Thoughts on Ecclesiastical Worship in Song – Part 2

In my previous post, I made the argument that the whole church – regardless of age, race, sex, or musical preference – must worship together. But how do we get to this point? Do we “meet in the middle” and blend styles? Or does one side give in? What should the church be singing, and how should we sing it? Well, I think the best way to discuss these questions is to break down musical worship into at least two categories: style and content. In this post I want to specifically focus on content.

Content obviously refers to the words that are being sung, and there are certainly many problems with the “words that are sung” in many of our churches today. But I think there is a bigger question to ask in regards to content: What is the purpose of worship in song? Well, part of the answer, I think, is given in the phrase “worship in song.” What I mean is that when we gather to worship every Lord’s Day, this worship includes the whole event – prayer, singing, communion, the hearing and preaching of the Word, etc. I find it ironic that many people think that worship only refers to the singing part of the service, but yet think of the sermon as the “key event.” In other words, the service is split into two parts – worship, which is where the congregation sings, and the sermon, which is where the congregation listens and learns. In actuality, though, the Bible does not make this distinction. For instance, Colossians 3:16 tells us to “let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” I think this is the purpose of worship in song – that the Word of Christ might dwell in us richly. Preaching and singing go hand in hand, and this in fact says something about content – it must be the Word of Christ!

There are a few things to say about this. First, how do we sing the Word of Christ? Well, the clue is in the phrase “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” All three of these things actually refer to the Psalms. This is how the Septuagint (The Greek translation of the Old Testament … this is what Paul’s hearers would have been reading) speaks of the Psalms. Now, I’m not saying that there is no room for any other worship music than the Psalms, but I am saying this: A) The church would do well to recover the practice of regular Psalm singing, and B) The Psalms should be the primary model for any other worship music. So… there goes about 80% of popular worship music from the last 100 years or so.

Second, what is the connection between the Word of Christ and the Psalms? If the Psalms are the ideal model for worship, then what is the Word of Christ? Well, it obviously has to do with Christ’s redemptive work, and there are a lot of themes that are included here – His life, death, resurrection, creation, conquering of sin, atonement, faithfulness, etc. – but I think the Word of Christ in song has at least three elements. Colossians 3:16 gives us a good idea of this when it says that worship should teach, admonish, and give thanks. Look at any of the Psalms – they all contain these elements, and in many cases, all three elements are interwoven within the psalm. There’s not much of a distinction. Certainly different Psalms have different themes – forgiveness, retribution, praise, remembrance, etc… but they all contain the elements of teaching, admonishing, and thankfulness. Now look at the popular songs of today. Most of them only focus on one element – predominately thankfulness – if they focus on any at all.

Third, proper content in musical worship is vital because of how it relates to preaching. Again, look at Colossians 3:16 – if the Word of Christ is to dwell in us richly, then all of worship must be teaching, admonishing, and thankful. The western church has become so influenced by 17th century pietism – which placed more emphasis on personal, emotional aspects of worship, rather than the orthodox, corporate aspects – as well as the revivalistic focus on individualistic response, that we’ve forgotten that one of the principle purposes of musical worship is that the congregation teaches each other through song! (It’s interesting to note that the layout of our churches used to have the congregations facing each other – to better facilitate this teaching and encouraging through song – but as the focus became more individualistic – what does God have to say to me, rather than the church – the pulpit moved to the center stage and the pews all turned forward). I think this has also had a dramatic effect on the purpose of preaching. Many churches that I have been to practice expository (verse by verse) preaching. Certainly this style of preaching is in response to the pathetic, opinion driven, three verses and a joke, motivational speech styled “preaching” that occurs in many churches today – so it is a good thing in that sense. But more often than not, these sermons lack creativity, beauty, and application. This is understandable, given the time-constraints of a normal sermon, because this is the only time the Word of Christ is taught. But it doesn’t have to be so. When the musical worship is full of doctrine and scripture (in context), more time can be spent on a more well-rounded sermon. Furthermore, I believe this is what Paul is referring to when he writes about the Word of Christ dwelling richly in you – a sermon, no matter how biblical or well-delivered it is, cannot dwell richly within us without biblically saturated worship music. Good worship music(as well as prayer and scripture readings) sets the table for good preaching.

