Worship wars?

In a recent Breakpoint commentary, Chuck Colson broached the topic of music culture and hymnody in the church today.  He cited an article entitled ‘Durable Hymns‘ written by Donald Williams (director of the School of Arts and Sciences at Toccoa Falls College in Georgia) which sought to wrestle with the question of whether there is a right and wrong kind of music for worship.  He studied the catalog of the church hymnody and came up with four key marks to “great” hymns, which seemed to be those hymns which have survived the test of time:

Pipe it up

• Faithful to biblical truth – reiteration of themes in the canon
• theological profundity – worship God with our mind
• poetic richness – wordplay, use of language
• musical beauty – i.e. musicality, interplay of tonal themes, melody and harmony

Williams notes, “more recent praise choruses seem to ignore all the rules of good composition, giving us not well-shaped melodies but just one note after another.”  Further, he opines that only those musicians who are musically gifted, and historically, biblically, and theologically trained are qualified to help churches choose the best new music “as a supplement to the church’s rich musical heritage.”

My biggest beef with the aforementioned rubric is the lack of emphasis of worship and superintendence of the Holy Spirit in this activity.  The greatest gift of the contemporary worship movement is to highlight the object of worship, namely God.  Matt Redman has been the one to blow the doors off this issue with his reflective, introspective, gripping ‘Heart of Worship.’ 

When the music fades

And all is stripped away

And I simply come

Longing just to bring

Something that’s of worth

That will bless your heart

 

I’ll bring You more than a song

For a song in itself

Is not what You have required

You search much deeper within

Through the ways things appear

You’re looking into my heart

 

I’m coming back to the heart of worship

And it’s all about You

All about You, Jesus

I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it

When it’s all about You

 Worship at its core is about God first and all the rest comes second.  The ‘war’ that the contemporary worship movement is blamed for starting tends to be about format first (i.e. piano/organ vs. drums/guitars/band) and content (repetitive, light on theology, non-hymn structured drivel) but this is a misadventure in completely missing the point.  Heart attitude is the foundation that good lyrics and good music build upon.  It will never work the other way round.  Just to be clear this misunderstanding is not limited to the hymn-thumping crowd.  Sample the myriad copy cats on popular Christian radio who are riding the coattails of the worship music tidal wave.  They mimic the contemporary sound (i.e. format) but miss the point of the heart.

Once first things are dealt with I do agree that worship music ought to consider seriously the themes dealt with in scripture, be memorable words and music that you can groove to.  But those aren’t essential like loving and worshiping God.  “Let everything that has breathe praise the Lord” (Ps. 150:6, NIV) whether they can carry a tune or not!  Further, those that minster as musicians to the church should practice and prepare to be the best stewards of their gifts as possible.

Finally, I’m totally against the line that the composers of new music need to have all of their theology figured out.  This process takes a long time and even then you always need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Better to work together in community as a worship team to work towards some of the goals cited by Mr. Williams.  The process will be a tremendous classroom and so is trying out new music on a church for that matter.

Enough with the war, let’s get to the heart of worship.

In the interests of full disclosure, the author served as an organist in high church liturgical settings as well as keyboardist in contemporary worship band settings.