While scrolling through the news feed on Facebook early last week, I came across a link to the following article. I’ve spent the rest of the week processing it, and felt led to take a stab at a semi-intelligent response. Let me first start off by saying that before reading this article, that I was quite sure that the 90′s Worship wars had ended long ago. Apparently I was wrong. While I know that many loyal “fans” and “readers” of TGC and Kluck agree with this article, I have to say that I found it poorly written, disturbing, self-righteous, and it never really arrived at a point. Pretty disappointing article really, especially when you consider the status Kluck holds amongst Reformed evangelicals, as being one very articulate dude. Before reading any further in my response, please check out the article here.
I’ve been in church ministry my whole life. I studied the concept of Worship in seminary, and I have led worship for almost 10 years. I think that is why this article really elicited a response from me. With all due respect to Kluck and TGC, the aforementioned article was pure ignorance. Probably should have never been written, and definitely not promoted by a high-profile website like TGC. Let me begin my dissection.
First, let us look at the overall theme of the article. Judging by the title, it appears that the author was trying to prove that the church is full of Rock Star wannabees. These are people who have never made it in the music industry, or could be those who had some success. They eventually decided to gift the church with their artistic presence, and therefore the church is a place where “rock stars go to die”. You could infer then based on certain derogatory comments in the article, that Kluck doesn’t believe that most of these men(or women assuming Kluck would allow them to lead worship) have pure intentions in worship leading. The problem here is that the article never really goes anywhere. Kluck starts ranting about effeminate, skinny jean, H&M shopping male worship leaders, then he progresses to tearing down Aquire the Fire, Unhindered, and David Crowder. Essentially, the theme of the article, and perhaps an alternate title could have been the following: “I know true worship and you don’t because I’m more enlightened spiritually then you are, and so now I’m going to spend a few minutes criticizing, questioning people’s motives, and inserting witty jokes about men who lack testosterone”. Sorry if that seems harsh, but that is exactly how Kluck, his followers, and other well-known Reformed leaders think. I have encountered this time and again the past several years in the Reformed circle. More on this later in my response. My point right here is to show the errancy in theme and tone that Kluck used in his article. Whether he intended to come off as arrogant or not, it cannot be disputed that his tone in this article is built on the very foundation of arrogance. Now I have to admit that I struggle with spiritual arrogance just as much as the next guy, but I also don’t write silly articles whose entire purpose is to tear down fellow brothers in Christ. Something to think about Ted. The other reason this article cannot be taken as valid, is that it promotes itself as an article about the church and worship. Aside from a few put downs of men in skinny jeans, a reference to a reformed church service, and a reference to a worship song by Sovereign Grace Music- Ted spends the entire time referring to concerts. I’d like to be Captain Obvious for a second, and point out that concerts were never intended to be worship services. They are what they say they are. I will say that in recent years, some really great worship bands have blurred that line by putting on incredible worship experiences. I have literally been in tears, and fully engaged in worship at some of these events. So to make a generalization about those performers, and there motives is to tread dangerous ground. I’m sure that not all performers of Christian Music have pure motives, but neither do all followers of Jesus. And we’ve all met our fair share of Pastors who lack pure motives, and who “perform” every single week. That’s a taboo topic though, because Pastors are elevated to a whole different level with no accountability required:) Back on point, performing artists are a poor comparison to those leading Worship ministries in churches every week.
While the above paragraph focused on theme and tone, here are a few bullet points which outline some other observations:
- I think were all tired of uptight people talking about how Worship Leaders dress. The skinny jean joke was funny 5 or 6 years ago, now not so much. Also, its only weird to shop with a guy friend if you struggle with feelings of lust toward that person. I’ve never had that problem. It’s your heart that counts- not what you wear.
- I’ve never met David Crowder, but he writes phenomenal music, much of which serves churches each week as anthems of hope in God. While Crowder does perform at his concerts, I have also heard him leading worship at Passion events and have no doubts he is legit.
- In the article, a paragraph by Ronnie Martin talks about how Worship leaders end up existing in churches with artistic self-indulgence. Let me first say that I applaud artistic Worship Pastors, and believe that if you are not pursuing artistic creativity and excellence, that you are not living up to your God-given potential. I think its ridiculous to expect creative musicians to exist without creativity. I believe that every church should be reaching out to the artistic people in their culture, and not just in the area of music. So call it artistic self-indulgence, and I’ll call it living out your purpose. The church needs to be the forerunner of artistic excellence!
