Divinity School has been busy. Sorry it's been so long.
Give the next few minutes of your life to this clip.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJp98hoqy5I&w=640&h=385]
It is evidently a clip used in a sermon illustration at what appears to be First Baptist Church in Orlando, FL.
I've been to the church before. It's huge and their growing services are almost all in the contemporary style.
It seems to me that out of context this might appear to be a treatise against contemporary music, the performance-based nature of the art, and the sad reality that has come with the modern church.
I think this is what many people see when they see contemporary music. I think this is what many think of when they think of modern worship.
While I think the video makes some great points about the me-centered church and cultural bindings that have come with the modern church movement, I also worry about the danger it brings to those who criticize the modern church and contemporary music. Are some of the songs sung "hymns"? Sure. But, the giant stage, lights, microphones, and everything else that comes with it may add fuel to the raging fire around what seems to be a growing dislike for the modern worship movement.
It's an interesting introspective look at what modern music has done to our world, the dangers that lie within any type of musical worship literature, and it surely will serve as an accountability measure for the faith community.
Funny, too.
-B