In larger radio markets and throughout streaming Internet, the ability to listen to praise and worship radio 24/7 is a very intriguing and a very disturbing concept to say the least.
I thought and interpreted the Bible as describing praise and worship as a intimate, quiet, experience where one’s focus, heart, and soul is specifically directed at exalting Jesus Christ. Now, we have taken praise and worship and trivialized it to the point where it is just another musical taste that can be discovered when one presses the seek and scan button on the car stereo. What happened to that intimacy made blase, trivial, and redundant? It has numbed us to where we expect a 24/7 worship environment everywhere we go when Jesus clearly shows us in the New Testament that he did not spend all his time in ‘the eternal church service’ of singing worship music. Have we created and fed the 24/7 worship environment to where we have to stay in the “bubble shell” it created because we have now learned how not to cope with reality?
I do not know about you, but does hearing the same worship songs on the 24/7 praise radio take away from the intimacy, solitude, openess, and expression of worship when played by your church’s music team every weekend? Has the intimacy, solitude, openess, and expression of worship documented in the Bible been replaced with redundacy, overexposure, trivialization, numbness, and blase feelings? Has the eternal worship service known as 24/7 praise radio in reality cheapened the interaction between the worshipper and God?
I ask the questions because I really feel this way. I can not listen to praise and worship radio because I really feel as if I have cheapened the interaction, intimacy, and introspection I detect when I really cry out and worship in Spirit and in Truth. The eternal worship service concept has actually made worship another everyday occurance like having breakfast instead of a life-changing experience and an exaltation of “He” increasing and “me” decreasing. Where do we find the balance between the eternal worship service and no worship at all?
Just think of it as The Simple Life: Road Trip 3:::)
Interesting points. I think that the availability of 24/7 praise songs on the radio is a good thing. Will I be listening 24/7? Of course not, but it’s nice to know that if I am in the mood to listen to praise songs for whatever reason it is available. For example, there may be a time during the day that I would need to be uplifted and be reminded of God’s love and mercy. Of course I could just carry some CD’s with me but that’s besides the point.
I do agree the the repetiveness of songs can definitely be a drag and that normally happens when we worship to hear good songs instead of focusing on God. I think one way around that is to mix up and introduce new worship songs so people can continue to marvel at how great God is.
Interesting points, and I have to admit I’ve never thought about this before. (And I am a singer!)
I am guessing that you are differentiating between CCM and worship, and I do have to agree as far as the repetitiveness goes. I don’t mind an occasional worship song popping up. And I do like CCM, because it’s uplifting during the day. But then again, we don’t normally sing Steven Curtis Chapman songs during praise and worship, either. *g*
I’ll certainly think about this. Good post.
I am differentiating between Christian radio stations that play a CCM format and Christian radio stations that play exclusively a praise and worship (Hillsongs, Vineyard, Hosanna, Maranatha, Baptist Hymnal, etc.) format. I am specifically dealing with the ever growing number of radio stations that are devoted to the praise and worship format 24/7.