|
TWO HEAVENS #9
SONG SERVICES AT DODGER STADIUM
There was a complaint floating around a few years ago
entitled “Why People Don’t Want to Go to Ballgames Anymore.” And the writer
pointed out in disgust that the stadium was always too crowded; you couldn’t
get a good seat. The acoustics were bad. A lot of lookie-loos, not true
fans, would show up just for special events like Free Hot Dog Night and
clog up the place. Parking was difficult. You sometimes had to drive twenty,
thirty miles just to GET to the stadium.
Then, once you got there, games went too long; instead of stopping at
the expected time, teams would often go into extra innings, or sudden-death
overtimes. Who wants to stick around for that when you’re tired and want
to get home for dinner? And the kicker, certainly, was when he observed
in frustration that the Dodgers — or whatever team this was — was only
interested in his money. Money money money! They were constantly trying
to get green stuff out of his wallet. Why should anyone go to a place
where all they want is your hard-earned cash?
So . . . that’s why nobody ever goes to baseball games anymore. That clearly
explains why, in 1997, there were only 62,616,312 people who drove a long
ways, sat in uncomfortable seats for events that went three-plus hours,
with climates that were often too hot or too cold, with lousy, crowded
restrooms that had long lines, and deliberately put themselves in an environment
where the people up front wantonly and blatantly tried to get money out
of them.
Well, friend, considering that this is a Christian radio program, and
that we’ve been talking about the issue of worship for a week-and-a-half
here, I have no doubt that you noticed the thinly disguised moral to the
above essay. Sixty-two-plus million people drive a long ways to go to
a place where the worship service, shall we say, runs three or four hours,
where it’s hard to see, difficult to hear, where thieves and sinners are
sitting right next to you, Christmas-and-Easter hypocrites who only show
up for the World Series and not the dog-days-in-August UN-crucial games,
where people are always standing up, sitting down, moving around, blocking
your view, and where beer vendors pass the plate — in a manner of speaking
— about every ten minutes. Only 62 million people managed to survive that
. . . and yet the very same excuses keep Americans out of church on Sabbath
or Sunday morning in DROVES.
Oh, by the way, I should mention that there SURELY are fans at Dodger
Stadium who really can’t stand the music of Nancy Bea Heffley on the stadium
organ. She’s always doing Master of the House from “Les Miz,” and in the
eighth inning a clap-along Tijuana song from south of the border. Same
old stuff all the time. And on an ORGAN! Who wants to hear that? But 62
million people, even if they don’t like the music, manage to get through
a major league baseball game.
Well, today, in churches all around North America, and the world as well,
many “fans,” if we can borrow that word, are heading for the parking lots.
They’re switching to another team. They’re changing to a different ballpark
with a different organist at the stadium console. Or to a stadium where
they allow drums. What we call the “music wars” has created a migration,
a shift, not only in HOW people worship, but WHERE.
The Christianity Today article we’ve used as a resource last week and
this one is entitled Triumph of the Praise Songs: How Guitars Beat Out
the Organ in the Worship Wars. We learn that more than half of all Christians
here in America now attend a contemporary-style worship service. Not because
there are more contemporary services than traditional ones — although
it’s very close to 50-50 now. But with the more upbeat programs drawing
larger crowds, they DO now hold a majority of Christians here in North
America. More than 100,000 U.S. churches participate in a copyright/royalty
program so that they can use lyrics of contemporary Christian music on
their overhead screens. But writer Michael Hamilton, professor of history
at Notre Dame, puts his finger on a HUGE point when he observes:
“The generation that reorganized family around the
ideal of self-fulfillment has done the same with religion. Surveys consistently
show that baby boomers — whether evangelical or liberal, Protestant or
Catholic — attend church not out of loyalty, duty, obligation, or gratitude,
BUT ONLY IF IT MEETS THEIR NEEDS.”
And perhaps that strikes you as a “duh” statement.
Of course we wouldn’t go to church if it didn’t meet our needs. Our five
favorite words have become: “Getting Something Out of It.” We wouldn’t
go to a ballpark where the team consistently lost, and we won’t go to
a church with music we dislike . . . especially when there’s a GOOD church
with our favorite BRAND of music just four blocks over. That’s a no-brainer.
