Multi-Sensory Worship Practices

By Roger Oakland

Lighthousetrailsresearch.com
– December 13, 2008

See the rest of the newsletter:

Here

Stimulating images that provide spiritual experiences are an
essential element of

the emerging church. While many are bewildered as to why
their churches are darkening their sanctuaries and setting up

prayer stations with candles, incense, and icons, promoters
of the emerging church movement say they know exactly what they
are doing. Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Fellowship explains:

“Everything in the service
needs to preach–architecture, lighting, songs, prayers,
fellowship, the smell–it all preaches. All five senses
must be engaged to experience God.“1

Often, Christians who have been
attending church all their lives find the changes their pastors
are implementing disconcerting, as they see the trend away from
Bible teaching to multi-sensory stimulation.

Dan Kimball quotes an older gentleman who had expressed his
concerns about the implementation of an emerging style of
mystical worship:

“Dan, why did you use
incense? I am not sure I like walking over to those
prayer stations with all those props; can’t we just pray
from our seats? Why aren’t you just preaching just the
Bible? I wasn’t too comfortable when you had those times
of silence, and it’s a little too dark in there for me.”2

The comment by this gentleman in his
seventies is typical of the comments I hear from many as I
travel and speak at conferences around North America. But
comments like this not only come from the elderly; many younger
people are saying the same things. Both young and old are
becoming concerned as they see multi-sensory mystical worship
replace the preaching and teaching of the Word.

Nevertheless, Kimball and many others are convinced they are on
the right path based on their view that emerging generations
desire a multi-sensory worship experience. For example, in a
chapter of Kimball’s book titled “Creating a Sacred Space for
Vintage Worship” Kimball states:

“[A]esthetics is not an end
in itself. But in our culture, which is becoming more
multi-sensory and less respectful of God, we have a
responsibility to pay attention to the design of the
space where we assemble regularly. In the emerging
culture, darkness represents spirituality. We see this
in Buddhist temples, as well as Catholic and Orthodox
churches. Darkness communicates that something serious
is happening.”3

Kimball further states:

“How ironic that returning to
a raw and ancient form of worship is now seen as new and
even cutting edge. We are simply going back to a vintage
form of worship which has been around for as long as the
church has been in existence.”4

Of course, that is not really true.
There is no evidence in the Bible that the disciples or the
early church turned to a “raw” form of worship, especially one
that needed darkness to help them feel more spiritual. If the
early believers were in darkness, it would have been because
they were meeting in secret to avoid arrest. To insinuate they
were thinking about multi-sensory practices is an insult to
their courage and devotion to God. Nowhere in Scripture is there
even a hint of this. (from

Faith Undone, pp. 65-67)

Notes:

1. “The National Reevaluation Forum: The Story of the
Gathering,”(Youth Leader Networks – NEXT Special Edition, 1999,

click here),pp. 3-8, citing Mark Driscoll, “Themes of the
Emerging Church.”
2. Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church, p. 127.
3. Ibid., p. 136.
4. Ibid., p. 169.