3 Bad Reasons to Leave Your Church

All three are valid points. From the first one:

“When you make worship style a decision-maker in your church selection process or even as you’re attending a church you have for a long time, you make the worship experience about yourself and not the God you’re worshiping.”

^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^

I would take issue with this point. Worship style is one of many reasons; we don’t attend one church which is much closer to us. Then I tend to hold the opinion “The pulpit follows the music.”

[Larry Nelson] All three are valid points. From the first one:

“When you make worship style a decision-maker in your church selection process or even as you’re attending a church you have for a long time, you make the worship experience about yourself and not the God you’re worshiping.”

^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^

The author’s first point about worship styles not being a factor seems to be in conflict with his other article, 3 good reasons to leave your church.

In that article, the author says “If something the church believes or does violates convictions of yours in a way that it affects your conscience—meaning you would personally feel wrong believing or doing what your church believes or does—you should probably leave the church.” And then later, as an example, “You shouldn’t be in a church the violates your conscience by how it conducts worship, but you also should remember these are issues of your conscience.”

So he seems to be saying both unless someone can help me understand this apparent contradiction. IMO if one’s conscience is being violated over music in the church, because it sounds just like the music our secular culture finds ideal to accentuate and celebrate sex, drugs and violence, then yeah, that sounds like a good reason to me to leave if there are other options available.

Darrell,

That is quite a broad brush that you have there. That is “it sounds like music our secular culture finds ideal to accentuate and celebrate sex, drugs, and violence.” Who gets to judge which is this type of music? For example, younger African-Americans in my neighborhood that grew up on hip-hop. They would immediately understand the stark difference between secular hip-hop and Christian hip-hop, whereas most white fundamental Baptists that grew up outside of hip-hop culture often make false assumptions because they don’t have the faintest clue what the difference is because of their ignorance of hip-hop and hip-hop culture.

Ignorance is a two-way street. Music in church should be about God and not about us. It should not remind us of what is going on in the culture around us. So whatever secular music one listens to in private, they should expect to show up on Sunday and experience something different in church, as it is about God and not about us. But my larger point was to draw attention to the apparent discrepancy in the two articles written by the linked author, and how if it is a matter of conscience, then there are grounds to leave.

[Darrell Post]

Ignorance is a two-way street. Music in church should be about God and not about us. It should not remind us of what is going on in the culture around us. So whatever secular music one listens to in private, they should expect to show up on Sunday and experience something different in church, as it is about God and not about us. But my larger point was to draw attention to the apparent discrepancy in the two articles written by the linked author, and how if it is a matter of conscience, then there are grounds to leave.

The reason that it is not a contradiction for the author is because he views the music issue as a matter of preference, while you view the music issue as a matter of conviction.

Of course music in church should be about God and not about us. But as a paraphrase of what I asked before, why is your standard of music in church (which somehow escapes the culture around us) somehow the standard of God?

Darrell,

i think he’s pointing out that yes, if it causes you to sin or you feel like you are participating in sin (because of your own conscience) on an issue, then it’s a possible reason to leave. But to keep in mind that other people’s consciences can be quite different from your own, so they can be doing whatever it is that bothers you, but doing it with confidence that they are pleasing to God or doing what God wants.

The conscience is moldable—it’s a human faculty that is influenced by various factors, just like other human faculties are. So things can be sin for a person to do, then later as they grow, that thing doesn’t become sin.

I remember when a certain kind of hair clip came out, I was shocked how quickly I saw women wearing these “worldly” hair clips. … Now I wear them all the time. And when men started wearing goatees I thought it dreadfully worldly/. But now, I absolutely do not care about it.

As I grow in my confidence in certain spiritual truths, so many of these conscience issues seem silly to me now. Though I think I still have them in other areas, like my parenting convictions. And I need to have my own convictions. And uncomfortably for all of us, others in my church hold the exact opposite positions. … And I think living together in peace and unity while honoring various ways we’ve been lead by the Lord is important.

I think it’s harder when one is not in leadership and can’t control which way these matters of conscience play out publicly.

The idea of leaving church is something I’ve thought about in this context as a pastor’s wife– we have some malcontents in our church who have lists of things they are not happy about, and nothing they are happy about, or at least they don’t talk about that. And my husband listens to them at various points in time. Yet they won’t leave. And he wonders how they get any spiritual benefit out of his preaching…. Anyway, it’s complicated. I struggle with it.

Preference or conviction

I don’t like organ music! We were going to a church and always sat on the side where the piano was because the organ was played so loud. They decided to move the organ where the piano was and the piano where the organ had been. We simply changed where we sat.
A preference not a conviction.

About a year ago we visited a church who’s pastor graduated form a good Christian college. He was even friends with a personal friend of my who taught there. Everything started out well and then he got up there with his electric guitar (holding it down by his groin) and preceded to preform! I can’t say I had a problem with the words other than the fact I couldn’t understand them. We didn’t go back.
A conviction not a preference.

In recent years, I’ve become more convinced (or shall I say convicted) of this than ever:

If someone’s attitude simply is, “I can’t/won’t worship God in a church with guitars / an organ / drums / a choir” or whatever (take you pick: this applies both ways), then that person’s concept of worship is self-centered rather than God-centered.

It isn’t about us people! IT IS (and should be) all about God!

