Emerging Worship
Edward Fischer explores the phenomenon of emerging worship in this article written in “Worship” magazine in the late 1970’s. While the article may seem to be dated it offers intriguing insight into the roots of the phenomenon of emerging worship, a growing trend in Western evangelicalism in the last ten years. Fischer opens by remarking that predicting future trends is nearly impossible and at times even correctly understanding what is currently happening can be hard. Fischer then goes on to trace the roots of the emerging worship movement to Third World nations. Even our vocabulary today makes it easy to see that emerging worship originates from the emerging world.
The growth of emerging worship in the 1970’s also coincided with these nations simultaneous push for economic and political liberty. Thus rather than continuing to accept what was handed down to them by the West, the churches in these Third World countries struggled to find their own forms and expressions of worship. The exact form of worship in this emerging movement was, and is, hard to pinpoint. However, some general principles can be seen which explain the forces guiding these forms. Emerging worship values such things as spontaneity, diversity and a focus on the personal in worship. Even today in our North American context such principles can be seen in the emerging churches of California, Texas, Illinois and New York. The general idea seems to be that believers were anxious for forms of worship which are meaningful to them individually in their specific location and which are easier to understand than the cold rigidity more often found in both hierarchical and fundamental churches.
A number of other forces also helped this movement to grow. A growing nationalism which goes along with the forces mentioned previously. In addition their has been a growing emphasis on laypeople in the church. This leads to worship which is formed more by the interests and personality of the laypeople than by the traditions passed down from the priests. Another force which immediately precedes the emerging worship movement is the ecumenical movement. The ecumenical movement can trace its roots back to Vatican II. Since Vatican II opened the door for dialogue among all denominations it also allowed for churches to push for their own unique expressions of worship. Another force was the evolving basic Christian communities. These basic Christian communities pushed for worship forms which were stripped of the cultural trappings. Ironically however, these emerging worship communities are more open to forces from other religions. Thus while they may throw aside Western traditions of worship they take on the trappings which are imparted to it from other cultures and religions.
The emerging worship movement of today while not identical does bear some similarities to the ideas presented here. The challenge confronting us today is how to evaluate these new forms of worship and decide how we can best glorify and worship God in both spirit and truth.