Which is a point I concede . . . but only TO a point. Because is it possible
that we’ve come to a place where LIKING church, or LIKING the music, has
become the most important thing about the 11:00 o’clock hour on Sabbath
or Sunday morning? If drums and guitars — or a desired LACK of drums and
guitars — would cause a Christian to even step across a denominational
boundary, which happens all the time now, does this mean that we would
choose music we LIKE, or church entertainment that pleases us . . . MORE
than Bible truth? Would we trade doctrines for drums just because we like
them?
That’s perhaps a simplistic observation, but let me take you back to an
illustration we’ve borrowed all through this series. I mentioned that
the marvelous Christian writer C. S. Lewis just plain and simple hated
ALL church music. All of it! On every Sunday of the year, at every church
he went to. He thought it was just BAD. He did not like “Just As I Am”;
he did not like it, Sam-I-Am.
So what did he do? There was no stadium where he could see a team he liked,
borrowing from our earlier metaphor. Did he quit the sport? No, he continued
to go to church his entire life, wincing with every off-key note. But
in the context of writing about music, and his admitted loathing of it,
he has this to say:
“I assume from the outset that nothing should be done
or sung or said at church which does not aim directly or indirectly either
at glorifying GOD or edifying the PEOPLE or BOTH.”
Worship, he is saying here, has two purposes. The first
and most important is to offer up worship to God. To praise His name.
To glorify Him and tell Him that we love Him. As it says in Psalm 150:
“Praise the LORD. Praise GOD in His sanctuary; praise
HIM in His mighty heavens. Praise HIM for His acts of power; praise HIM
for His surpassing greatness.” Now, here’s a list of acceptable instruments,
according to the inspired Word of God. “Praise Him with the sounding of
the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with tambourine
and dancing, praise Him with the strings and flute, praise Him with the
clash of cymbals, praise Him with RESOUNDING cymbals. Let EVERYTHING that
has breath praise the Lord.”
What I think we’re getting at here is this. Friend,
we go to church, not so much to be pleased and entertained, and to sample
worship moments that we LIKE, but to worship GOD. Oh, now it’s true that
LIKING worship is important. “It’s PLEASANT,” King David says, “to sing
praises to God.” Apparently King David happened to like the ballpark organist
at Jerusalem Stadium, or whatever synagogue he worshiped in. It’s good
when we DO like praising, and singing, and praying, and testifying, and
hearing sermons. But even if we perhaps DON’T like some aspect of what
happens at church, let’s keep in mind that LIKING is not the #1 reason
why we are there. We’re there to worship, to get vertical with God, to
send our love UP to HIM. And unless you’re convicted in your heart that
the music there is offensive to both you AND God, it is possible to worship
Him at that place, even if the word “like” doesn’t enter in as much as
we’d wish.
Granted, church IS also meant to edify. If all the music is in Latin,
or if your personal makeup simply does not allow you to be blessed or
instructed by the music at your church, then perhaps you DO need to move
across the street . . . as long as you can ALSO find worship over there,
and in an arena that doesn’t sacrifice Bible truth and Christian obedience.
But when we carelessly church-hop, looking for a better drummer, or a
church that EXCOMMUNICATES drummers, it might be an indication that we
are putting FUN, or personal taste, ahead of worship.
I’ve got to share with you in closing that I’ve heard it all. I really
have. I’ve traveled around; I’ve been in big churches and small ones.
Pipe organ cathedrals and then out to camp meeting young adult tents where
they ran in some extension cords and had an awful lot of electric thump.
Yes, there were times I thought the line got crossed. There have been
times I’ve been offended, or turned off, or even just plain bored. There
were times I turned away and figured God did too.
But more often now, friend, I’m just looking to worship. When the music’s
classical, and when it’s the Cathedral Quartet. Or Kathy Troccoli. When
I like it and when I don’t. Most of the time, I can find an upward moment,
an avenue to heaven’s court where I can tell God, even accompanied by
a bass guitar, “Father, You’re so good to me. And I praise You.”
|
