Worship Music?
I have spent at least the last three years avoiding the subject of music used during corporate worship. I pulled this off by going to a church that considered anything played on a piano rather than an organ to be "praise and worship". How quaint! Three years of this and the overall effect was to come as close as one can to hitting the neurological reset button when it came to Sunday morning music. My attendance and participation had nothing to do with music but instead had everything to do with the congregation.
This now means that whenever I hear church staff discuss the quality of their church's "worship" (as in "Man, we just aren't worshipping like we used to.") , my eyes narrow and my ears try to discern what is meant by "worship". It would be too easy and so three-years-ago for me to pontificate about how shallow and superficial such talk is (and my friend Clint can tell you more about that than me). I pray that I have matured since I left the guitar-strumming worship scene of my alma mater. I grew to despise it then, but now I know that music does play a role in the worship of the church. But when it is done poorly, it is really really awful.
So here is my attempt to understand why we do what we do: a modest list of the possible reasons the church should use music in its corporate worship.
1) To elicit the proper feeling and sentiment among the congregation.
This is perhaps the most popular, or at least I would accuse most praise & worship bands of holding this mindset. Here the musicians attempt to create a "mood" or "atmosphere" conducive to worship. The problems here are perhaps myriad. First, why use music for this when anything else would do just as well? I am sure LSD can create a mood that promotes a receptivity before the divine. Second, one needs to establish what that mood is that makes worship possble. Here, most praise & worship types are terribly uncreative. Fast happy song, love ballad song, awe-inspiring march filled with power chords, repeat. But what if we need to be angry one Sunday in order to properly worship? Somebody needs to put Lamentations to music.
2) To promote the understanding of and repetition of basic doctrinal, biblical, theological statements
We sing Scripture, repeat lines of the ancient creeds, wax theological in hymnal verses. Why? Because we can never say these things enough, eh? Repetition is the key to understanding according to the ancients and your third-grade teacher. I like this one because memorizing a song is effortless compared to memorizing a chapter of Hebrews. But it takes theologically astute musicians or else the basic thought is just repeated over and over ad nauseum. Here I must confess I favor the old hymns, because they are just so much more interesting and stimulating that singing "Better is one day in your courts..." until the words stop making sense. You don't repeat it until you feel it: you repeat it until you understand it.
3) To join the congregation in a common task, that of declaring and proclaiming allegiance and praise to God
Even while singing the most dreadful songs, I must say I enjoy the fact that I am singing with other people. Part of what turned me off in the rock band style of worship was that whole "draw a circle around yourself. It's just you and God. Now sing to Him" stuff. I can do that in my car (which is probably why praise and worship CDs are so hot). I came to church to be part of a congregation. People who have been part of a choir or a band can speak more to this than I, but to come together with a roomfull of people to produce a sound of beauty is a bonding experience. Congregational singing can strengthen one's faith and help forge a Christian community.
There are 3 basic reasons, my own "good, better, best" for church music. But I am no expert. If I left anything out, or if I need correction or rebuke, I am depending on you to set me straight.
This now means that whenever I hear church staff discuss the quality of their church's "worship" (as in "Man, we just aren't worshipping like we used to.") , my eyes narrow and my ears try to discern what is meant by "worship". It would be too easy and so three-years-ago for me to pontificate about how shallow and superficial such talk is (and my friend Clint can tell you more about that than me). I pray that I have matured since I left the guitar-strumming worship scene of my alma mater. I grew to despise it then, but now I know that music does play a role in the worship of the church. But when it is done poorly, it is really really awful.
So here is my attempt to understand why we do what we do: a modest list of the possible reasons the church should use music in its corporate worship.
1) To elicit the proper feeling and sentiment among the congregation.
This is perhaps the most popular, or at least I would accuse most praise & worship bands of holding this mindset. Here the musicians attempt to create a "mood" or "atmosphere" conducive to worship. The problems here are perhaps myriad. First, why use music for this when anything else would do just as well? I am sure LSD can create a mood that promotes a receptivity before the divine. Second, one needs to establish what that mood is that makes worship possble. Here, most praise & worship types are terribly uncreative. Fast happy song, love ballad song, awe-inspiring march filled with power chords, repeat. But what if we need to be angry one Sunday in order to properly worship? Somebody needs to put Lamentations to music.
2) To promote the understanding of and repetition of basic doctrinal, biblical, theological statements
We sing Scripture, repeat lines of the ancient creeds, wax theological in hymnal verses. Why? Because we can never say these things enough, eh? Repetition is the key to understanding according to the ancients and your third-grade teacher. I like this one because memorizing a song is effortless compared to memorizing a chapter of Hebrews. But it takes theologically astute musicians or else the basic thought is just repeated over and over ad nauseum. Here I must confess I favor the old hymns, because they are just so much more interesting and stimulating that singing "Better is one day in your courts..." until the words stop making sense. You don't repeat it until you feel it: you repeat it until you understand it.
3) To join the congregation in a common task, that of declaring and proclaiming allegiance and praise to God
Even while singing the most dreadful songs, I must say I enjoy the fact that I am singing with other people. Part of what turned me off in the rock band style of worship was that whole "draw a circle around yourself. It's just you and God. Now sing to Him" stuff. I can do that in my car (which is probably why praise and worship CDs are so hot). I came to church to be part of a congregation. People who have been part of a choir or a band can speak more to this than I, but to come together with a roomfull of people to produce a sound of beauty is a bonding experience. Congregational singing can strengthen one's faith and help forge a Christian community.
