If you’ve ever found yourself cringing during a worship service, wondering why praise and worship music feels so shallow, lame, and terrible, you’re not alone. Young Christians across denominations are increasingly vocal about their frustration with contemporary Christian music. But while most critiques focus on the symptoms, they’re missing the underlying problem with revivalist approaches to the Christian faith.
The Common Complaints About Modern Praise and Worship Music
Let’s start with what everyone’s already saying about why contemporary Christian music is so bad:
Vain Repetition in Modern Worship Songs
“Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord…” If you’ve been to a contemporary service long enough, you know the drill. Songs repeat the same phrases 20, 30, even 40 times. It’s the musical equivalent of empty calories: filling time without nourishing the soul.
Cookie-Cutter Commercialism in Christian Music
Turn on any Christian worship music playlist and try to tell the songs apart. The same four chords, the same vocal runs, the same building-to-a-climax formula. Why is praise and worship music so bad at originality? Because it’s primarily designed to sell.
Theological Lite™: When Worship Songs Lack Depth
Modern worship music lyrics often read like fortune cookies with Jesus sprinkled on top. If it does not outright spew heresies, it reduces the faith to:
- Jesus as a cosmic boyfriend
- Emotional experiences with God
- Red hot revivals
- Personal spiritual highs
The Concert Complex
When did worship become a concert performance? Smoke machines, light shows, and worship leaders who seem more interested in their vocal gymnastics than leading people to the throne of God. The congregation becomes an audience, consumers of a religious product.
Why “Better Songs” Won’t Fix Bad Worship Music
Here’s where even the critics get it wrong. The typical response to why praise and worship music is so bad goes something like this:
“We just need better songs! More theologically rich lyrics! Let’s bring back the old hymns! If we could just find the right combination of worship music…”
Stop right there.
This is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The problem isn’t the songs. The problem is that your entire conception of worship is backwards.
It’s Not About Contemporary vs Traditional Music
You could slot in all the good old hymns and classic worship music you want into your praise and worship session, but if you’re still operating under the modern worship paradigm, you’re missing the point entirely.
The issue isn’t contemporary vs. traditional music, organs vs. guitars, or old songs vs. new songs.
The issue is that we’ve fundamentally misunderstood what worship is all about.
What is worship actually about?
Most Christians would respond: “Serving God of course!”. Whatever the answer is, everyone to a certain degree understands worship to be the sincere expression of the belief in the existence of God, and that man will commune with Him.
Many understand the nature of this communing with God as transactional: we give God our praise, He gives us blessings. We perform for Him, He responds to us. This turns worship into a spiritual vending machine where the quality of our “input” determines the divine “output.”
On the flip side, others see it primarily as rendering service to God. “It’s just simply the right thing to do to an all-powerful Creator!”. Similar to atheists who boast of simply doing good for its own sake without the expectation of any divine punishment or reward, some argue that worshipping God should be done for its own sake without expecting to receive anything in return. Others argue that it benefits us in the sense that it prevents the alternative: idolatry from happening.
But is worship primarily for God, or for us?
Who Acts First?
Consider this: throughout Scripture, who initiates?
- In salvation: Does God save us, or do we save ourselves?
- In forgiveness: Does God forgive us, or do we earn forgiveness?
- In grace: Does God give grace, or do we generate it?
The answer is obvious. God acts. So why do we approach worship as if we’re the ones who need to make something happen?
What if worship is primarily about God’s action toward us, and our response flows from that? What if the main question isn’t “How well did we worship?” but “How can we receive the gifts of God?”
The Pattern of Liturgical Worship
Our Christian forefathers wisely understood worship in a manner that most modern Christians have never encountered.
The word “liturgy” comes from the Greek leitourgia, meaning “public service.” In ancient Athens, wealthy citizens funded warships or theatrical productions for the city—without direct payment. Yet they weren’t fools. They understood a deeper economy: when the city prospered through their service, their businesses thrived. The compensation was real, just indirect.
When religious communities adopted this term, they recognized a profound parallel. Levitical priests received no land inheritance, and performed their service without compensation. Yet through this very service, God provided everything. The community supported them, they received portions of offerings, they held honoured positions.
This ancient pattern reveals the wisdom of liturgical worship: It’s not a transaction, but it IS a means of receiving.
We’ve Got It All Backwards
Here’s the earth-shattering truth: In liturgical worship, God serves you.
This changes the order and emphasis of worship. Liturgical worship is, simply put, using God’s own words to speak to Him; God gives us His Word, and we respond back.
