Worship Wars Pt. 2

Worship Wars:

Part II

What is Traditional Worship Music? Is God glorified through it?

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Colossians 2:8

What is tradition? Is it a bad thing? I would argue that tradition is good in the perspective of allowing reflection upon the many whom have come before us, sacrificed for the beliefs we have today, and died so that we could have freedoms such as the word of God in our language. I would also argue that tradition in the perspective of music is good because it allow us to see times when God moved long before we were around. However I would caution that we should not look so intensely at God’s movements in history that we fail to see Him move among us today. Our tradition should never become our religion. We worship the God that was the cause of the tradition not the traditions themselves.

So what is traditional worship music? In my short five years that I have been working in churches I have come to a radical conclusion. Traditional music means something different to everyone. Traditional worship music to a person in a high church might mean singing an arrangement of a song from the order of the mass, in the reformed traditions it might be singing 17^th century music of Luther, and in a majority of Baptist churches it could be songs from the 1890-1950 revivalistic music era. I have also discovered that one’s definition of traditional is closely related with songs that the songs that one or one’s parents sang while they were growing up, or either associated with some type of spiritual or emotional mountain top that one had while they were in church. Using the previous definition I could say that traditional music to me, the music I grew up with, is everything from “Beulah Land” (1973) to “Heart of Worship” (1999). As we see the term traditional can be quit confusing since there is a variation in the definition.,

Does traditional worship music glorify God? Yes. Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2 to stand firm and hold onto the traditions that we are taught, Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5 to respect those who labor among us and are over us. Yes we should remember those who have come before us, the movement that God did in their lives, and the dear price that they paid for what we have today. Can traditional worship music not glorify God? Yes. If we allow the music itself to become more important the one it was written about, tradition can become a bad thing. We see this greatly in the catholic church. Many times the ones who go to the church service can recite the order of the mass, bud do not know the God that is to be worshiped. Paul says in Colossians 2 that we should see that no one takes us captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human traditions. We should never allow our tradition to become our religion. So why Traditional Worship Music? To reflect upon God’s movement in history.

“Is God Glorified in the continual battle of traditional vs. contemporary? No, Satan is. God desires unity in His church.”