One example (which I’ve mentioned on SI before): I witnessed over a thousand people joyously, triumphantly singing “This is Amazing Grace” [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjXjkbODrro] together in a church service last summer. Were they somehow deluded in their singing of this song? Would God have been more honored if they had been singing John Newton’s “Amazing Grace” instead? (I personally don’t believe for one second that God was at all being dishonored. To even begin thinking that, I’d have to first rip Psalm 150 out of my Bibles.)

very difficult to see an extremely complex subject - for which forests have been ravaged in innumerable attempts to describe - be addressed with three underdeveloped bullet points by a guy whose razor looks to be used on a quarterly basis.

it reminds me of a conversation i heard yesterday between my 12 and 10 year old at our backyard shooting range. With all confidence and sincerity, the 12 year old held up a .40 caliber bullet and told his brother it was a 40 Magnum. I like my son, and I love my son. He’s a great kid with a heart of gold. He was also absolutely clueless about the type of bullet he was holding. He amalgamated information from a variety of sources and spouted it with no reservation to a person even more novice than himself.

That’s what I see when a millenial starts offering regurgitated soup for consumption.

Style can apparently trump lifestyle:

http://ratherexposethem.blogspot.com/2015/02/cantus-homosexuals-perform-at.html

http://www.wayoflife.org/pdf/20150206.pdf

In contrast, does anyone else recall when BJU screened the Kirk Cameron film Fireproof on campus (which itself surprised many)? During the screening, the CCM music in the film was muted-out of the audio. (For example, the Casting Crowns song Slow Fade, a Biblical plea for marital fidelity, was unheard by the BJU audience.)

How is it that Cantus, a blatantly secular singing group (but with an approved style) is invited to perform live on campus, but CCM music (unapproved style) is deleted from even on-campus film screenings?

Cantus performed at BJU? One would have to infer that nobody there can read, because the homosexuality of several of their performers is as clear as day on their website when they talk about their “husbands.” They’re wonderful singers, but……..not exactly well suited for BJU.

And regarding music, I can see separating on the basis of music not because of genre, but really because of “effectiveness” of the music. if the music does not communicate God’s Word to heart and mind, it fails. And a lot of churches use music to “drive a mood” instead of to instruct.

[Bert Perry]

Cantus performed at BJU?

http://www.bju.edu/events/fine-arts/concert-opera-drama/cantus.php

http://blogs.bju.edu/pr/2015/01/13/cantus-perform-bob-jones-university-2/

In response, I again would just point out that the author of these articles said music was not a point on which to leave a church in one article, then pointed out in the other article that if your conscience was violated, even over issues of worship practices, then you probably should leave. At the very least this author could have been more clear. I know blog writers are supposed to be brief, but here is perhaps an example where brevity hindered clarity.

Music is a form of art. Despite post-modern pleadings to the contrary, all art is not equal. A detailed painting of a mountain range, lake, with birds, deer, and so on, that was painted by a skilled painter so well that it almost looks like a photo, is art that is always better than those paintings we have seen that look like the painter accidently spilled random colors of paint all over the canvas, producing a work that someone in kindergarten could have accomplished. Same with music. It isn’t all equal. Someone who lacks talent/skill and just bangs away on something making noise is not the equal of a skilled violinist who has years of training.

When music is brought into the church, there are always going to be arguments of taste, appropriateness, and so on. We wouldn’t play circus music to words ascribing worth to God, because we would be suggesting that God is whimsical, silly, and enjoys cotton candy. There is a tone of voice to musical instrumentation—it is programmatic. So it is possible to combine instrumental sounds that make a tone of voice that sounds agitated, angry, even violent, and pair that with words that speak of God’s love, grace, and eternal hope. I know we live in an age where people believe “anything goes” and you shouldn’t speak against anything anyone does, but that doesn’t mean the age is right in how we approach these matters.

Also, if we really wanted to be New Testament in our church practice, then we would most certainly reduce, for many churches, greatly reduce the role of music in the assembly of believers. No question the Old Testament is a musical testament, but look hard at the New Testament, and you will find precious little upon which to build your New Testament theology of music. The gospels have almost no mentions of music, just a few incidental mentions like “they sang a hymn and went out.” The book of Acts, being the formative book for church history, one might suspect all sorts of instruction on music, but there is only the mention of Paul and Silas singing at midnight in the Philippian jail. However, Acts does provided a list of the things that did happen when the believers met together, and these things included teaching of doctrine, prayer, reading of Scripture, fellowship, and communion. No mention of music. (Also no mention of worship leaders among the list of apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers, etc.)

The book of Revelation has a larger number of references to music due to the mention of the trumpet blasts for judgment. But these, along with the harps, and “the new song” they all sang was after the church age. About all one can appeal to in the NT are the somewhat parallel verses in Eph and Col that mention speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord. But even these verses have nothing at all to say about instrumentation. In fact, there is absolutely zero New Testament support for use of musical instruments in corporate church worship. None. So I am sorry if I am not sympathetic to the view that one group of believers in a church has the right to trample the consciences of other believers in a church with their demands to do whatever they want with instruments and call it worship music. Romans 14-15 speaks very clearly about denying yourself for the good of your brother. And all that would be denied here is something the New Testament does not endorse or encourage anyway.

Sorry, but I don’t embrace the idea that “its all about God” so people can just do whatever they want. If it was all about God, then one might think people would take the time to find support in the New Testament for what they do for corporate music. I would suggest rather that the under-dressed performer on stage jumping and jiving with an instrument is doing a pretty good job of drawing attention to self, rather than God.

The church would be far healthier if it modeled the New Testament church and limited music to an after-thought, an occasional instrument-less psalm, hymn, or spiritual song, and instead focused on doctrine, prayer, reading of Scripture, fellowship and communion. But as it is, churches spend 30 to 40 minutes performing a concert with varying degrees of taste relative to the subject matter, and then is left with a 2 minute prayer, little Scripture, and a 20 minute sermonette.

I know many if not most of you here will disagree with me, and I know I am not going to persuade you, but this is where I stand on this. And don’t take me for a musical scrooge—I have a huge collection of music.

[Darrell Post]

Sorry, but I don’t embrace the idea that “its all about God” so people can just do whatever they want.