worship evangelism?
This week my friend David emailed me the link to an amazingly articulate, “spot-on” article by Sally Morgenthaler. Ms. Morgenthaler is the author of Worship Evangelism and a respected voice in worship/creative arts circles. With this article, she also proves to be something of a prophet.
For years Morgenthaler traveled the country as a speaker and consultant, sharing ways churches can reach the unbelieving world through accessible weekend worship experiences. In this article, and in her recent decision to disband her worship resource website Sacramentis, she recants that position. Her current thesis is that worship as evangelism appeals to churches who “are waiting for an excuse not to do the work of real outreach,” and that churches which truly do attract the unchurched are successful not because of worship style or song selection but because of an ongoing, unglamorous commitment to community service and relationship-building.
To support this position, she cites convicting statistics that show “for all the money, time, and effort we’ve spent on cultural relevance—and that includes culturally relevant worship—it seems we came through the last 15 years with a significant net loss in churchgoers, proliferation of megachurches and all.”
Morgenthaler supports some of my own opinions about worship services in the local church, but that’s not the main reason I appreciate her work (although if anyone wants to pay me her going rate to come speak to your group about worship trends, I’d be happy to prepare a powerpoint). What I love is her willingness to speak the hard truth even at the cost to her own career. “To witness through worship, the unchurched actually need to show up,” she writes. Since the late ’90s, this has stopped happening, and she concludes “[I] have become convinced that the primary meeting place with our unchurched friends is now outside the church building.”
Click here to read the entire article, and let me know what you think.
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Jennifer Taylor
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Absolutely, Awesome article! THANK YOU for pointing us to it!
Sally makes some very good points. To whit: “Worship must finally become, as Paul reminds us, more life than event.[Romans 12:1-2]“
“Can Worship be Saved? Saved from the definition that it’s just what goes on inside the tent? From the lie that ‘worship is a place you go, not what you do or who you are?’” “[Jesus] affirmed that the worship of God is central to what it means to be a disciple.”
Good stuff…as a Elder and a Lead Worshipper is puts to voice some of my “uneasy” feelings over the past few years…and gives me alot of solid ground to reflect on for the years to come!
Thanks so much for pointing me to the Sally Morgenthaler article. I was not aware of the “worship evangalism” movement as such. But I have had that uneasy feeling in various worship services that they were “over engineered”. It’s obvious to me that in my own congregation (I am a deacon, Gospel singer and worship leader)we were moving to putting on the “Sunday show” rather than expressing our joy and delight in being Christians.
Thanks also for the resources in your recent Christian Standard article.