QUESTION:

“Why have many worshippers stopped singing in church?”

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The question in that headline accompanied a provocative article about U.S. Protestant church trends that The Guy will turn to in a moment. The answer is important, and it’s quite obvious to observers of the long-running “worship wars” that are about far more than guitars and drums supplanting pipe organs and hymnals.

(For Catholicism’s parallel debate, check out the lively book “Why Catholics Can’t Sing” in the revised edition subtitled “With New Grand Conclusions and Good Advice”(!). Author Thomas Day, retired music department chair at Rhode Island’s Salve Regina University, laments destructive inroads of popular culture.)

The headline question accompanied this April piece on GetReligion.org by its editor Terry “tmatt” Mattingly: That might suggest slant from a boyhood Southern Baptist turned (guitar playing) Eastern Orthodox. However, Mattingly was not promoting his own liturgical preference, but reporting concerns raised by Kenny Lamm, the worship strategist for the Southern Baptists’ North Carolina state convention, who leads workshops nationwide.

Lamm recently posed these issues on his website in response to a pre-Easter e-mail from a frustrated man who’s been searching for a new church to join and visited one possibility four weeks in a row. Here’s what he experienced there.

Programmed lighting that blinds the “audience” (notably, not “congregation” or “worshippers”) in a pitch black room so you cannot see your fellow Christians. Haze machines. Unfamiliar songs “we can’t follow” with “unmemorable” melodies that leap uncomfortably, and with a vocal range running so high “the average singer” cannot reach the notes (a la the National Anthem!). Amplified instruments so loud they bury the sloppily dressed singers on stage and far moreso those out in the seats, and make the ears hurt (earplugs are kindly provided in the lobby).

Result: “We did not see one person singing — not one.”

New question in the worship wars: Why have many worshippers stopped singing in church?

Anyone who has visited a shopping mall understands the Big Idea behind a food court.

"If you want Mexican food, you go here. … If you want pizza, you go over there," said Kenny Lamm, the worship ministry strategist for the Southern Baptist state convention in North Carolina. "Then we sit together and eat whatever we want. …

“The question is whether a food-court approach works if you are seeking unity while leading worship in a church."

In the latest wrinkle in what researchers have long called the "worship wars," some church leaders are asking a blunt question about the decision to trade traditional hymnals for contemporary Christian music. That question: Has the typical Sunday service become a semi-professional concert instead of a communal worship experience for all believers?

As part of his work, Lamm hears from many pastors, musicians and church members. One recent letter -- which he posted while keeping the writer anonymous -- combined many hot-button issues in this debate.

After four weeks of visiting a church, the writer noted that he was constantly distracted during worship by "haze machines," "programmable lights that blind the audience," concert-level darkness in the auditorium, as well as musicians wearing "ball caps," skinny jeans, "Chuck Taylor" tennis shoes and other "stage" apparel.

Many of the new songs seemed to confuse the congregation.

"The melody is unmemorable. Very few in the audience seem to know the songs either; indeed as we looked around during one of the songs, we did not see one person singing -- not one," noted this visitor. "Some of the songs are so high I cannot sing them. I wish the leaders would consider the average singer! … Why does just about every praise and worship song go up an octave and double in volume halfway through, then die back down at the end?"