Revitalizing Your Church, Part I

Or, "How to Manifest Substance Without Conforming to the Gospel, Part I:"


10 Steps to Generate Substance in Worship.


1. Make sure the focus of your songs is either the audience themselves, or is incredibly vague. This is actually a lot easier than it sounds. Plenty of "popular" Christian artists nowadays have already succumbed to this tendency and finding songs should not be a problem. Songs that prominently reference "I" or "me," or which call on God to send his "fire," "spirit," or really any other euphemism for euphoria are near-perfect. Also, any song that really is a pop love song but is used in this context to reference our relationship with Christ (thus providing the foundation for the mis-founded notion of a near-sexual relationship with Him) can be made to work very well, especially in transitioning to a sermon (if your church still uses that term) on the spiritual intimacy we should always be feeling with Christ, in which case, the more provocative, the better.


2. Quote singular verses that match the "mood" of your song selection and that are taken completely out of context. This is the best time in your entire service to use the old testament. As it's often dangerous to quote more than one or two old testament verses at a time, a great idea would be to take a verse which borders right up on some really sticky verses, but leave those out in favor of the one that promotes your notion of justice. Micah 6:8 is a great example: the verse itself is a substanceless church's dream, as it promotes all of the feel-good emotion that you want to instill in your congregation, just do not read 6:9! Fearing the Lord is a sticky subject and needs to be danced around lightly (if you feel the need to dance around it at all--you can brush it off as "one of those old testament concepts", after all).


3. Make sure the band and worship team drowns out the congregation. This is especially important if your church has a problem singing in key. Even if they're decently in tune, however, you want them to feel like the Holy Spirit is moving and empowering them, not that they are laying praises at the feet of God's throne. Having an overwhelming sea of sound rushing over your congregation helps to get their emotions into the service and makes them mistake the power of the band for the power of the Holy Spirit (which then encourages the congregation to get more emotionally involved, which allows you to turn the music up more, which gets them more involved again. It really is a wonderful process). It's the same concept that has been employed by various sports teams over the years: they've artificially added crowd noise to make the actual crowd feel as though they are more into it than they are, which only encourages them to get louder. And hey, if it works for something in popular culture, it most definitely works in the church.


4. Only sing modern, substance-less praise choruses, never hymns. Even older, thoughtful praise choruses should be avoided (this includes, but is not limited to anything by Rich Mullins. If you have trouble, you can pass him off as being "so 90s."). If you have any of those annoying older members of your congregation left who realize that you are taking all the meaning out of worship, you may be forced to do a hymn now and again. If this is the case, make sure that you never do one of three things: Never do hymns that mention judgment, the kingdom to come, Christ's literal sacrifice (if you can pass it off as a metaphor for the value of sacrifice, you're fine), or anything at all to do with suffering. Only do modern renditions of hymns that replace the original, annoyingly thoughtful melody with something that has a loud, driving bass part, a chorus that can be repeated ad nauseum, and can be played as loud as step three above dictates. And finally, the third option (and perhaps my favorite), take a line, or maybe a chorus from the hymn, and place it in some new, meaningless, overwhelming modern praise song. That way, you still get to keep out almost all substance, but you manage to trick people into thinking that you are building on theology before you.


5. Make sure to have a really powerful bass and bass drum part in all of your songs. Preferably one with a driving, straight beat that builds up to a soaring or overwhelming chorus. This goes along with Step 3 above, but is essentially vital if you are doing a hymn or slower song that sans bass and drums might cause people to actually realize the meaninglessness of the lyrics.


6. Sing every meaningless chorus at least 15 times, becoming more dramatic with every repeat. If you repeat something often enough, people will begin to believe it, right? Ignore any criticisms that you are substituting meaningless babble for real substance, you're doing the right thing: making your congregation feel spiritually fulfilled and self-actualized. Besides, the more you repeat something, the more important it is to God, right? You can reference things in the Bible like the repeating of the epithet "holy, holy, holy" as showing importance and connect it to your singing "I want more of you" for a half-hour if you feel backed into a corner.


7. Make your worship band essentially a pop-rock band. Use the same instrumentation and volume level. Yes, this will essentially turn your worship service into a rock-concert, but it will get people emotionally into it, right? It also does the important work of blending the difference between worshiping privately at home and worshiping with other believers in a sanctuary. This is really important: You want to drive out any inclination of a different between church and daily life, and especially the concept that there needs to be the idea of entering holy ground and fellowship. Remember, liturgy is evil, and any formality is old-fashioned and Luddite. As regards the band, you might even began to get them gigs at local venues. The more "legit" of a band they are, the more this ploy will work.


8. Write as much of your own music as possible. This will allow you keep any and all theology out of the songs your church sings. It will also create a gap between what songs your congregation knows and what anyone else knows, making your church a sort of exclusive club. And, if you write catchy-enough songs, your church-members will be addicted and it will be one more thing subliminally keeping them from ever leaving the church.


9. Encourage rampant and over-the-top forms of worship. Beyond simple hand-raising (though that's a good start if you're revitalizing a stodgy church), encourage your congregation to jump, dance, and perhaps even mosh. This will distract them from the music and trick them into thinking that they are really experiencing the Holy Spirit. If you're feeling bold, you might even consider giving you congregation meaningless props (such as flags or banners) that they can wave and dance with. Yes, it will look ridiculous and bring to mind thoughts of pagan ecstatics (Islamic dervishes come to mind), but if it distracts from God, then it is worth considering. If you are having trouble getting your congregation to "get into the music," imply that if you are really being spiritual (if your church is more charismatic you can say "filled with the spirit"), you will dance and raise hands and such. Then, when they don't do it, you can lament how spiritually dead the church feels, and when they do, you can praise them for being so spiritually in-tune. A little positive reinforcement never hurt anyone.


10. Encourage the notion that worship is really all about you. Never explicitly say this, you'd be hanged. Instead, quietly and implicitly spread this idea through song selection, comments in your discussions, operant conditioning, and steps one through nine above. This is perhaps the most important part about making people feel spiritually fulfilled. No one feels fulfilled from focusing all of their attention on God, at best they'll feel the weight of their own sinfulness, and that would just be awful. Instead, it is incredibly important to turn the focus of your entire service, but particularly the worship service away from any real notion of God and instead turn it back on the congregation themselves. Then, they will feel all the weight of that self-praise rising up and leave your church revitalized, and self-actualized with all of the self confidence and pleasure that God certainly demands to feel himself. Remember: the congregation's psychological wellbeing is the most important thing you can foster.