At this time we are going to take a little pause from the Fight Club series. Today I will change things up a bit by inviting longtime friend Elliott Moon to share this space, and to offer a somewhat different perspective on some of the issues that I hit upon in my earlier posts on worship.
Elliott Moon is the musical director at Browns Bridge Community Church, a new campus of North Point that opened last fall in the Cumming area, about 45 miles north of downtown Atlanta. Today he is here to offer his thoughts on worship music and the worship culture of evangelical Protestant-dom as he sees it from his vantage point. So without further ado…please welcome Elliott Moon.
JD: Tell me about yourself. What led you to become involved in the world of worship music? What led you to the position where you are now?
EM: I am 32 years old, married with 2 little girls. I have been playing drums for 22 years, professionally for 14. I got involved in the world of worship music through my youth group at church. We had no idea what it meant to worship with the instruments that we had. There was no place for them in “big church” so we would set up our band in Sunday school, and play songs that we heard on the radio, but we just rewrote the lyrics to fit “church.” Not until I went off to school at Samford University, did I start to explore the idea of worship, what it meant, and how I could play a role in that. I started traveling with a worship leader that I met at school, and se spent most of our time leading at youth retreats and summer camps. After school I moved to Atlanta where I had accepted a job as Technical Director at a church. I did that for a year, then I decided it was now or never if I was ever going to try to make a living at doing music full time. So I started playing with different artists in town, and eventually was able to sustain my living that way. I landed with Steve Fee where I played for him for 7 years. It was during my traveling with him that I learned a ton about worship, and not only that, but I started to realize that I not only enjoyed playing music, and leading in worship, but my heart was to pastor. That’s when things started changing for me, and I how I ended up in my current role as Music Director at Browns Bridge Community Church.
JD: How have you heard from God over the course of your life? In the world of evangelical Protestant-dom, we place so much emphasis on “hearing the voice of God” and “being in the center of God’s will”. Have you ever had experiences along the way that could be described as God speaking to you, where you could say “God has called me to do worship music”, or “God has called me to go to this place/take this job”? Or has it been more a process of “This is who I am, this is what I am good at. I will keep doing this in whatever manner I have the opportunity to, and trust God to use it and direct me in whatever way He sees fit”?
EM: I’ve experienced both sides of that. I can think of times for sure that I really feel like I heard the voice of God, and it was concerning me taking the job in Atlanta, no doubt it was pretty clear. It has not been a calling for me to do anything that I am aware of. I’m really not sure what that means. I had a good friend tell me about a quote from someone, tells you how much of an academic I am. He said the will of God for your life is where your gifts and talents meet the needs of the people around you. That is where you need to focus your time and energy. That made a lot of sense to me, and it seems like that is how things have gone down for me.
JD: I think the defining shift for worship music in our era came with Maranatha and Integrity/Hosanna in the 1970s and 1980s. They gave us a lot of fresh new songs for worship (at the time, at any rate) and set into motion a process by which the church would be flooded with fresh new songs on an almost continuous basis for the next several decades. They also raised worship music to a much more preeminent place within the life of the church than it had ever had before–prior to that time worship music was nothing more than just singing a couple of hymns and then the sermon. But it also led to a sort of “worship-songs-of-the-month” culture marked by the attitude that “if your church/youth group/college ministry has even the remotest semblance of being with it, then you WILL do these songs.” I think this attitude has taken us down a road where we now place way too much emphasis on worship songs, and that emphasis has led to the downplaying of a whole lot of other things that are involved in worship.
Would you agree or disagree with this statement? Are there any other positives or negatives that you see in the present culture of worship music in the church? If so, what are they?
EM: I am definitely not a church worship historian, but I would imagine that you are correct about Maranatha and Hosanna/Intergrity. I believe there was a time when Music and the arts were held in much higher regard than they are even now, especially in the Renaissance period, when art, even architecture was at a place where the grander, the more worshipful. I definitely don’t think we are there, but I do understand where you are coming from with your observation about current worship trends. I almost feel like we could make the same comparison of how we eat, to how we worship in church. It’s about being balanced. Too much of one thing could be unhealthy, and a hard swing to the other side is almost like yoyo dieting. Everything in moderation. Could that be the mantra of a worship service as well? I am not sure what things you feel like have been downplayed in the worship service, I would love to hear more about that. But, I do feel we need to be healthy as the Body of Christ. We don’t need to be worshipping worship, or elevating that any higher than any of the sacraments in the service, or the preaching of the word.
I have made an interesting observation about younger musicians. It seems like everyone that I meet wants 2 things. They want to be an itinerant worship leader, and not a worship pastor at a church, and they want to write songs that the world can sing. A worship pastor friend of mine and I were talking about this and he pointed me to an article in a magazine by Brian Doerksen, a well known Vineyard worship leader. Brian said that everyone wants to write songs that the world can sing, whatever happened to writing a song that is just between you and the Lord. The most beautiful song that you could write, that no one ever hears. Interesting, just observations.
JD: As a musician who backs up worship leaders, what is your feeling on the call of God in the lives of those who worship? Specifically, do you feel that there are certain individuals who are called by God to lead His people in worship? If so, what are the qualifications for such a call on a person’s life? Are these qualifications based solely on one’s spiritual life, solely on one’s musical ability, or is it some combination of the two?
