Formation by Worship

Church services across the world, as well as across history, take different forms. Some are flowered with large doses of shouting and dancing, while others are characterized more by a solemn atmosphere and are intentionally contemplative. At the same time, some of the most formative parts of church services are what those in the audience are invited to say out loud.

Some traditions have utilized a call-and-response format to have everyone participate in liturgies. Many Protestant churches (mine included) follow a format with particular speakers one-at-a-time, while the attenders will speak primarily when they are singing songs of worship. If this is the case, the words we sing are critical, as they are to be the declarations of the values and pursuits of the community.

While I cannot attest to being a worship leader, I believe that the messages of the songs worship leaders select are possibly more formative for members of a church than the message that is verbally spoken. People in this culture of illiteracy tend to remember the arts much easier than they remember a spoken or written word. Singing involves more senses for the lazy who opt not to study or memorize, and thus, it is more likely to form a person’s pattern of thinking much faster.

Need proof? We speak often of the phenomenon of a song getting “stuck in our heads,” or “ear worms” as researches call them. This isn’t just an odd thing – researchers at Dartmouth University have published incredible findings about this. Songs are trigger a part of the brian called the “auditory cortex.” Dartmouth learned:

When they played part of a familiar song to research subjects, the participants’ auditory cortex automatically filled in the rest — in other words, their brains kept “singing” long after the song had ended.

Certain songs get stuck in people’s heads for different reasons, though the primary reason, according to many researchers, is that the song contains thoughts that our brain is trying to suppress, but is unable to shut down. The melodies, rhythms, and meanings continue to play like a skipping record.

For the worship leader, the ability to have the themes of the Kingdom of God etched in the brains of worshippers can be incredibly formative. Couple this with something even more incredible: Those in the service aren’t just hearing the songs – they are also (presumably) singing them, as well. The use of multiple senses at once is a slam dunk way to cause a person to remember something more and to be formed by it much faster.

It is for these reasons that worship leaders must choose their themes very carefully (as, thankfully, ours do). Music (and perhaps video) has replaced literature as the dominant way our culture is formed. We must harness this fact in order to present an alternative culture for Christians to engage to reform God’s good world into what He had in mind from its foundation.