With the sweeping popularity and utilization of songs produced by the Praise Music Industry - specifically those from non-denominational megachurches like Bethel and Hillsong - the having of an emotional experience has trumped all other criteria for determining faith and practice during Sunday services.
Here's the problem; the Bible never connects worship to emotion or music. It encourages emotion as a response to experiencing God - but it also warns against allowing emotion to be our sole guide regarding faith and practice.
Worship is supposed to be the gathered congregation together accepting God's invitation into God's way of life; into the Divine Life of God as it is expressed in selfless and absolute love of God lived out forever in the Trinity as community.
Worship is meant to be formative too, not merely expressive.
The music currently coming out of the Praise Music Industry has reversed all this and made worship about us individually, our individual wants, our individual feelings, our individual emotions..
Consider the thematic and lyrical content of much of current Praise Music; it is certainly not God’s great saving work celebrated throughout history and in our own lives. Rather, it’s our own emotional status, our own emotional wants, our own psychological selves.
Current Praise Music Industry culture has substituted the Divine Communal Life of the Triune God with content that is borderline-sensual, manipulative, has a lot of emotional-neediness, and prioritizes instant emotional gratification.
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