Worship Gripes, or How has Worship Changed over Recent Decades

My wife and I were chatting recently about all the changes we have noticed in worship practices over our lifetime. We reflected on all the shifts, usually gradual, in the manner we come together in public worship. This transformation has even happened in churches that call themselves conservative or traditional.

We no longer sing from hymnbooks or Psalters. The data projector has allowed for a greater variety of songs and psalms and choruses. The harmonium or pipe organ has morphed over time into the worship team or band with the reign of the solitary piano lasting only a short time. No longer is it a simple matter for the pastor to pass over a list of hymns to the organist before the Sunday service.

The preacher no longer wears formal clothing and, when was the last time you saw a Genevan gown?  “Casual” is the C21^st style. It is an informality that has also slipped into the order and language of worship. Often the Call to Worship has been replaced with an informal “Hi!” or funny anecdote about what happened in the supermarket.

Law, confession and assurance have disappeared in many churches or are so disguised as to be unrecognisable. Also, in some churches, the congregational prayer has disappeared altogether. The “prayer chain” takes care of that.

Announcements are now done via videos and slides reminiscent of the movie theatre (no popcorn though) and even the taking of offerings during the services have disappeared in many places replaced by online giving or a card scanner in the foyer.

The concept of a dialogue that God initiates and to which we are invited to humbly respond, has vanished. Instead, we often have the gall to invite the Holy Spirit to our worship services, which is a real turning of the heavenly tables!

Churches that traditionally had morning and evening services have largely slimmed down to one service – a trend hastened by the COVID pandemic.

How many of these changes were made to please us and how many were made to honour God. I am not saying the changes were wrong or that all past practices were right, but the question is: what were the motivations for the changes? Were they to honour God more appropriately or to make it more pleasant for us? Were they primarily to enhance our focus on our God and His gracious work in the lives of His people and His Kingdom, or to make worship more bearable? And an ancillary question: has the move a few decades ago to “seeker sensitive” services been a blessing or a curse with regard to God honouring worship?

My suspicion is that the latter is more likely to be true. I don’t think the primacy of God in worship was always thought of – or am just being an old cynic?

Have these changes genuinely enhanced worship, praise and adoration of the one true God in a God honouring way?

I have one final gripe that reinforces my cynicism. It is the tendency for many of the songs we sing to focus on singular first person pronouns – namely “I” and “”me”. So often the “we-ness” of God’s gathered community is missing: the “we” of God’s people praising all the attributes and aspects of the triune God for who He is and what He has done often gets lost.

I am not saying everything we do now is wrong, rather, what I am suggesting is that there could be a Godly perspective missing in our worship that potentially drains it of its awe and majesty. When we lose the focus on the majesty God, He is not praised and our worship, in my mind, is all the poorer.