The Remystification of Worship
The response I received to my October comments in "The Demystification of Worship" left me breathless. The article must have hit a nerve, because many of you responded with, "I've been thinking about that."
In some of my writings (especially The Younger Evangelicals, Baker 2002), I've mentioned that a backlash against the last 30 years of church leadership is taking place among twenty-somethings. How widespread it is is hard to determine.
Maybe I converse with the wrong people, but the people I talk to seem to think something is amiss in the current evangelical scene.
Just today a trusted friend and Christian leader said, "Everything we've been told to do over the last 30 years is now in question. We've listened to the builders of the mega churches, read their books, gone to their conferences, followed their church growth principles, but something seems to be missing. Leadership is turning away from the slick, marketed church with its culturalized message toward basics once again."
Sociologists William Strauss and Neil Howe's research seems to suggest this turning is a widespread phenomenon that will be led by the millennial generation (born since 1982) (see The Fourth Turning and Millennials Rising).
They argue that historical rhythms occur in patterns: crisis, stability, revolution, unraveling, and back to crisis. Apply these cycles as follows:
Crisis: World War II (Builders)
Stability: 1946-1962 (Post WWII)
Revolution: 1963-1980 (Boomers)
Unraveling: 1981-2000 (Generation X)
Crisis: 2000 (The Millennialists)
I don't have the space to expand this pattern. But one can see that the church growth, contemporary worship phenomenon dominates the period in which society underwent Revolution and Unraveling.
The thesis is that the children born during the Unraveling (The Millennials, 1982-present) will face the next crisis period with a more conservative leadership, a leadership that goes back to the values of the generation of the previous crisis.
In the present case, the new leadership will have more in common with their grandparents (Builders) than with their parents (Boomers and Generation X).
I see this backlash among many twenty-somethings, the youngest of Generation X and oldest of the Millennials. What I see is a strong desire to go back in order to go forward.
Many of these people know little about the ancient church, but when exposed to its worship and ministry they feel an immediate connection—thus, ancient-future.
So what does this mean for worship?
I think it means the re-mystification of worship. It won't look exactly like ancient church worship, and it shouldn't. It will be a translation of the ancient into the postmodern world.
What do you think? Write me at rwebber@northern.seminary.edu.
Bob Webber
Myers Professor of Ministry
Director of M.A. in Worship and Spirituality
Northern Seminary—www.seminary.edu
(See Northern's M.A. in Worship and Spirituality and D.Min. in Worship by clicking on the website.)
