Leadership Journal

(Editor's note: We invited J.D. Walt to respond to Brian McLaren's column, "It's All About Who, Jesus?" J.D. speaks as a pastor, composer, worship guide, and leader of emerging ministers at Asbury Seminary.)

I had the privilege of co-writing (with Chris Tomlin and others) a short chorus called "The Wonderful Cross." It's a small part attached to the big Isaac Watts hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." The words to the chorus are:

Oh, the wonderful Cross. Oh, the wonderful cross,
bids me come and die and find that I may truly live.
Oh, the wonderful cross, Oh, the wonderful cross,
all who gather here by grace draw near and bless your name.

From time to time we get e-mail about the song. One such e-mail came from Dan, who excoriated us for celebrating the cross and a gospel that would "bid us come and die," as Dietrich Bonhoeffer so aptly put it. Dan closes his letter with this:

"Don't get me wrong, when that song is being played, I do sing, but I change the lyrics around a little. Instead of what it says, I change the chorus to:

'You are Wonderful Christ,
You are Wonderful Christ,
You did come and die, Now I (when I sing that part, I kind of stretch the I out), I-I-I can truly live.'"

Dan's complaint captures the essence of Brian McLaren's assessment of much worship out there on the "contemporary" scene: stretching the "I" out.

Too often we don't construct worship "for God" but for individuated consumers who come for an experience of God. This is how we manage to endlessly fight over worship. For those coming to be fed, taste is a neverending battle. But this is the wrong conversation altogether. The real issue in worship isn't so much about songs and style but the larger issue of Story: the story of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The big question we wrestle with at the seminary is this one: What does worship "for God" look like? In defense of modern worship songwriters, many of the songs being written today squarely target the glory and grandeur of God. A cursory survey of the top 25 contemporary worship songs sung in the church today reveals more lyrics about God than the "hold me close electric blanket" theology Brian identifies. (Check http://www.ccli.com/WorshipResources/Top25.cfm)

I think Brian's best case comes with the assessment that much of our worship spends itself declaring what we're going to do, usually in the singular: I will worship, I will praise you, I will bow down, etc. Could it be yet another way of "stretching the I out?"

The big question I have for worship is, "Are we stretching the God out?" In other words, who is God and what is God up to in our worship services?

In our seminary community, we are working to design worship that comes "from the Story to the Trinity for the World." In this design, worship is the end and not an instrumental means to something else.

Look at the component parts:

Worship can't be about magnifying ...