america’s worship wars: intro

April 27, 2007

In light of our recent series on worship, Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4], we are continuing the conversation by looking at Terry York’s America’s Worship Wars.

York’s book is more of a historical sketch, a background on why over the last 3 decades, we haven’t been getting along in the area of corporate worship. He says it is “a mixture of documented history, observation, and interpretation…one person’s intense, but limited commentary.”

The intent of this continued conversation is to educate ourselves on the ‘why’ of the worship wars. To this end, we will be looking at each chapter a week of York’s book for the next 13 weeks.

Here is a little background on York:

He is the Associate Professor of Christian Ministry and Church Music, serving in Baylor University’s School of Music and George W. Truett Theological Seminary. He joined the Baylor faculty in 1998 after serving three years as the Associate Pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, TX. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from California Baptist University and his Master of Church Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

He has been Minister of Music in churches in California and Arizona. From 1984-1995 he served at the Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay Christian Resources) in Nashville, TN. His duties at the Sunday School Board included being the Project Coordinator for The Baptist Hymnal, 1991. That hymnal contains five of his hymns including Worthy of Worship. Dr. York’s hymns also appear regularly in Christian Reflection, the journal of Baylor University’s Center for Christian Ethics.

As far as a vitae goes, York may seem a bit too traditional to weigh in on this topic. He isn’t.

His take on ‘why’ is spot on.

Stay tuned…

Posted in church, worship