Authentic Worship

I love worship music. I listen to it in the car with my kids, while I’m running, and even while I mow the yard. Ninety percent of the songs I know how to play on guitar are worship songs.i I like listening to everything from Hillsong to Charles Wesley. I love connecting with God as I soak up the words that churches across the world use to magnify Jesus. 

However, my favorite experience of worship music is (perhaps unsurprisingly) during corporate worship. Something awakens in my soul when I hear my closest friends pouring out their hearts to Jesus in worship. I have been moved to tears listening to church grandmothers sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and my own children singing “Goodness of God.” There is something truly holy about corporate worship. 

To honor this holy thing, I want to offer a few thoughts about what folks my age (thirty-somethings at this point) need when it comes to corporate musical worship. I realize people from every generation have strong opinions on worship styles. I’m not interested in advocating for one style over another.ii My primary aim is to help churches create spaces for young people to experience authentic worship. 

First off, creating spaces for millennials and Gen-Z to experience authentic worship requires authentic worship leaders. I’ve written about this before, but younger generations have a sixth sense for identifying stuff that’s fake. We can tell when the worship leader spent more time on his hair that morning than in deep communion with God. We don’t want to open the deepest parts of ourselves to the Father as a part of someone else’s ego trip. It’s crucial the folks we see on stage have done the hard work of sacrificing the need to be seen so that others can see Christ. If we believe the leader is truly worshiping Christ, we will want to follow them into that space. 

Secondly, authentic worship is far more about quality than style. We would much rather sing a hymn with an exceptional worship leader than a contemporary anthem with poor musicianship. This might sound snobbish, and it probably is, but we’ve also grown up listening to Christian music produced in world-class studios by some of the most talented performers ever. We aren’t expecting the same thing on Sunday mornings, but we do chafe when the melodies are off, and the timing is shaky. I say all that to say, you don’t have to swap out your organ for a fog machine to make us happy; we just ask that you do whatever you do exceptionally well. 

Third, we love it when the songs we’re singing connect to the main theme of the service. This takes some coordination on the part of the minister and worship leader, but it can make a good service absolutely unforgettable. My wife and I visited a church with our friends a couple years ago, and the main text of the morning was Genesis 22 (the story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac). We all read a portion of this text together to start the service. During the sermon time, the minister challenged us to examine which pieces of our own lives God might be calling us to sacrifice to experience greater glory with Him. 

At the end of the service, the band performed an acoustic version of Shane and Shane’s “Though You Slay Me,” as we took communion together. I was crying so hard I almost couldn’t hold the bread and juice in my hands. God’s presence was so thick in the air you could have cut it with a knife. The minister and worship leader weren’t trying to be manipulative; they simply created a space for worship to flow and let God do the rest. 

Finally, I would encourage every congregation to experiment with a 5:1 ratio of your normal style (hymns or modern) mixed with the other style. If your church likes traditional hymns, try throwing in a modern worship hymn every few weeks.iii Even if you still play the modern songs on piano, you will immediately make younger generations feel seen and appreciated.iv By the same token, a full worship band playing an acoustic version of “How Great Thou Art” is both absolutely electrifying and helps people who prefer traditional worship feel supported. 

To summarize, young adults appreciate worship spaces that are genuine, led with excellence, flow together with the rest of the service, and make them feel seen. My prayer is that as we reshape some of our worship spaces to fit these needs, we will hear more voices joining ours in authentic worship.