Finally, the content of the church’s worship music is so important because it does teach us, whether he realize it or not. And I believe this is a big reason why the church is not as successful as it should be in America – our worship music is doctrinally deficient. Face it, you’ll rarely remember a sermon, but you remember countless worship songs. And when most of our worship songs are in the same vein as “So here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you’re my God….” – no wonder there is an individualistic mindset in the church today. And not to harp on the new stuff – some of the older hymns are bad too. “And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.” Good grief! Did they share a milkshake and play footsies too? BTW, I typed both of these lyrics from memory – so, yeah, they stick with you.

In conclusion, I believe that if the church is going to practice biblical worship, a few things have to happen. First, musical worship must come under the direction of the pastor. Certainly a church is better off having a gifted musical director, but the pastor is the shepherd of the church and he is responsible for ALL the worship material that is used. This is also prudent, as the scripture readings, sermon, and music should all be parts of a whole – especially in light of the church calendar. Second, we need to look to our church fathers for good music and inspiration. Take a look at the hymns of Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley – they don’t look much like the junk that’s getting cranked out today. It’s also no coincidence that most of these great hymn writers were also pastors. Finally, it’s sad that the church does not sing the Psalms. I think this is a must! There’s no excuse not to do it, and if our evangelical churches are committed to the inerrant, infallible Bible like they say they are, then they will do it.

Thoughts on Ecclesiastical Worship in Song

One of the toughest things for me to do over the recent years has been for me to nail down exactly what bothered me about most worship music today. It wasn’t so much a  ”like vs. dislike” type of feeling as it was a “comfortable vs. uncomfortable” feeling. For awhile I thought it strictly had to do with the content of the songs. In fact, that was the popular sentiment among many in my circles and we were right to an extent. There is a lot of poor doctrine in today’s (and even yesteryear’s) worship music. So, as a youth worship leader, I made a decision to only do doctrinely sound worship music…. yet this wasn’t the root of the issue as it turns out. One reason was that I started realizing that some of this “doctrinely poor” worship music really wasn’t that poor. Now, it certainly wasn’t as rich as some of our better worship songs and hymns, but they really weren’t incorrect. And some of these poorer songs were pretty catchy, which, as a youth worship leader with a rocker itch that needed scratching, was very appealing to me. So I did them. And I had fun. So did the youth. But something still wasn’t right. I often felt weird. Once or twice I even relinquished my duties as a worship leader because of the way I felt… and took some heat for it. But the opportunity to mentor young musicians, play music, be creative, and build comraderie always brought me back.

It finally dawned on me one day what was bothering me. It was the fact that I was “leading worship” in a context outside of church. In other words, I always approached my worship leading as if I should be leading the youth into a higher spiritual experience (or at least preparing their hearts for the upcoming youth lesson). I had already been struggling with the fact that the “youth group” in most evangelical churches had become its own “church,” and here I was contributing to this – what I call – Youth Group Phenomena. But I really enjoyed playing music and seeing the youth get involved – tapping into their creativity. So I stopped leading worship and just played music – I had more fun with it, added some guitar solos, and most importantly, didn’t play to the youth’s emotions (i.e. – have them close their eyes, lift their hands, etc).

OK, so I had it figured out now. Well, not quite. I still was a little confused about worship. At this point in time I was unsure about what direction God was calling me. I was in seminary, but I didn’t know if I should pursue the pastorate, youth ministry, teaching, or worship ministry. As much as worship ministry appealed to me, I wasn’t quite sure how I should go about it. I enjoyed my church’s worship, but I knew that just about anywhere I went, I was going to have a struggle over worship style. The older crowd would want the traditional stuff, the younger crowd would want the contemporary stuff, the middle age crowd would want a perfect blend of both, and neither crowd would be happy compromising. I was vehemently opposed to a traditional service at one time slot and a contemporary service at another – so that wasn’t the answer. Also, what if I went to a church that wanted a big choir – was I prepared to do that. Many churches only go with the praise group – which would be easier… but I kinda liked the big choir. I eventually decided that it was too much work, so I scratched worship ministry off the list.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my anxiety was all for naught. The solution was simple, and right in front of me, but I missed it. You see, my desires for certain types of music were not out of line, they were just misplaced. Here I was struggling with all these different answers, and the question was wrong all along. So is it contemporary or traditional? Well, its neither. So is it big choir or praise ensemble? Again, neither. So what’s the answer? Simply… church.