EM: Well, again with the called thing, I am not sure how that works. I don’t know many people who were called to be a mechanic, or flight attendant, or carpenter. If I could create art and sculpt things out of wood, of craft furniture better than most people I know, I don’t know that I would feel called to do it, but I would know that it would probably be the right thing for me to do. If I had the ability to play an instrument well, sing capably, and had the charisma to have a group of people trust me enough to lead them in worship, then that is what I should probably do. If we are believers, all those things are the same. So to somewhat answer your question, I believe there are people that God has perfectly created to lead others in worship of him. Let me not be misunderstood here, if this person is not intimately involved with the Lord, then they are not qualified to lead. Music ability and personality can carry you pretty far, just look around, but God is jealous for his name, and the bride of Christ deserves someone who has devoted his or her heart to knowing Gods heart.
JD: I believe that when we enter the presence of God to worship Him, we are all on an equal footing. There is such a profound disconnect between what we are and what God is, that for us to even be able to enter the presence of God is an immense privilege. In light of this, there is no place in the presence of God for any distinctions that we might try to erect between worship leaders and ordinary worshipers. And yet, everything in the culture of evangelical Protestant-dom seems to speak against this. We have worship leaders whom the culture sets up as superstars. These are viewed as anointed by God to write and/or sing songs for the whole church, presumably because of their superior spirituality or their superior ability to stay in touch with the heart of God.
Still, it seems as if the function of worship leader is necessary in order to facilitate our time of community worship and shepherd us through the process of drawing into the presence of God. Or is it? Is it possible to strike a balance between having worship leaders to fulfill the purpose of guiding our time of worship and not having the culture of superstardom that evangelical Protestant-dom wants to set up around certain worship leaders? If so, what do you think such a balance would look like?
EM: Well, I think you might be speaking to extremes. I too believe that we are all on equal footing. I also believe that God is a God of order. That’s how he does things. I do believe there is a place for a “Lead” worshipper—someone for the Body to follow, just like there is a place for Lead Pastor of a church. It’s Biblical. With that being said, I do also believe that because the church is full of humans, that gets messed up as well. I disagree that “everything in the culture of evangelical Protestant-dom” supports raising lead worshippers, or pastors above the rest of the church. For sure though it does happen, but I would dare say it to be not the majority. Worship leaders are usually gifted musicians, and if you cross pollinate that with someone who might dress hip, then does that make them a superstar? I don’t know. I do think that it is possible to strike a balance with worship leaders who are talented musicians, who create good art, and someone who leads through serving.
JD: In the New Testament there is very little that speaks to music as a part of the regular gathering of the church. When music is mentioned, it is mentioned primarily in the context of relationship to others and to God (for example, Ephesians 5:19-20 “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”). In your opinion, what does this mean for the role of music in the worship gathering? Do you think that perhaps we as the church ought to rethink the way we do music in our worship gatherings?
EM: Based on that verse, I am not sure that I see a great problem with worship services that I am familiar with. I heard Louie Giglio explain it this way quite a few years ago. Vertical and horizontal worship. Two types of worship focus in a service. Vertical is songs that speak from the individual to God. Worship, adoration, thanks to Him. Horizontal is songs from the individual to another individual. Songs of a thankful community. Testimony songs.
JD: One adverse effect of our culture of worship leader superstardom is that it sets up the worship leader as the ideal of what to be as a worshiper. If a person has musical gifts, the most highly esteemed expression of those gifts is in the role of worship leader. Thus it is easily possible in the present evangelical culture for someone to do karaoke at a beach retreat and think he has it in him to be the next Chris Tomlin, and then be disappointed when those aspirations do not work out.
Can you speak to this? Do you believe that the role of worship leader is the highest possible expression of musical gifts for a believer who is seeking to do God’s will? Or are there other possible outlets for musical expression that ought to be esteemed more highly than they are in the present evangelical culture?
EM: Interesting question. I spoke to this in part a little earlier in the interview. I agree that in the current worship “movement’ for lack of a better phrase, most young people who can play music want to lead worship. That’s great, but who is going to be the next Sting, or Sarah McLachan, or Chris Martin if everyone thinks they can only lead worship? We as a church don’t need a million people in the tribe of Levites! We need people to represent the risen Christ with GOOD ART that the world can see and hear!
JD: In the last decade there has been a tremendous shift in the style of worship music that is now favored in evangelical Protestant-dom: from a big sound relying on lots of choirs and orchestras to a stripped-down rock sound requiring no more than a handful of singers and accompanying musicians. What are your thoughts on this? How has this impacted you in your role as director of music at Browns Bridge?
EM: Well first and formost, I am really thankful for the shift in musicality. I still get interesting looks when I tell people that I am a Music Director at a Church and my principal instrument is drums!!
Style: style n
1. a distinctive and identifiable form in an artistic medium such as music, architecture, or literature
2. a way of doing something, especially a way regarded as expressing a particular attitude or typifying a particular period (often used in combination)
Not everyone enjoys the same style of music. Not everyone enjoys the same haircut. Why? Because they are ways of expressing yourself. Same goes for Worship music—that’s what it is there for. To express yourself to God. Not everyone has to agree on the same sound. And this new sound we have at our church, will not be new at some point, and it may not be the same kind of expression musically in 15 years from now.
JD: Thank you very much for stopping by. It’s been a pleasure having you here with us today, and you’re always welcome to stop by anytime you wish.
