LOVIN’ ON JESUS: A CONCISE HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP

Abstract

Is it a contradiction in terms to write a history of something that is still called contemporary? To call something contemporary suggests that it is of the current time, something so “now” that it has no past. Surely having a past is a prerequisite to have someone write a history. But the thing called contemporary worship does have a past, even if its name suggests otherwise. For one thing, contemporary worship has been around for half a century, even by that label, and some of its roots can be traced back even further. For another, over that time there have been significant developments in contemporary worship. Contemporary worship in 2017 is not what contemporary worship was in 1977 or 1997. (Feeling the inevitable pull of middle-age nostalgia, we sometimes jokingly tell our students that we want to find a worship leader who can do traditional contemporary worship.) And so, thinking that writing this history is no contradiction at all, we offer to you Lovin’ on Jesus. We hope to plow a new field with this book. Publications detailing the history of contemporary worship are few; most deal just with the musical aspects of contemporary worship. But telling the history of its music does not tell the full story. Other prior attempts have been case studies. They go deep on a particular example but do not explore the development of a range of liturgical issues over time. And that is exactly what we hope to do: provide a concise history of multiple dimensions of contemporary worship.