WAR and Sympsi....ummmm

This is me finding my way back onto the map once again after (yet another) hiatus. I get in these funks sometimes where blogging isn't a priority. Some of you know what I'm talking about - the rest of you probably stopped reading my blog months ago.

I wanted to reflect a little on the last two weekends for myself and others who attended both the Worship Arts Retreat in Greenville and the Calvin Worship Symposium at Calvin College. First, WAR. Our first attempt at a modern worship conference in mid-Michigan can't be viewed as anything but a success. When you take into account the fact that we spanned six denominations and had churches from up to three hours away for our first go-round, it makes me grin from ear to ear. However, I think it was the content that set this WAR apart. The temptation, of course, was to put on something that was low-quality the first time around so as to not set next year's expectations too high and give the people what they paid for (entry fee was $0). However, our speakers were fantastic, our sectional leaders were of great quality and the amount of pure information that was distributed over the course of 8 hours was absolutely phenomenal. For me, that's the trick - the information is all out there, but the true test is how quickly and how efficiently you can get that information into the hands of those who desire it most.

In contrast, this past weekend, I attended the Calvin Worship Symposium at Calvin College, mostly because it was free to me as a last-year seminarian. I'll move right past preferences here to feelings: Symposium disappointed me. It was not for a lack of information, nor for a lack of qualified individuals teaching, nor for a lack of resources. What disappointed me was Symposium's lack of validity for the future Church. As a guitarist, as a modern worship guy, as someone who had just put on a meager attempt at a conference the weekend before, I was saddened that the Symposium has not only trended towards traditionalism in worship (or what I like to call Reformed neo-traditionalism) - it has sold out wholesale to organists, choirs traditional worship.

I am not here to say that I think there's anything wrong with traditional worship. In many ways I prefer it and envy those who put together traditional services - there's less things that can go wrong, less musicians needed, less monitoring of cultural trends that must be done. But it is pure folly to think that Symposium is resourcing the Church of the future. Rather, it is accommodating the Church of the past and roughly a third of the Church of the present (at least in the US). What blew me away were the amount of Reformed people that told me outright that they would rather attend my fledgling Worship Arts Retreat at a wholly Wesleyan church than attend the Symposium at Calvin's campus. Its true for young pastors, as well. One of my old professors commented that he was shocked to see me at Symposium.....not because I work in a Wesleyan church, but because I was under the age of 40.

There is nothing wrong with leading a conference on traditional or neo-traditional worship. Go ahead. But isn't a travesty that the premier worship institute in the Reformed world can't offer a handful of sectionals and worship services to teach Reformed churches how to do modern worship well - especially when so many are foaming at the mouth for it? I have no solid research, but common sense would seem to support the following logic: CICW (Calvin Institute for Christian Worship), think about all the churches in the CRC (its home denomination) that are growing. Now, what percentage of churches are running a modern worship style and what percentage of those churches are running a traditional or neo-traditional (world music) style? I would dare bet the vast majority on the cutting edge of growth are also on the cutting edge of worship. If that's the case, why are we throwing 70% of our energy into supporting the dying ones to keep them doing what they're doing?

Its not as if the CICW doesn't have modern worship practitioners at its disposal. Greg Scheer, Paul Ryan, Ron Reinstra and other in-house options could at least run a second track - a modern track - for Symposium. It causes me to reflect on the Hymn Society of America: when you base an organization or a conference on a dying art, you will eventually end up dead. Yes, they may be the ones who support you financially now, but down what path are you leading them - innovation or perpetuation?

I'm not asking for a complete overhaul of the Worship Symposium, but for pete's sake - can't we acknowledge the large percentage of Reformed churches already doing modern worship and, even more so, those who deeply long to but are hopelessly lost?