There are 3 basic reasons, my own "good, better, best" for church music. But I am no expert. If I left anything out, or if I need correction or rebuke, I am depending on you to set me straight.
posted by matt at 3:50 PM
3 Comments:
1) I've often heard this phrased another way: "The Worship Leader's job is to lead the congregation to the throne," or some varient. The rationalist in me wants to say "Cite your source!" and "What do you mean by 'throne'?" and "How is the Worship Leader supposed to get there before the congregation?" and "What, does God have a special blessing for those who play guitar?" Many of the world's famous worship leaders began leading while in High School (Matt Redman, for instance). I also began in High School, back when feeling was everything and I felt I had all this internal energy waiting to be directed toward something. My theory is that these famous Leaders never lost this sense of urgency and emotion like some of us (including yours truly) did in college. That's why people like them. It's this sense of child-like energy and emotional dependence upon worship in their adult lives which unfortunately a) often replaces theology for sentiment, and b) confounds the worship leader when there is no emotion in a service. Hence, "Man, we just aren't worshipng like we used to."
2) This is what music in the church started out to be. It wasn't until the 70's when rock stars became Christian and, after burning their guitars and taking some time off the LSD, slowly began playing again thus inspiring Christian music. Blues, Jazz, and eventually Gospel probably played a major role in this as well. As far as modern worship leaders go, I'm a big fan of David Crowder at the moment. While a far cry from Wesley, at least he provides some thought-provoking material in his music. As I heard Louie Giglio say once, "Chris Tomlin has the spiritual gift of writing songs that are easy for people to sing - unlike David Crowder. That is unless you like bringing a dictionary to worship." I know I do. Why don't we bring a little theology as well?
Here I must bring up the difference between praise and worship. It's not the same thing. Rock music will not get us there. When psalms says, "Sing to the Lord a new song," we're talking about praise. When the OT history says, "Then the glory of the Lord filled the temple, and the priests could not enter the temple because the glory of the lord filled it such that the doors could not be opened. And all the people fell to their faces upon the ground." We're talking about worship. There is a lot of praise in the modern worship service, but never worship. At least I've never seen an entire church congregation fall to their faces upon the ground.
Oh, and all this metaphorical language about "I'm bowing down in my heart," is absolute dung. I might as well say to my wife, "I'm buying you flowers in my heart," or "I'm doing the dishes in my heart." There is a sin that leads to death, and then there is a sin which leads to sleeping on the couch.
3) True, agree. I wish I were a songwriter. Perhaps one day I'll have the time to devote to learning this craft, but in the meantime I wish more songs would be written using the pronoun "we" rather than "I". I believe this would help destroy the Circle Theory of worship.
4) I would add to your list that music is a form of communication of the gospel to the church. There was a time in Christian music when writers actually had deep lyrics (i.e. wrote songs in the vein of Lamentations), but it was short lived for being so somber. K-LOV couldn't market it as "positive and encouraging" which anyway is not how I would define the Christian life, but that's another post. The best thing I ever heard from John Piper was his story of a sermon he preached from the visions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel of God's glory. He said he didn't throw in any extra theology or deeper meanings or scripture references. He just told the story of the vision and described some of the details. No 3-point outline, no teaching, just telling the story. He said he recieved numerous letters from congregants who were actually hurting in their lives and who needed to hear that. Similar to Job witnessing and being encouraged by the glory of God following his suffering. That is worship - an encounter with the Holy God which changes our physical behavior (not just our emotions), and music can bring us there just as well as a creative sermon. I think Aristotle once said that above the other disciplines, music encourages virtue, or something to that effect.
Ah yes, "worship leaders". I may speak to that unusual and unfitting name later. Great point about praise and worship. I just hate saying the two words together now, so I rarely think about what they might mean. As for music for communication, I would include that under my second category. We are suffering quite a dearth of this kind of music, especially on the radio and in mainstream Christian music. When you visit Waco, we may have to go to Crowder's church here in town. I have been threatening to visit for awhile now.
Thanks, Clint.
Who's next? Anyone?
I'm glad that I finally decided to take a peek at your blog. It's filled with thoughts that strike deep within me. At first, I felt anger. Then, I realized that's the problem. Emotion without thought is just feelings. Thought without emotion is just conceptual mumbo-jumbo with no bearing on the practical. As I read this particular article, I was challenged to rethink my own (pardon the phrase) "worship theology."
1) It's true...I am guilty of being too focused on this aspect of congregational worship. However, this is an important aspect to the whole. We cannot forget that life in general is not composed of separate and unrelated events, emotions, thoughts, etc. As a proponent of the communal and biblical characteristic of the life of the follower of Jesus, I find it impossible to separate emotions from thoughts. Is it so wrong to foster feelings of awe, reverence, exuberance, triumph, defeat, or anger in preparation to offer words of truth to the King?
2) I know what you mean. Are we truly going to "sing of His love forever?" I hope not...at least while I'm playing the guitar! What an irresponsible use of time those types of songs are. I know that I am guilty of all the things that grate against every one of your sensibilities, but I am also painfully aware of the fact that people don't want to use their minds. When I introduce a new song with theological significance, people struggle to participate. However, it is encouraging to me to know that people at least want to try. But, in worship everywhere (Nepal, Colorado, Africa, and yes, even Oklahoma) repetition is standard. This is particularly true if it is scripture put to music.
Let me put it this way...when a person can stop thinking about which words come next, then that person is free to dare to commune with the transcendent. When I know a song so well that the words are automatic, it is far more conducive to my deep and imaginative thoughts toward God.
3) This is perhaps the most exciting aspect of communal worship. I always think of the throngs of souls with whom I will eventually join in the worship and adoration of God before His throne as described in John's Revelation.
I hope to continue in this conversation with you and Grant and Clint. I will have to check out Clint's blog to see what other gems of insight he brings to the table.
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