 Yeah, I know… that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But that’s because the church today (at least the Western church) doesn’t differentiate between church “style” and other styles. For example, it’s funny to me to think about the traditional vs. contemporary argument. The argument is basically about preference – its about what people grew up with. Traditional sounds so righteous and true. Contemporary sounds so hip and creative. But really just boils down to the 50’s vs. the 90’s (or some variation thereof). So we have our older saints that can’t stand Matt Redmond and we got our younger saints that can’t stand Fanny Crosby. What’s a church to do? Well, you could split off into a traditional and contemporary service, like I said earlier. I mean, that way, everyone’s happy. Well, until the contemporary service argues over what type of style. But even then, you got your hip-hop services, your heavy metal services, and your pop-rock services. Oh, and the traditional service might split over style as well. But you could always have a Southern Gospel style service, and then have a pipe-organ led service. And let’s not forget about our Jesus-movement friends. They fit with the traditionalists age-wise, but all they really want it some Keith Green.

I guess you can see where I’m going with this. The worship of the church MUST be unified. The church must worship together. The baby boomers and Gen-X. The elderly and the infant. Those that rock out  and those that rock out on the porch. The point is, the church is making a terrible and self-defeating mistake when we separate worship by age, interest, culture, color, etc. Why? Because Lord’s Day worship is where we celebrate the greatest thing we have in common: redemption through our Lord, Jesus Christ. And this is what will change the world.

Watch, Read, Listen

The last couple of weeks have yielded a few treats in the way of movies, books, and music. I would like to recommend to you one from each category.

First, check out the movie Pan’s Labyrinth. I couldn’t describe this movie in one word if had to…. I would need two: beautiful and terrifying. Here’s the basic gist – Set in facist Spain in 1944, a young, imaginative girl travels to the country to live with her mother and her new husband – a rutheless, sadistic army captain. In order to escape the horrors of reality, she creates an imaginary world… that might not be all that imaginary.

Yes, the movie is in Spanish and is subtitled, but it really is not a distraction. In fact, I believe the language adds to its beauty. The cinematography is amazing, the score is mesmorizing, and the direction is outstanding. There are scenes in this movie that are so unique that I will probably never forget them. The movie is full of symbolism and stark contrasts, moments of tenderness and moments of terror. This movie left me with a lot to think about, and I wanted to watch it again as soon as I was done…. I waited a day, though.

I recently finished reading Watership Down for the third time.

This is one of my all-time favorite books. Yes, it is the “bunny book,” but it is not a children’s book. This book is similar to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but on a smaller scale. In my opinion, the best kind of story is the exodus story, where a journey is made to a “promised land.” In Watership Down, a group of bunnies make an exodus from their home that is doomed for destruction to a better home that they can hardly imagine. Along the way they engage in various adventures that are filled with biblical symbolism, political allusions, grand scale heroics, and sacrificial love. There are moments that will keep you flipping the pages as fast as any other popular adventure novel. In many novels, there is normally a “Christ figure” who sacrifices himself for another in some way. What I love about this novel is that a number of the characters have the opportunity to exhibit Christ-like sacrifice. I also like the fact that the author – Richard Adams – studied the lives of rabbits and “restricted” his characters to their real life abilities and habits. Adams also developed a new language – similar to Tolkein’s LOTR, but on a smaller scale. There’s not many books that leave me on such a “high” as this book does… I love it. Denise has never read it, but her turn to pick the book in her Book Club is coming up soon, and I think she plans on picking Watership Down. If any of you have read it, I would love to hear what ya’ll think.

Finally, I want to highly recommend some excellent music that is great for the whole family. Jamie Soles is a Christian musician from Canada who specializes in “Bible” music. Really, that’s the best way to describe what he does. Because all the stories in the Bible are stories of Christ and His church, one of the best ways to teach children (and ourselves) about Jesus and our relationship with Him is to learn ALL the stories of the Bible. This is what Jamie does with his music. While all of his songs have a sing-a-long quality to them that is common with many children’s music, the subject of his music is vastly different. Here’s his website, where you can get a sampling of his music:

http://www.solmusic.ca/

Jamie recently came to our church and performed. There was a great turnout and the kids absolutely loved it. We’ve only recently been enjoying his music, but it was great to see the children who have been listening to him for awhile – they could sing every word! But we’re not talking about “I love you, you love me…,” we’re talking about songs that list all the kings of Israel…. Most seminary professors can’t even do that!

Check him out… seriously. I think you’ll love it. And let me know what ya’ll think about any of my recommendations.