Warren quotes Psalm 100:2 (KJV): “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing.” And Psalm 150, which calls for praise with trumpet, harp, lyre, dancing, strings, pipe, and cymbals. Warren’s reading: these are not quiet texts.
His observation about many churches: they sound like funerals. Slow, minor-key, heavy anthems dominate. The emotional register communicates grief, gravity, and weight — which has its place, but cannot be the totality. A worship diet of only dirge-like music communicates something about God that is at odds with the Gospel of resurrection, adopted sonship, and ongoing relationship with a living Father.
John Bisagno’s sharper version: “Funeral dirge anthems and stiff-collared song leaders will kill a church faster than anything else in the world.”
The distinction Warren draws is not anti-reverence. Reverence, awe, and weight absolutely belong in worship. The question is proportion. When gravity is the only register — when slow, heavy, somber is equated with “serious worship” — the implicit message is that God is primarily a figure of weight and demand rather than a Father whose presence is joy.
For MNFC worship planning, this is a practical pulse-check: does the Sunday setlist include moments of genuine joy and celebration? Is there energy in the opening set? Or does the default register skew toward introspective and somber? Both are valid in their place — the concern is a constant diet of one at the expense of the other.
The theological frame: if Heavenly Parent is genuinely our parent and we are genuinely God’s children, celebration is the honest response to that reality.