us together and this and that.

(40:06):
I'm like, man, that's such a beautiful witness.
Yeah, I think there's a lot to learn from each other.
And man, there's some beautiful things to be done.
Our faith is a global faith.
We have two billion Christians in the world.
Most of them are not in the West.
You know, all the different traditions everywhere
have such beautiful expressions of worship.
They may not be super polished.
And sometimes it is the raw authenticity

(40:28):
of not being polished.
That's so striking and beautiful.
But then also the polish is good too.
And we can learn to appreciate that.
But then if we judge things correctly,
we can know if like that polishedness
is being idolized for being polished.
Or if it's being polished
because they're bringing all their excellence
to God in worship.
And then that's a good thing.

(40:49):
So worship students should learn how to worship God
in any context, in any of these things situations.
And to really appreciate and love God
and see the community.
And you know, sometimes you're gonna go around the world
for different things for whatever reasons.
And you're going to feel not at home places.
I've noticed that about myself, like being biracial.
I don't feel totally home anywhere

(41:09):
because like I'm not fluent in Spanish.
So like I don't feel that in like my Puerto Rican side.
I don't speak German anymore.
And so like I feel connection, but not entirely.
And then when it comes to the American dialogue,
I definitely feel American and I'm proud of that.
But I'm also like something different.
We're a community of immigrants, you know what I mean?
And I feel that.
And so like I don't feel totally at home anywhere,

(41:31):
but I feel at home in the church, no matter where I'm at.
When I'm worshiping with people
who are speaking a completely different language,
I feel at home.
It's beautiful.
Those are my brothers and sisters.
You know what I mean?
So let's celebrate that.
All right, hopefully that was helpful for some people.
I think it was, it was helpful for me.
Good.
Preaching me on this couch.
Yeah, yeah.

(41:52):
So anyways, shameless plug.
This will come out in about a year.
The how to worship for all it's worth.
Start the countdown.
Start the countdown.
It's gonna be, I'm really excited about it.
I think it's gonna be hopefully, hopefully,
a helpful book for some folks.
I think it's gonna be great.
All right, well, this was brought to you
by the School of Theology and Ministry.
We'll see you next time.
See ya.