Worship—Old and New, Ancient and Future

“Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52).

People often ask me, “What will worship at Munger be like, traditional or contemporary?” The short answer is that we’re still working much of that out. But, the following are some guidelines we’ve set for ourselves as we move toward our October launch date.

Two Experiences
In February, I attended an Ash Wednesday service. When instructed to do so, I walked forward and approached the minister, who drew a black cross on my forehead with ash and said, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Repent, and believe the gospel.” As preparation for Easter, that whole sequence was a powerful reminder of my mortality and the eternal life that Jesus offers. There is no resurrection without a dying.

For Easter, I attended the Cornerstone Sunrise service. As the service began, Dave Wilson, the worship leader, greeted us with the ancient Easter greeting, “Christ is Risen!” To which we were instructed to reply, “He is risen indeed!” This call and response was a celebratory affirmation of Christ’s Easter victory over the forces of sin and death. That call and response never fails to move me.

What do we mean by “Traditional” and “Contemporary”?
The words the minister said to me during the imposition of ashes, and the greeting that Dave shouted to us in the dark on Easter morning, both came from the liturgy, or a traditional format for public worship that the church has used for centuries. They were not extemporaneous. Many of us dislike liturgical prayers and responses, because we grew up in churches where the liturgy was something dead, not something living. We heard people intone liturgical prayers and responses in numbingly boring voices and we never saw any of the life that a relationship with Jesus was supposed to be about. And so, we decided that any thing liturgical—any thing not extemporaneous in worship—was lifeless and should be avoided.

This dislike of formulaic worship is the reason why many of us were drawn to so-called “contemporary” worship. Just like liberal and conservative, however, “traditional” and “contemporary” have come to mean whatever we want them to mean and are not very useful words. But, for the purposes of this discussion, let’s define contemporary worship as being non-liturgical, i.e., attempting to be extemporaneous by explicitly not drawing from the resources of the liturgy when planning worship. Let’s define traditional worship as being more liturgical and the music of traditional worship being organ-based hymns. For many of us, contemporary worship seemed alive and life-giving, that is, the very qualities traditional worship lacked.

Something old and something new?
And yet, there are liturgical resources that can be life-giving, and I want to bring back some of those in worship at Munger. According to Jesus in Matthew 13:52, the Kingdom of Heaven has both the old and the new. I want to push worship at Munger to incorporate both the old and the new in worship. In fact, this sort of fusion of the old and the new, the ancient and the future, perfectly fits both our sanctuary and our neighborhood. We are renovating our sanctuary to highlight the best parts of the old (the stained glass, the dark wood) with the best parts of the new (21st century audio and video technology, not to mention air conditioning!), and this is exactly what folks do who buy old houses in East Dallas: they buy old houses because they like old houses, but they also like 21st century kitchens and bathrooms, and update accordingly. I want worship at Munger to incorporate the best parts of the old and the new.

Hymns and Choirs: Traditional or Contemporary?
I would like us to incorporate some of the great hymns of the faith into a contemporary praise and worship style. I see no reason, for example, why we couldn’t sing the great Charles Wesley hymn “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” with a rocking band instead of an organ. And why can’t hymns be sung to a thumping base line laid down by a bass guitarist? I think they can.

We tend to associate choirs with traditional worship. Why? Why can’t a choir sing with a praise band every week? I think a choir will really enrich the worship experience at Munger.

Is reverence an attitude or a style of dress?
In the Munger Place context in 21st century East Dallas, I believe that for our worship services to be hospitable for our neighbors, clothing for worship should be casual. That said, though, casual does not have to mean irreverent. Why can’t we deliberately cultivate a sense of the holy in our sanctuary and still do so in jeans and drinking coffee? I think we can.

Ancient and Future: Liturgical and Technological resources? Together?
I want us to use some of the ancient liturgical resources of the church and incorporate them into a worship service that also uses some of the newest trends in video. So, why can’t we have a Munger Ash Wednesday service that has the imposition of ashes accompanied by the traditional liturgical formula and a really moving video about repentance? I think we can.

Doing what nobody else is doing
We are not starting a new community of faith at Munger Place just to give the folks at Highland Park more options for worship. Rather, we are starting a new community of faith at Munger Place because we want to reach new people with the Good News of Jesus. And, to quote Craig Groeschel, if we want to reach people that no one else is reaching, we need to do what no one else is doing. Many churches in Dallas offer vibrant contemporary worship, but I think there is an opportunity for us to offer a new ancient/future form of contemporary worship that will help us reach people no one else is reaching.

Our Goal
Most importantly, though, we want Munger worship to be a place where people can meet the one Lord to which the scriptures bear witness, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All the other planning and tinkering we are doing needs to always be done with that larger goal in mind. May the Holy Spirit help us be faithful to that goal.