In the liturgy:
- God calls you into His presence
- God reveals your sin and announces forgiveness
- God speaks through His Word
- God feeds you with Christ’s body and blood
This isn’t about musical preference. This is about the complete reversal of everything modern Christianity teaches about worship.
Both sacramental (God’s action toward us) and sacrificial (our response to God) elements belong in worship. But the sacramental comes first. God’s gift creates our response, not the other way around. And even in the responses during the liturgy, because we use God’s own words in our response, even when we think we are giving something to God, we receive from Him simply because we are hearing His own words as we speak!
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
-Romans 10:17
Why “Just Sing Better Songs” Won’t Work
Think about it: even if we brought back all the “good old hymns,” what would change if we were still approaching them with a performance mindset? The worship songs aren’t the problem. Our whole approach is the problem.
This is why you can visit a “traditional” service that uses old hymns but still feels as shallow as any contemporary service. They’re using traditional tools with modern assumptions. It’s like trying to use a hammer as a screwdriver. The tool isn’t broken, you’re just using it wrong.
When you have the right understanding of the entire point of Christian worship, whether contemporary worship music should be in the corporate worship of the church should not even be a question. Ridiculous and theatrical gestures that serve to distract rather than to edify inherently in contemporary worship music simply have no place in the public worship of the church.
Why Historical Connection Matters (And It’s Not Nostalgia)
When people say we need older songs, they’re sensing something true but diagnosing it wrong. It’s not that older worship music automatically equals better. It’s that the liturgy connects us to something beyond our temporal preferences.
When you participate in liturgical worship, you join a conversation that began in Jerusalem’s upper room:
- The Kyrie connects your struggles to blind beggars and believers throughout history
- The Sanctus from Isaiah’s vision reminds us heaven and earth meet in worship
- The Gloria joins your voice with angels announcing Christ’s birth
This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about participating in something bigger than your generation’s preferences. The liturgy is the received tradition of our Christian forefathers that has continued to prove itself faithful in its usage among Christians today
The Formation That Lasts
Perhaps the most powerful evidence comes from elderly believers with dementia who can no longer remember their children’s names but still recite the liturgy perfectly. And because the liturgy consists entirely of biblical words and themes, it provides them with the comfort of God’s Word when they need it the most.
Could they do that with “10,000 Reasons”? With “How Great Is Our God”? Even with “Amazing Grace”?
The liturgy forms us in ways that transcend musical style. It’s not about the songs: it’s about the entire pattern of worship that shapes souls at the deepest level.
The Path Forward: It’s Not About the Music
The solution isn’t to ban guitars or mandate organs. It’s not about contemporary worship music versus traditional worship music. The solution is to return to the liturgy—the ancient pattern that makes worship about God’s service to us rather than our performance for Him.
This means:
- Abandoning the concert model inherent in contemporary worship music
- Embracing the liturgical structure that has sustained the church
- Understanding worship as receiving, not performing
- Joining the voice of the church across time
The Hard Truth No One Wants to Hear
If you’re searching “why is praise and worship music so bad,” you’re asking the wrong question.
The right question is: “What if everything I’ve believed about worship is backwards?”
The answer isn’t better songs. The answer isn’t more reverent performance. The answer isn’t finding the perfect blend of old and new.
The answer is liturgy. Not because it’s old, but because it’s right. Not because it’s traditional, but because it’s true. Not because it has better songs, but because it puts God in His proper place as the giver and us in our proper place as receivers.
Pure Worship is where the Word is taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered
If you’re ready to stop rearranging deck chairs and experience genuine liturgical worship, we invite you to join us. The Church of the Augustana maintains the historic liturgical tradition—not because we’re stuck in the past, but because we’ve discovered that the public worship of the church is where the Word is taught and sacraments administered. We are committed to teaching the faith and observe all that Christ has commanded us.
Discover why returning to liturgy changes everything:
- Learn more about who we are and our beliefs
- If you live in Singapore or the Philippines, find a parish near you
- Live in Southeast Asia, and there’s no such church near you? Contact us!
In the Divine Service:
- God serves you (you don’t perform for Him)
- Ancient patterns create space for living encounter
- The community worships as one body across time
- Every element flows from the Word of God
You don’t need better songs. You need a complete reorientation in how you understand worship itself. Join us to discover why Christians who return to the liturgy never go back—not because they’ve found better music, but because they’ve found the truth about worship itself.
Find a service time and discover why the liturgy isn’t about preferring old songs—it’s about understanding what worship truly is.
