On Worship Music

One of the areas of constant err.. adjustment and attention in churches all over today is the music we use in worship. In the church where I became a Christian, there were some constants that don't exist today.

We almost without exception used the King James version (Schofield notes). So much so that brother James Herndon could say "turn to page 123" and we could.

We used the official Southern Baptist Hymnal. We used the 1975 version for so long that the regulars could tell you scores of hymn names if you called out the number. In fact, rumor had it that in addition to the tablets Moses carried down off Sinai, the first hymnal came with him, with Holy, Holy, Holy already sitting in its proscribed position as Hymn #1.

Bunny and I were pretty quick to embrace the NIV study Bible when it came along, as well as "contemporary Christian music". Of course back then we're talking about Dallas Holm, Keith Green, the Imperials, Russ Taff, Petra, etc. Looking back, some of it wasn't very good, but some, like the work of Keith Green, still speaks.

So as I sit here today thinking about Sunday's worship music, I have several bits of knowledge floating around my cranium.

First, we want to honor God in what we do and glorify His name in worship. In short, the music ( or lyrics I suppose) has to be true to Scripture. The performance of it needs to not elevate a person's skills, but direct our hearts to God.

Second, we want congregational - not performance driven - but community driven music. (What I mean is that some music is best used for solo or group and just doesn't translate well to congregational praise.) If we use a solo, it has to be meaningful outside the realm of "wow, she/he did great" or "isn't that a wonderful song". The music needs to direct our attention to God.

Third, as pastor, I want to try to use the music to open the spiritual ears of the congregation to the message I'm about to bring. So all the other criteria being met, I would prefer we sing songs that open the ideas and concepts I'm about to preach on to the hearts and minds of those attending that day.

So all that being done, now I turn to the resources we have.

There's the body of work of Wesley, Watts, Luther, Crosby, etc. as included in the hymnal.
There's the praise chorus period as popularized by Gaither etc.
There's the early contemporary Christian music I mentioned earlier.
And then there's the modern Praise and Worship music, which has now been out there for 15 years or so.

Bunny and I keep an Excel spreadsheet of what we have done and when we have done it, so as to be able to report to CCLI as well as to rotate songs and expand our catalog. If we introduce a new sone, that usually takes three weeks of practice by the praise team and one week of introduction via them to the congregation before we ever decide to sing it as one.

It's not easy. If you care about the three criteria I listed.

Sure we could break out a hymnbook and ask for "favorites". That means we won't have anything but the keyboard playing them, because guitarists need chord charts. It means we lose any connection with the overall theme spiritually of the worship as a whole. And it means we limit ourselves to only those periods of music contained within them.

As a pastor, I am very sensitive to the spiritual needs of the congregation as a whole. I want everyone to come away knowing they had spent the time in worship as the Body of Christ. Everyone. From all generations.

Recently I had someone ask me "why don't we sing any hymns?" My first response was "we do, almost every week." But it became apparent that they (and probably others too) had a setlist of hymns that made them feel they were "in church", and we weren't pushing those buttons. So I went back and looked at what we were doing over the last year, and in a church that's characterized by young families and children, we sang 24% hymns. But it wasn't enough.

Initially, I really was bothered by that. But over time and through prayer, I'm seeing it as an opportunity to teach ALL the generations about what worship is and how we use music in it. We might use some of the hymns of years past but run them through today's ways of presenting them, much as Matt Redman did with "Nothing But the Blood" or Third Day has done. It might be interesting to go the other direction with some of the more modern music - slow it down, go more acoustic and piano.

My job here, as pastor pressed into service as music guy (Bunny does the real work here, I just pick the songs), is to pray through God's use of music to transform lives - to be a part of that awesome work. Would I love to have a worship person? Absolutely. But it's my responsibility now.

If anyone out there has some resources that would help me in this task, or wants to come invest their life here at New Hope, I'll certainly move toward the back of the bus. Yet I think there's a lot good in having the pastor involved in worship design and execution. If the pastor is serious about transformational worship, being under the hood really helps.

Grace and peace,

David