My worship. MINE. (Another angle)

So it's been a little while since this post, in which the subject of a church offering multiple styles of worship service became a jumping-off point for thinking about the perception of worship as MINE (a la the Finding Nemo birds). There is another angle from which such a title invites reflection, one that touches both on a history of the hymnody sung in many of our churches and possibly certain current practices as well. In this case the problem at hand can be boiled down to three letters: "I," "we."

Worship is a corporate act: that is, the body of Christ is joined together to do worship. For all the folks who go on about how they "find God" in nature or music or whatever, that isn't worship, so let's not be confused here. The very point of worship, right down to the songs sung, is to join that body, that community together in praise of God, confession of sin, proclaiming and hearing the Word and responding to that Word, and being sent out from the gathering to do Christ's work in God's world. It's something we do.

Of course, there have been stretches of the history of the church where its hymnody and congregational song didn't always reflect this sense of the body gathered in worship. Take, for a few examples:

"Will there be any stars in my crown?"
"Face to face with Christ my Savior"
"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand"
"When the roll is called up yonder I'll be there"
"O that will be glory for me"
"When I can read my title clear"
"I am satisfied with Jesus"
"Make me a blessing" (Or, "Make me a channel of blessing" - both present)
"Must I go, and empty-handed"

You get the idea. This comes from the first hymnal of my childhood, a reasonably narrow range of that hymnal. There are, of course, other hymns directed at God without first-person singular or plural usage, and it should be noted that there are also hymns that do reflect a more corporate position ("We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves," "Light of the world, we hail thee," "O God, we pray for all mankind," "We've a story to tell," "We shall see the King someday," and of course "Shall we gather at the river" also appear.) But that's a lot of first-person singular.

And when that much first-person singular gets drilled into your head Sunday after Sunday, it makes a difference. Congregational song forms us, every bit as much as anything else we do in the church and maybe more given the insidious nature of music as what Frederick Buechner called a "subcutaneous" art, one that gets under your skin.

Now imagine such song getting under your skin for thirty or forty or fifty years.

If you want to talk about some of the things that challenge the church as it stands now, and the degree to which the "mine mine mine" mindset affects the church, this is a possible surreptitious culprit to think about. If we spoke before about the possessiveness that can form around a particular worship style or service, it's worth considering how much similar possessiveness can form around a particular church itself. Indeed, the two go hand in hand.

You end up with a church that gives off the vibe or mindset of "don't change anything as long as I'm alive." They can recognize that something's not right, can see that what used to work great doesn't work so well, what used to pack them in now pushes them away, and so forth and so on, but still "don't change anything as long as I'm alive." It's almost become a part of that church's DNA. That particular body both functions as a collection of individuals and as an "individual" fearful of anything that might disrupt each comfort zone. And all the individualized congregational songs, if we take the whole idea of music and its influence seriously, have to have had an effect on that church's (or that collection of individuals') mindset.

[Note: you will possibly remember that I am not of mainline origins, so my experience - you might think - is not relevant. True, I am not of mainline origins; however, you'd be surprised how much churches that get counted as "mainline" now have rather substantial histories of much more "evangelical" approaches to worship, especially to congregational song. Maybe not in downtown Philadelphia, but, across (ahem) certain regions of the country, ... we'll just say that Southern Baptists and Presbyterians didn't necessarily sound all that different when it came time to sing.]

Now, here's the question: how much of that "I-me-mine" mode of thought still exists in congregational song? Others will have to tell me how much of that characterizes "contemporary" worship. Most hymnody that has come out of the mainline has gotten better at emphasizing the "we"-ness of worship, and other sources such as the Iona community are pretty good at keeping song corporate. (Still, some newer hymns do slip into the individual - "O Christ, surround me," Glory to God 543, comes to mind.)

But it's a thing to be aware of. Are we forming the body of Christ, everyone all together? Are we singing "we" when it's necessary to sing a first-person pronoun? There is some - some - space for congregational songs from an individual position, but it shouldn't be the bulk of the repertoire. A church full of Finding Nemo birds doesn't end up being a church with much future.