In the end, who cares how productive that device makes you if you aren’t productive in what matters most to God. How will we love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves with our faces constantly pressed against a screen? Sure, the latest technology makes our lives easier, but is it also making them more meaningless? And if it is, where do we start drawing the line?

Every device you buy makes a promise, “I’ll make your life easier.”
You see a new phone, a new appliance, or a new app you’d like to try, and immediately you start thinking, “this will make my life so much better!”
And often the promise turns out to be true.
We purchase that new gadget or piece of software and it does make us marginally more productive, entertained, or efficient. Life is a little bit easier. But while we’re so enamored by the ways the technology makes life easier, we scarcely hear the second part of the contract.
Technology will make your life a little easier, but it will also make it a little more meaningless.
The Future is Here and it’s Disappointing
We are living in the future. At the press of a button, you can have any item you desire shipped to your home, any information you like poured directly into your brain. We have an abundance—endless entertainment options, unlimited methods to automate away tedium, and infinite access to every comfort imaginable. All thanks to our devices.
But our devices also take their pound of flesh. Do you ever look around at our world and wonder, “How can a people who have everything be so miserable?”
It’s the conundrum of our age: We have everything we thought we wanted, but somehow we’re still not happy. We have infinite content, so why aren’t we infinitely content?
Now, we could say the very obvious thing. They need, Jesus. And, yes, they do need Jesus.
But don’t you feel it too?
I know I do. And I have Jesus. But something still seems off. It’s like I’m desperately trying to get something from my devices; to scratch some mysterious itch. But the more I search, the more it eludes me.
The Life We’re Looking For
In his book, The Life We’re Looking For, Andy Crouch notes some of the unique features of the times we live in:

“The defining mental activity of our time is scrolling”
“The defining illness of our time is metabolic syndrome”
“The defining emotional challenge of our time is anxiety”

Crouch concludes, “So it is no wonder that the defining condition of our time is a sense of loneliness and alienation. For if human flourishing requires us to love with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, what happens when nothing in our lives develops those capacities? With what, exactly, will we love?” (59).
It seems we’ve struck a deal with our devices that so much resembles the bargains with the tricksters from the old stories. A genie appears to grant your wish. But once you have what your flesh desired you find you’ve lost something of yourself in the exchange. We wished for peace and quiet, and what we got was loneliness.
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Let us never go beyond what is written, but with child-like faith, take God at His Word. When God tells us he is displeased, pleased, angry, reconciled, and so on, He is speaking truth. We also have feelings because we are made in God’s image, and are thus able to understand what He is communicating to us. That is sufficient.

The Holy Bible often speaks of God’s emotions (feelings),[1] usually in response[2] to some human behavior. However, some theologians have claimed that since God cannot change, He does not have “real” emotions. For example, supposedly our sin cannot make Him “really” angry because that would be change in God. “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6 ESV). Instead, they say that Scriptural language referring to God’s emotional responses to events on earth is anthropomorphic, meaning human-shaped. Others, such as Charles Hodge in his Systematic Theology disagree.[3] This monograph does not present new theology, but a helpful mental perspective on the question. For example, XXVII ÷ IX = III is the same truth as 27 ÷ 9 = 3, but one is easier and clearer than the other. With the right perspective, we can take God at His word without resorting to explaining away parts of Scripture.
We encounter anthropomorphism all the time. Mickey Mouse is an anthropomorphic mouse. When a product claims to make your automobile “happy,” that is anthropomorphism. But now consider the compound eye of the fly. If we were to insist on defining eye on the basis of the structure of the human eye, then we would be using anthropomorphism by calling the means by which a fly sees an eye. But when we say that a fly has eyes, we are not referring to structure, but to function; the compound eye is the fly’s faculty of vision.
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Remember the next generation of worship leaders. Of course, it is urgent to be concerned with what is happening on your platform this Sunday, but what seeds are being planted by your church in the children’s and youth ministry that will be harvested in the future? Public education is abandoning music. The children in your church are probably not singing at school or at home. Are they singing at church? We should not be surprised when no crops grow in five years if no seeds are planted today.

I teach church music and worship at a seminary. Every week, churches contact me to fill their worship leadership needs. While I’m thrilled to see the demand for qualified individuals, there’s one big problem.
I don’t have students for them.
The Old Model
When churches contact a seminary looking for a worship leader, they’re doing what worked for a long time. A generation ago, there was an established system: students came to seminary to get a Master’s degree in Church Music (MCM) before becoming a music minister or worship pastor. This mirrored the path young men took, pursuing an MDiv degree before becoming preachers.
Historically minded readers could investigate Westminster Choir College’s influence on theological music education from the 1920s onward. This model influenced many seminaries across the country. Perhaps the peak of this movement came in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when enrollment at my seminary’s School of Church Music surpassed 530.
That’s a lot.
However, through changes in the church and cultural landscapes, this model faltered. By the 1990s, Westminster Choir College financially couldn’t keep its doors open. There are many contributing factors which we’ll discuss later, but the old system hit its heyday in the late 1980s and gradually ground to a halt in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The New Model
Now, a new model for musical theological education operates in a different order. Worship ministers already serving in local churches study at a seminary to “level up” their ministry and personal lives.
Have you seen this? By and large, worship leaders in today’s churches do not need a seminary degree to qualify for leading a congregation in worship.
As someone who trains worship leaders at a seminary, you might think that I’m worried. I am not worried. That’s because our seminary worship training program pivoted to help students who are already serving the Lord Jesus in their local church grow in their skills.
Our students come from a variety of backgrounds and join our program to take their next steps of growth for their lives and ministries.

Some have been trained as music educators but lack the biblical and theological knowledge or ministerial skills needed to serve in a church ministry.
Others are very skilled musical performers and producers who are adept at planning high-impact Sunday morning gatherings, but they recognize their need for further education if they want to become church leaders and elder-qualified pastors.

These are my favorite people on planet Earth!
So when churches contact me for a graduate to fill their job opening, I do not have students. Our students are already in churches, growing and flourishing within faith communities that are investing in them.
What Changed? Schools and Churches
As we consider how we got here, think with me about two changes that have drastically affected the ecosystem of worship.
First, public schools have drastically reduced music education. There was a time when I would meet with prospective undergraduate students who would tell me that they wanted to study worship ministry and become ministers of music in their local church, but they felt like they needed to pursue a degree in music education as a career fallback. Music education was seen as the safer, more viable career choice.
That is no longer the financial or vocational reality. Over the past 20 or 30 years, as public-school funding shifted towards STEM (mathematics, science, and computer-based) priorities, musical education and opportunities have dried up.
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