Chelsen Vicari reports Sunday morning worship sets lack depth and reverence.

Admitting the problem is the first step towards recovery. So let’s admit it: if we swop the lyrics of a Taylor Swift ballad with some of today’s contemporary Christian worship songs, no one would know the difference.

Others have noted the “Jesus-is-your-boyfriend” style worship songs clogging the airwaves of contemporary Christian radio and Sunday morning worship sets lack depth and reverence to the Almighty. They’re right. But there’s an even bigger problem when contemporary Christian songs downplay, even scold Christian’s public witness for the sake of couch-potato Christianity.

Last week a fellow pro-life, pro-family activist turned on his local “family-friendly” contemporary Christian radio station while driving his kids to camp. As his kids were belting the words to a new hit, my friend was shocked by the lyrics.

The song was Family Force 5’s “Let It Be Love,” number #14 on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs list. Of course this means it is one of 20 songs that local contemporary Christian radio programs play over and over ad nauseam. The song’s lyrics go:

I’ve never seen a soul set free
 Through an argument
 I’ve never seen a hurt get healed
 In a protest…
 It’s not about the stand we take
 But the grace we give

For my friend, the first line “I’ve never seen a soul set free through an argument” couldn’t be further from reality with the conservative Christian movement. In addition remembering that the Apostle Peter urged Believers, “[A]lways being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)

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Commentary by Tom Krattenmaker: It’s not easy being a celebrity pastor these days with that pesky Internet around.

Consider the struggles of Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Faced with mounting accusations circulating online –plagiarism, misusing church funds to prop book sales, silencing anyone in his church with the temerity to question him — Driscoll has urged his followers to stay off the Web. “It’s all shenanigans anyway,” he explains.

Steven Furtick, a megachurch pastor in North Carolina, and Dave Ramsey, an evangelical finance guru, have been taking hits, too, as have the wheeler-dealers on the Preachers of L.A. reality show. This, against a backdrop of culture shifts creating strong headwinds against the leader-and-follower model typified by today’s Christian superstars.

What are a megapastor and his followers to do? Remembering the biblical admonitions against idolatry would be a good start.

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David Manner suggests using other elements in worship services.

The origin of the idiom “One Trick Pony” goes back to the days of the traveling circus. A trained pony or small horse was often used as a main circus attraction. Without any other acts or animals, these small circuses were often criticized as only offering a one-trick pony.

The idiom is now used to identify a person or organization that only does one thing. It often suggests an inflexibility or inability to learn or consider anything new.

Music has devolved into worship’s one trick pony. We have dressed it up, dressed it down, changed its direction and adjusted its speed. We’ve even tried a younger pony. But it’s still the same trick.

Music is an expression given to us so that we might offer it to God in worship. But it is not the expression. Maybe considering the additional worship options below could alleviate the pressure on music to serve as the primary driver of worship renewal and consequently diminish its solitary blame for worship conflict.

Scripture

We defend the Bible as foundational to our theology and practices and yet rarely read its text in our public services of worship. Doesn’t its limited use convey a lack of trust in the very Word necessary to the credibility of our faith?

Worship must begin with the Word. Scripture must be frequently and variously read and allowed to stand on its own. Biblical text must organically yield our sermons and songs rather than serving as fertilizer for our own contrived language.

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David Staal: fresh data shows a valuable trait ascribed to church volunteers: commitment.

Kids Hope USA, the national mentoring organization I work for that partners local churches with local schools to run mentoring programs, wanted to know more about volunteer mentors. So we put together a 2014 survey that gathered information representing over 7,000 mentor-student relationships. The results are worth trumpeting.

The study found that 91 percent of all relationships continue from one year to the next. To put that number into context, researchers at the 2014 National Mentoring Summit stated that “a third to a half of all relationships established through formal programs do not make it to their initial time commitment.” The data shared came from a large, secular national mentoring organization that asks volunteers for a one-year commitment.

Yes, 91 percent is extremely good, especially compared to 50 or even 67 percent.

Because Kids Hope USA works exclusively with congregations, the bragging rights for this data belong to local churches. What a fresh message, compared to all the efforts to prove people engaged in church are the same as—or worse than—the general population.

Emboldened by this data, I’m willing to take whatever criticism comes my way from saying: Church volunteers are more committed and, for that reason, better.

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