AC/DC's "Back in Black" To Start Worship?!?

Last Sunday I participated in a worship service t.hat ended up being quite an event.  The music mode at this particular service is driven by electric guitars, keyboard, percussion, and both male and female vocals.  We're in a message series on spiritual warfare, looking at the ways that theme surfaces in popular movies.  The focus movie for the day was the 2012 superhero film, "The Avengers."  Going out on a limb considerably, the musicians opened worship time with a hard driving instrumental version of AC/DC's "Back in Black."  (If you're not familiar with historic rock music, trust me - it isn't your daddy's worship prelude!). "Back in Black" is one of the music themes of "The Avengers."

The musician knew they could expect one of two reactions when they were done.  There would be the sound of crickets or the crowd would explode in cheers and applause.  They got the latter.  And from there on it was a service alive with spiritual power.  Many factors contributed to that, I'm sure.  Central among those factors is a Holy Spirit that moves with power.  The service was well planned with prayer and passion, as it always is.  The crowd as unusually large for a summer Sunday and I'm sure that contributed.   Many people were there for the first time.  The hospitality team went over and above to make the environment welcoming, as is their norm.  The musicians and vocalists brought their A-game, as they always do.  As the main speaker, I could have stood up and read names from the phone book and had very little effect on an event this spiritually powerful.

Yet I've been thinking all week about that first song.  What role did the hijacking of a secular rock number play in what happened on Sunday?   I wonder if it was just the right combination of disarming and different.  New people might have thought, "This isn't what I expected church would be like?"  Church veterans thought, "Wow, that's new!"  The playing field was kind of leveled where everyone felt the surprise and excitement together.   Unchurched people come from a world inundated by the same old same old, and a lot of it is negative.  Churched people get in ruts in worship, all styles of worship, and don't expect anything new or different.  Maybe the surprise of a hard-rockin' AC/DC tune sent just enough of a signal that maybe things could be new and different, maybe this is a God of surprises, and maybe there is hope out there.  I think the hunger for hope, real hope unites us all.  And I mean hope that goes way beyond the "American Dream," winning the lottery, getting to heaven and avoiding the other place, getting the next buzz, or whatever.  It's a hope that we really are loved by a real, life-changing God; that we have a place in something that matters eternally; that the worst life has to offer is not the final word.  Maybe that's what sparked in all of us when we were surprised by "Back in Black."

I think it's possible for worship services of all kinds to create expectancy; to cause people to ask each to ask each time, "What's God going to do this time?"  What do you think?  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.