- The comment by Kluck about songs that remind him of running through poppy fields was just plain ignorant, and unfortunately its a misconception that many who come from Reformed circles embrace. Essentially, it’s their way of bashing artists like Tomlin, Redman, Hughes, Hall, Papa, Hillsong, Planetshakers, Jesus Culture, etc…. This is highly disturbing on many levels. While it is true that not everyone is going to enjoy modern worship music, that doesn’t mean one should spend their time gossiping and putting down worship music they don’t like. Jesus wouldn’t approve. On a side note, I do not enjoy Sovereign Grace, Sojourn, or hymns from 1950, but if that music is what draws someone to God then I’m all for it! If you don’t like Hillsong or Passion, don’t listen to it. Go find a church that you do like, but by all means stop the criticism! The argument that Reformed music is more theologically sound than other worship music is nothing more than human pride. Having 7 verses in a song doesn’t make it more Biblically sound than anything else that’s out there.
- I’ve never been to Acquire the Fire, so I will not comment on its effectiveness.
- I spoke earlier about the arrogance that goes on in Reformed thinking. I would like to say that I have been there. Several years ago, I spent months struggling with the doctrines of grace such as Election, Pre-destination, etc… I ended up firmly in the Calvinist camp based on what I believe the Bible says. I used to think that God had enlightened my thinking on this key doctrine, and I couldn’t understand my Pastor friends who didn’t see it. The last couple of years, I spent in self-reflection concerning this topic, and how it relates to church, worship, justice, and my walk with God. In the process, I realized that I had a large amount of spiritual pride running through my veins. Just because I grasp what I believe to be a deep scriptural doctrine, doesn’t mean that I am smarter or more enlightened than someone else. Unfortunately, many within Reformed circles share that flawed thinking. It’s definitely time for Pastors/theologians to do some personal reflection on this struggle over pride. You might say, “Yeah but I have 2 seminary degrees”. To that I say- so what? In todays time, plenty of people have seminary degrees or similar education. It doesn’t put us on a different playing field from other people. It doesn’t make our opinions greater than theirs. We all need to check our pride at the door!
- The last observation that I will make has to do with two foolish comments that were made by Kluck. The first was a continuation of the poppy fields comment, when he said the Reformed church’s songs didn’t make him feel like he was “solving Africa’s groundwater problems with bandana-wearing activist Jesus”. The other was in reference to Toms(shoes which help buy shoes for children), when Ted said “I’m learning that helping impoverished children is big in Christian music”. These comments exude much of what is wrong with Christianity today. Just to be clear Ted, if Jesus was still here, solving Africa’s groundwater problem(along with many other important causes) would be at the top of his to-do list. Oh, and helping impoverished children is pretty big in God’s kingdom, so I guess Christian music isn’t that far off base. Matthew 25 is also pretty clear about what happens to people who don’t care about “the least of these”. I hope you’re not one of the goats Mr. Kluck.
In closing, I would like to apologize if this blog made you angry. That will probably be the case with some. It’s always a difficult task to respond to someone via blog, as its easy to have your tone misinterpreted. I’m sure Ted Kluck and Ronnie Martin are both committed followers of Christ that mean well. I just think that accountability is necessary for everyone, and sometimes articles should just stay on the shelf. Followers of Jesus have reached a dangerous point in recent years, where leaders from organizations such as The Gospel Coalition are looked to as the definitive answer on theology/methodology. We need to be careful about taking everything we hear from our favorite authors as being “correct” or “the truth”. These people are men like you and I, and they make mistakes. There is also a need to remember that we are all in this together, and we need to be able to openly worship God in whatever context we are most free to do so. My prayer is that people can make the worship wars a thing of the past, and move forward in unity!
Over the past few years, the modern worship scene has been graced with some very gifted worship leaders from Bethel Church out in Redding, CA. Kim-Walker Smith and Chris Quilala have put out some amazing worship stuff under the umbrella of “Jesus Culture”. Jesus Culture has improved with each album they have produced, until this one. Much of this album seems extra repetitive, and the constant “hahas” from Walker-Smith grain on your every nerve after a while. I believe that repetition has its place in true and apostolic worship, but a worship pastor/leader must know their limits on a song. All in all however, there are several good tracks to take away from this album. Let’s take a deeper look.
Aaron Steenhoven
Ashley Steenhoven
