Kingdom Bound is a Christian music festival held at Darien Lake in New York State each summer. We received the promotional literature about it last Friday, and as I looked through the brochure was struck by how many of the featured performers were actually ‘worship leaders’ (E.g. Chris Tomlin, Lincoln Brewster, etc.). It was striking because only fifteen years ago, the headliners at the festival were full-on, entertainment oriented rock bands. I don’t mean that in any pejorative sense, just that while previous entertainers may have had a ministry and felt a distinctive call, they did not feel that call was to lead musical worship in the way the term is currently understood (E.g. Petra, Whiteheart, Degarmo & Key).
It made me wonder again about the blurring of the distinction between worship and entertainment. When we exalt song leaders as celebrities, or groove along to “Holy is the Lord” in the same way that others have grooved to “Say It Right”, are we not in some way trivializing our worship of God? When we make “Amazing Grace” just another campfire sing-a-long, do we lessen the majesty of it, just as we might lessen the sobriety of the Lord’s Table if we used the cup to drink freshie, or reduce the impact of the Word if we were to put tidbits of it on bumper stickers and T-shirts? How to we reconcile worshiping the Almighty God with reverence and awe with the jokesy, folksy attitude prevalent in so many of our churches?
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