Holy Trinity Brompton — Attraction in London

Is click-track fit for the purpose in corporate Church worship? Click-track, while being able to operate in perfect tempo and synchronize lights etc, it yet remains static, unbending and in-organic to expression unlike the Holy Spirit. It can also become an excuse to exclude any number of skilled and sincere musicians who desire to be involved in the process of Holy Spirit lead worship. Being replaced by a machine, can the Holy Spirit be pre-set through use of technology? Is it more important to keep in step with a machine or the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit cannot, should not and will not be pre-set. Technology can improve performance, but can it lead worship? The key word is performance. Is worship about, performance or the lead of the Holy Spirit? Surely only the Holy Spirit can enable people to lead worship. Worship is not a performance. It is giving thanks and praise to our Lord God by following the lead of the Holy Spirit. Can music be felt when using click-track? Technology can, however, be a useful tool with the right motivation. Say for instance, when used during practice sessions or learning a new song. However, surely songs need to be open spontaneity. For example, just because a song is rehearsed at 145bpm or 74bpm, doesn’t mean it will work best at that tempo when used with the congregation. Maybe during practice night, a song is rehearsed to start big with an electric guitar intro, but come Sunday, it seems right to start with just the acoustic guitar and vocals. What if, halfway through the song, the leader feels they should slow it down? What happens to the click-track then? Therefore, shouldn’t control of a song be left to the Holy Spirit?

Should we highly value the Holy Sprit’s spontaneity in worship? Those un-rehearsed moments when anything can and will happen. Spontaneous, cannot have a pre-set tempo. Therefore, while click-track may be appropriate for musicians focused on singing worldly songs, or for practice, has it any value in anticipating Holy Spirit spontaneous, moments of exuberant praise or intimate worship?

Does using click-track immediately tell us worship is focused more on the songs? Does it focus on the song and neglect anything that the Holy Spirit might potentially want to express during and between songs? Should songs always be played and sung how they are written, or should the Holy Spirit be ‘given licence’ to re-arrange them in meeting the needs of the moment?

Can technology become an ‘end in itself’, a way to ‘keep up’ with society, and exclude the Holy Spirit? Can worship become just a human expression? Is being ‘boxed-in’ probably the best way to describe worshiping to an electronic metronome? Ultimately, should worship be about expression through the Holy Spirit, or a machine's accuracy? Should we be against technological advances? Or should we evaluate our motivation for click-track? Is it fit for the purpose in Church...

Behind the scenes there are very concerning things going on which are not biblical and not Godly, and would honestly question whether some people in the staff are really passionate about Jesus for the world or just there to fit into a culture that settles in exclusionary cliques rather than welcoming all people as it should.

The Events Team featured mostly young people that grew up and have their friendship circles in this church. My wife worked for them, and coming from a different class background and race she was made to feel completely excluded and derided by the cliques within that team. If you didn't fit the middle class, white mould, you were talked down to, gossiped about, and excluded. Not only my wife but a few of the other members of staff that didn't fit this mould were made to feel this way. Gossip, giggling, derision just seemed commonplace as this seemed to be the first job for many of them and they didn't know how to act professionally or, indeed, like Christians. Additionally some staff members that were married to HTB worship leaders or other senior members could take time off whenever they wanted and that time was filled in by asking my wife to do extra hours. This was all in her first week. Sometimes they just didn't turn up and so extra hours had to be made up by other people. Indeed some staff members snorting at having to attend worship meetings just reflects the obligatory attitude people had over a passion for Christ in London.

Additionally you shouldn't even dare to look at sr. members of the church e.g. course leaders if you're on staff. Some aura of superiority is here that Jesus did not teach in the gospel. What right do these people have to look down upon even the humblest job roles? The church is a body, as the bible says, made of many parts.

This church has anointing - the Alpha Course and Marriage courses have impacted many people. Indeed I know many people who enjoy this church and find themselves here in their services. But something is rotten on the inside and needs sorting from the sr. members humbling themselves down to empowering and discipling the staff members to be passionate about the Gospel today rather than wasting their lives doing work somewhere just so they fit in.

I don't want to detract people from going to church full stop or knowing Jesus Christ. He is more important than ever. But I feel this review is important as I don't want the core of a church, particularly one so impactful as HTB, to be ungodly. So I would ask its leaders to reflect on their working culture and try to understand what would make it more like the Acts church which was full of generosity, inclusion, welcoming, and lacking...

Visited 9:30am service on 8 October 2017. What I liked: 1. no-nonsense sermon on using our current life to prepare for eternity; 2. glimpses of God’s presence in the final few minutes of the 90-minute service, via a Spirit-filled music leader who shifted the focus away from entertainment and onto God.

What I disliked: 1. Disrespect for God: service started with minister praying yet people still eating, drinking, talking, walking around, using their mobile phones, kids running up and down; 2. Tattoos prominently displayed on upper arms of male guitarist, 3. Disco lights, nitrogen smoke, rock-style music all in the name of worship, but seemed like just cheap nothingness promoting self-entertainment and self-generated enthusiasm, far removed from the goal of meeting with God. If you’re hungry for God you won’t find him in this mindset. Even the words in the songs (not hymns) came across as hollow and misused.

I wanted to walk out in disgust 10 mins after the start, but I was sitting in the middle of a row which made it a bit awkward. I’m glad I stayed, however, because the sermon was God-focused, and there was that short, very short, time right at the end where the presence of God did break through, resulting in true worship which made my visit worthwhile.

My 'rating' of 1 star out of 5 is not really a rating at all - just an indication of the proportion of the service that focused on God. Most churches would score 0 out...