Fourth Opinion

Please forgive my sins of omission. I haven’t posted in ages.

Last weekend I managed to get 4 tickets on ebay to the Coldplay concert at GM Place here in Vancouver. I paid $215 for 4 tickers (for Ruth, myself and our two daughters) worth over $450… so I thought that was a pretty good deal. I bought them 1pm Saturday… 6 hours before the start of the concert!  Anyways… this is my second Coldplay concert and the second one I have come away from thinking about worship.

Here are some of the things that struck me this time….

In weddings and funerals that I have conducted there has been a trend away from congregational singing (unless it is a “church event”). It’s as if the ritual of singing together as a community in times of either celebration or sadness is fading into the past. However at the concert you had 20,000 people all singing in unison as one “congregation” – individuals not caring who was watching or hearing them sing… complete strangers standing together singing their hearts out with a sense of unity. Sounds kind of like a description of “church worship”. On one side of of us there were some late teen or early twenty-something party girls. On our other side there was a middle-age regular guy there on his own. There were people of all ages (well… mainly under 50) from all kinds of background. It used to be church and Sunday mornings that brought together diverse people. Now its bands like Coldplay.

One of the things that churches are continuing to struggle with at the moment is musical style (part of the so-called “worship wars”). Some church (mainly the bigger ones) have solved the “problem” simply by having separate services with separate styles. Other churches have gone for what they call “blended worship” which often ends up a kind of “middle of the road” non-descript style. (Okay… that might be a bit harsh). At the beginning of the concert, just before they came on, Coldplay set out their (worship) agenda. They played three songs over the PA system (which seemingly they have done at most other concerts on this tour). First… “Magnificent” by U2, then Jay Z’s “I Just Want to Love You (Give it to Me)” and finally, a classical piece, Waldteufal’s “Les Patineurs (The Skater’s Waltz)”. It was an agenda for truly “blended worship” – arena rock, new “urban” music, and classical… and taking the best from each. But yet the agenda was not “in your face”. It was subtle. And from other I spoke to I think I was one of the few who noticed. And it worked. Yes… there was the obvious arena arena rock style. But then part way through the concert they mixed it up with a machine-driven versions of “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” and the Kraftwerk-sampling “Talk”. And then on at least two occasions Chris Martin gave us some amazing classical piano solos. It seemed to me that this provided a model for church thinking about worship. Creatively using and valuing different styles of music – drawing a variety of people with a variety of musical tastes into a truly shared experienced. 

There were also some funnier things to observe…. Like church (at least in years past) people knew when to stand and sit. I so wanted to stand for Snow Patrol (one of the opening acts), but that would somehow have been irreverent. Standing was reserved for what was truly important – Coldplay. And then there was they hand raising! Sometimes I can get a bit frustrated when an over-zealous charismatic worshiper swings their raised hand in front of my face. Well it happened a few times are the concert. That woman in front of me was definitely over-zealous!

One final thought. There were probably more people who saw Coldplay on their two nights in Vancouver (approx. 40,000) then there were people in Church in Vancouver last Sunday.

Okay.. enough words. Here’s a video I took at the concert of the classic Yellow. The quality is not great… but it does provide us with happy memories.