Last week here at Pulpit & Pen I published a post entitled “Elevation Worship: Manslaughter or Murder” questioning the motivations of music ministers who include Elevation music (and music from other unbiblical organizations) in the worship services at their churches. I concluded that those ministers were in error regardless of their intent and level of knowledge about Elevation. There are different levels of wrong, but wrong is still wrong. Then, it hit me that these music ministers are not perpetrating their worship crimes alone. For every music minister who subjects Christ’s church to so-called “Elevation Worship” there is a team of musicians and singers acting as his willing accomplices.
Why do these people do it?
At the biggest, showiest churches, the worship teams consists of paid, professional musicians. They are, undeniably, putting on a deliberate show. It is a performance. In other words, they are in on it. But most churches do not employ professional worship teams. Most worship teams (whatever happened to the choir?) consist of well-intentioned volunteers. Some of them are just kids. For the most part, the members of a typical church worship team aren’t involved in any shameful plots to fill the pews by putting on a Hillsongesque show. They aren’t trying to keep the auditorium full by ginning up emotional highs. They are just singing. They are, in their minds, worshipping.
They are, however, following the wrong leader. Whether their music minister lacks the basic biblical discernment to recognize that Elevation Worship is wicked or whether their music minister is a pragmatic agent of church-growth by any means who’d sing Black Sabbath if he thought it would draw numbers, those worship team members are following the wrong leader. Without his worship team, an incompetent music minister can’t foist Elevation Worship upon the local church.
Forgive me but here comes an argument ad hitlerum. Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels did not construct, fill, operate, and guard Nazi Germany’s concentration camps alone. They had help. Many of their helpers could have been well-meaning and somewhat ignorant. When they eventually stood before the courts of justice, the excuse “I was only following orders” did not absolve those helpers. If they are singing Elevation at your church, it is past time you had a conversation with the members of your church’s worship team.
Approaching the music minister may be fruitless. He is getting paid to be bad. It’s his job to be awful. To stop being awful is to stop getting paid. But who wants to be awful for free? Ask the members of your church worship team if they know just how evil Elevation, Hillsong, Bethel et al are. Ask them how their consciences allow them to participate in the wicked works of Steven Furtick. Ask them why they follow the leaders they follow.
Then, carefully consider the answers of the people your church has chosen to lead it in the worship of a Holy God.
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
