For some of us who have been following with interest the “worship wars†of the past decades, there seems to be a tangible waning of the passions that fed the rhetoric. Arguably, the worship wars are over, all that is left is the occasional skirmish between the passionate of either camp. What remains today are distinctly delineated boundaries where the practicing faithful have settled into the comfortable landscapes of their preferred modes of worship.
Evidence of this may be found in two recent books on worship by Martin Thielen and Andy Langford, both from Abingdon Press. Of the two, Langford’s Transitions in Worship: Moving from Traditional to Contemporary (Abingdon Press, 1999) is the more substantive. Both authors come from liturgical worship traditions of the Methodist church and each relates his journey toward embracing more contemporary approaches to corporate worship. Indeed, each book presents a reconciled voice in the rhetoric of the worship wars. Thielen and Langford have come to terms with the transitional outcomes of the battle between liturgical vs. contemporary worship.
Thielen’s Ancient-Modern Worship: A Practical Guide to Blending Worship Styles (Abingdon Press, 2000) takes very much a “how to†approach to moving from a more traditional mode of worship to what is popularly described as “blended.†The author describes his journey through thinking about worship, from traditional to creative to contemporary, to historic, to a blended style that he calls “ancient-modern.†After a brief introduction to blended worship, the remainder of the chapters focus on how to blend the contemporary with the traditional in the basic movements of a worship service: the gathering, listening to the Word, responding to the call of God, celebrating the Table of God, and departing to serve. The book concludes with an example of the blended ancient-modern order of worship and two appendices. A creative book many will no doubt find helpful because of the specific resources it contains, it suffers from two glaring weakness. First is its lack of theological discussion as to what informs worship (thereby running the risk of creating a form of worship based solely on style and taste), and second, while a responsible treatment, the book reflects the personal experience and taste of one person without dialogue with a worshipping community. For the uncritical, the book can become merely a handy catalogue of interesting things to try on a Sunday morning.
Langford’s book provides a more critical approach to the matter under discussion. He provides an evenhanded treatment of the three patterns of contemporary worship: liturgical, praise & worship, and seeker services, pointing out their respective strengths and weaknesses. Chapters two and three provide a contextual treatment of worship. In chapter two Langford provides a historical interpretation of traditional to contemporary forms of worship. The chapter suffers from the limitation of its denominational focus on worship movements and reforms solely within the Methodist church. Chapter three attempts to place the issues of worship in the generational characteristics of the so-called Builders, Boomers, Busters, and Millennials populations. As with most attempts to attribute issues and movements to these constructs, the conclusions and implications for issues related to worship are speculative at best.
Chapter four comes close to providing as concise a treatment on the theology of worship as can be found. Though heavily Wesleyan, Langford’s treatment of a theology of worship offers the opportunity for a much-needed dialogue on how theology must inform worship. He provides theological “primary questions†that should inform every conversation about worship style and form. The remainder of the book offers practical guidelines and suggestions for going about moving from traditional to contemporary forms of worship.
For those who have given up the fight of retaining historical, traditional liturgical forms of worship and are looking to move toward more contemporary expressions of corporate worship, these two books offer practical ways to begin.
Ancient-Modern Worship: A Practical Guide to Blending Worship Styles, by Martin Thielen. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000. 139 pages. $15.00. ISBN 0-687-03103-6.
Transitions in Worship: Moving from Traditional to Contemporary, by Andy Langford. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999. 144 pages. $14.00. ISBN 0-687-08173-4.
