The Value of Mediocrity for the Life of the Church

Years ago a musician friend told me the story (possibly apocryphal) of how R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe claimed that the Monkees had been more of an influence on his career path than the Beatles.


The Beatles, he said, were perfect: everything was right, no one could match them. It's a truism in rock writing that they are the greatest rock band of all time. That's great for a listener, but there's no inspiration in it for a young band; all you can do is sit back in awe, despairing of ever equaling them. The Monkees, on the other hand, were mostly a sloppy mess by the time they started playing on their own recordings. A fun, sloppy mess, but still a mess. Looking at the Beatles you were shamed into putting your instrument down for good. Listening to the Monkees would evoke in almost any aspiring musician the encouraging thought, "Hey, I could do that too..."

The very fact of the Monkees' mediocrity meant they could inspire people to join in the adventure, to buy a guitar, to pick up pen and paper and start to write. Apparently we owe the Monkees a debt of gratitude for the very existence of one of the 80s' best bands.

It has become common in the North American church, especially those that aspire to megachurch status, to envision the Sunday worship service as a blank canvas on which to display "the best of the best" in the church. Everything is styled, prepared, and presented with the shimmer of a Hollywood awards ceremony (but with more attention to time constraints). The music sounds just like the radio, the speakers come across like talk show hosts, the singers dress like models; you get the picture.

What this means is that "church" becomes great for the viewer/listener, but there is no inspiration to get in on the action, no feeling of having one's life pulled into a greater reality in which participation is not only possible but also desirable. If you don't have what it takes for the stage, you are not part of worship; you can only watch.

Now public participation in worship is not the only thing involved in being part of the body of Christ, but the sense of community worship (even and especially from those who would stay in the pew anyway) is viciously diminished by a perfectly orchestrated show approach to worship.

I have spent my life in churches where it has taken very little imagination to think, "Hey, I can do that..." That means for one thing that I have seen my fair share of hiccups during public worship. Maybe that's unfortunate. God deserves our best in worship, though I suspect "best" and "ready for prime time" may not be direct equivalents. But those occasionally shambolic moments also have meant that I have never felt excluded, never felt doomed to be a spectator to God's activity.

If it's true, as George Lindbeck has written, that the Bible is the text that is able to "absorb the entire universe," and if it's also true that our act of community worship is a weekly reminder or reenactment of the high drama of Scripture's story of God's saving activity, then shouldn't we be especially careful to guard against anyone ever feeling as if they stand outside that story? The Monkees may never have topped a critic's list of greatest bands or albums, but they made a generation of kids want to get in on the action. That must count for something.