The Situation:

In the wake of a mass generational exodus in the 1990s away from regular participation in the Christian church, leadership needed a way to retain the youth. As the older generation at the time clearly knew best about what all those young millennials enjoyed, a plan was developed.

Clearly, the best way to retain the youth was to cater to them, right? Maybe, if we draw in the kids with great music, we can pull a bait-and-switch on them and make them listen to a sermon afterwards!

Since then, we’ve seen an explosion of modern worship music, rapidly taking over Sunday worship services as well as the airwaves. While it quickly simplified itself for the sake of playability for the worship leader, some became classics that hold up to this day. As a worship leader myself, some of my favorite songs like Michael W. Smith’s “Prince of Peace”, Kari Jobe’s “Revelation Song” and even Hillsong’s “Sinking Deep” come from this era of worship music. However, even this revamped style of worship has not been enough to stem the cultural losses that the Western Christian Church has endured. There are a multitude of reasons for that, but there is one I want to pick out in particular: The Girlfriend Effect.

The Result:

The Girlfriend Effect is essentially this: Any part of a song where you can replace any reference to God with your girlfriend/boyfriend’s name and it does not change the meaning of the song in an important way. 

For example:

“How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan

(Original)

And oh, how He loves us, oh

Oh how He loves us

How He loves us all

(Revamped)

And oh, how Jill loves us, oh

Oh how she loves us

How Jill loves us all

And again:

(Original)

I’m not enough unless You come

Will You meet me here again

‘Cause all I want is all You are

Will You meet me here again

“Here Again” by Elevation Worship

(Revamped)

I’m not enough unless she comes

Will You meet me here again

‘Cause all I want is all Jill is

Will You meet me here again

At its best, these are lame analogies for how God works, and at it’s worst, these analogies miss out on the depth and breadth of the Christian experience. Each song not only loses its original meaning, but now fits in perfectly among other tunes on modern pop radio.

Clearly these two choruses taken out of their entire song aren’t emblematic of every worship song today, or even every worship song by these bands. (I for one am a huge fan of John Mark McMillan’s more recent releases.) I challenge you with this anyway. Next time you are worshipping, take an honest, unbiased moment where you think about the depth of the lyrics that you are singing. It’s a revealing experience to notice how often the theological depth is no deeper than the puddle you stepped in on the way into Church.

The Reaction:

What Christians didn’t (and in many cases haven’t) realized is that simply modernizing music doesn’t make it better or more relevant to helping us worship. Worship music is about praising God for who He is in a creative reflection of our experience here on Earth.

Another excellent reaction from the Christian community has been the new generation of Christian artists who wrote excellent songs that are also usable in the church context. Check out more straightforward worship groups like The Modern Post with their songs “God Is Good” and “Grace Alone.” Or the Seattle-based genreless group Citizens with their songs “You Brought Me Back To Life” and “Only Jesus Christ”. Other, less worship focused groups like Kings Kaleidoscope, Josh Garrels, NEEDTOBREATHE, and Jon Foreman have all released beautiful songs that could easily be played in a worship setting. 

All in all, there are clearly options for modern worship services today, and, as it is music, much of it is just going to be based on opinion. Whatever kind of worship you experience on Sunday, don’t let it get in front of the fact that you are worshipping your Creator and Savior. That is what we cannot lose.