Contemporary Worship

CCLI data study: “In the mid-1990s, a popular song like ‘Refiner’s Fire,’ or ‘In Secret’ had a lifespan of about a dozen years, rising for 4-5 years before hitting a slow decline. Two decades later, that lifespan has dropped down to 3-4 years” - RNS

“Like merchants lobbying for customers, we say ‘Come to our church. We have choices now! One of them is cool, and the other one is for old people and old souls.’” - Jonathan Aigner

“…halfway through that epic bridge you scan over the congregation and all that looks back at you is a sea of blank faces. What went wrong?” - CPost

“The pastor goes, ‘I preach the Word. Everybody else do the rest, and I’ll just concentrate on the sermon.’ Well, that’s, that’s stupidity. That’s not how the Bible was written. That’s not how the Church fathers behaved” - CPost

“It matters whether those who lead us in song see their task as creating a mood or a memory. If primarily a mood, lyrics can take a back seat …. If primarily a memory, the lyrics are critically important. Like the Psalms, they should be able to stand on their own, combined with music or not.” - CToday

“…there’s an even deeper flaw in our thinking. Worship is not an evangelistic tool. We don’t worship together to attract unbelievers.” - C. Leaders

“Seeing ourselves as the Body of Christ is not to demean personal experience, but a help to guard against allowing our focus to shift to ‘our’ personal experience rather than on who Christ is and what He as done.” - C.Leaders

“In short order, we went from 250 songs everyone knows to more than 250,000 songs nobody knows… . The key is familiarity. People enjoy singing songs they know.” - C.Leaders

“So the question becomes – in spite of today’s worship music often being meaningful, well done and engaging, what have we lost when a few hundred members of the congregation stand there watching 5 or 6 members of the worship team do all the singing?” - Phil Cooke

“Theology matters,” Morgan writes. “I can’t even stress that enough. It matters if a song is weak in theology and is not accurately displaying the Holiness of our God. It matters if churches are spreading a prosperity Gospel that is different from the Gospel found in Scripture.” - C.Leaders