Category Archives: Music

Scripture and our druthers

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There’s a saying I’ve heard attributed to Dr. Jack Lewis. He was speaking about an individual in the church and said something to the effect of: “He has a hard time differentiating between what the Bible says and his personal preferences.” I don’t know the original context or even the reliability of the attribution, but I’d say that statement sums up a lot of the discussion on church music.

If we want to clap while singing, we can find scriptural support. If we like the way we feel when singing with instruments, we can find biblical evidence as to why they should be used. If we don’t like modern praise songs, we attack their theology. In other words, if you don’t agree with me, you’re disagreeing with God.

If we don’t turn to the Scriptures, we make “objective” statements that support our views. Singing without instruments promotes unity. Singing with instruments attracts non-churched people. Singing too many new songs will cause some of the old-timers to leave. Singing too many old songs will cause the young people to leave. In other words, if you don’t agree with me, you don’t care about people.

We can find scholarly studies that support our views. Anecdotal evidence from growing churches (or dying churches!). We can point to faraway lands where they’ve done what we like and, behold!, their churches have achieved a utopian bliss.

Most of it’s hogwash. It’s a focusing on externals rather than internals. It’s ignoring all that the Bible says about what makes for true worship and what makes for vain worship. If you can’t worship God without an instrument, you can’t worship him with one. If you can’t be edified by singing Isaac Watts, you’ll eventually find that Casting Crowns leaves you cold as well. If people come to your church because of your praise band, they’ll leave when the church down the street has a better one.

Worship is about the heart. And a big sign of a heart not right with God is the unwillingness to consider your brother’s needs ahead of your own, your brother’s preferences instead of your own.

I recently read a quote that said church leaders should aim to have one hundred percent of the people happy eighty percent of the time. If that’s true, we need to be ready to not get our way twenty percent of the time. (And the “stronger brother” should expect to give in more often than that!) Are you ready to not be satisfied one fifth of the time?

It’s time to take the “I feel”s and “I like”s and put them in a drawer. It’s time to seek what’s best for the body as a whole.

(I know “druthers” goes back further, but I picked the word up from the musical L’il Abner. There’s a song called “If I Had My Druthers”)

Singing: All or nothing?

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Wow! If you haven’t read yesterday’s post, don’t bother. Just skip down to the comments section. Some brilliant insights there, plus a sharing of experiences from different viewpoints.

I realize that I’ve embraced the tar baby. I’ve jumped into this with a few things in mind and am now seeing so many more issues that need to be addressed. Some would organize and plan out where they’re going from here; I’ll just keep writing and see where we end up.

One concept that came out in yesterday’s comments was the difference between performance-oriented worship and participative worship. Is it mutual edification or are their gifted people whose role is to edify the rest of the body during the assembly? Is it okay at times to sit and listen or should everyone be a part?

We need to recognize that this is not a black/white issue. There’s an entire spectrum out there. On one end, you have the “high church” model, where many functions in worship can only be performed by people ordained for that task. On the other end, you have the “unprogrammed” meetings of Friends (Quakers — They call this “expectant waiting”). There are congregations where only those approved by the church may lead singing, direct prayers, wait on the table, etc. There are other congregations where everyone is expected to come prepared to do something.

I could go on, but I hope you see what I mean. There aren’t just two approaches to this question, nor three or four. There is a whole gamut of responses. However, we can focus in on one thing: some feel that it is imperative that every member be active in singing or they will not have worshiped.

So here’s another set of questions: should a congregation have the goal of 100% audience participation in singing? Is it sinful to be present and not sing? Should the goal of the church be edification through song, even if that means limiting the participation of some members and emphasizing the participation of others?

Singing through the worship wrangling

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One of the silliest phrases that came into vogue the last few decades was the term “worship wars.” There have been people at times in history who have been killed for choosing to worship a certain way. Those are worship wars. Ours have been worship wrangling, at best.

In our fellowship, one of the key areas of struggle has been over instruments. That is, can we use them. A number of congregations have chosen to add instruments to their singing.

From my limited observation, I see a funny thing happening. What was brought in as a “tasteful accompaniment” tends to become the center of attention. The lightly strummed guitar and gentle flute give way to the full-out praise band that “rocks the sanctuary.” That’s interesting to me, because that’s been a major battleground in churches that were already using instruments. They’ve struggled over musical accompaniment of singing vs. vocal accompaniment of instruments playing. Best I can figure, those in our brotherhood that have chosen to go the instrument have sided themselves with the “progressives” in other churches.

There are churches that have used instruments for many years that haven’t moved past a piano accompanying the congregation. Why do you think our churches tend to jump from “no instruments” to “full instrumentation” so quickly? It’s hard for me to see how this can do anything but hurt congregational singing. Am I off base? Have you seen churches with loud “praise bands” that still had strong congregational singing?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Music in our time and place

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Singing has a strong tradition in the United States. There was a time when singing was one of the most common pastimes. There was a strong tradition of gathering around the piano in someone’s parlor, singing folk songs, church hymns and even learning new songs. There were popular sing-along records that later evolved into radio and TV programs. Barbershop-style singing is uniquely American, featuring understandable lyrics and simple melodies. There was a time when almost everyone sang or wanted to sing.

Anthropologists see singing as a cultural universal, practiced throughout the world. Many consider it one of the oldest community activities. Yet the type of singing featured in the United States is not common everywhere.

I do a lot of work in Latin America. It’s my opinion that we’ve spent too much time focused on developing preachers in Latin America and not enough on developing song leaders. Almost anyone can be taught to preach. It’s harder to identify and develop good song leaders. I’m thankful for the work of men like Carlos Gonzales and Omar Corpus, among others, who are seeking to strengthen congregational singing in Spanish-speaking churches.

A challenge for the church going forward is how to present its music to the world in a way that doesn’t sound American. That is, much of our church music is based on the style enjoyed and appreciated by Americans in the 20th century. As the church has spread from the U.S. to other countries, we’ve often exported this style, leading people in other countries to believe that’s the way church music is supposed to sound: foreign and strange.

Much of the “worship wars” in this country have arisen from the fact that music styles changed. Just as Isaac Watts was a bit scandalous in his day, so innovators face pushback from traditionalists. And just as Mr. Watts didn’t hesitate to push the fight, so some will look to provoke their brothers over music styles.

It’s my opinion that church music needs to regularly be studied, in every time and every place. Completing ignoring context, I would adapt Paul’s words from 1 Thessalonians 5: “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” I also think that we need to accept the fact that we are part of a body; some of the music used isn’t going to fit our tastes, our preferences, and possibly even our beliefs.

In praise of singing

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I’m a singer. I took almost 10 years of piano lessons, but never took it seriously, so I remember very little. (Sorry Mom!) I played violin for one year and cello for three years, but that’s not enough to say I can play either one. I taught myself to play guitar, but only well enough to accompany me while singing.

I was in choirs for about ten years in all. My mother was a music teacher, and I learned to read music at a very young age. I love to sight sing, taking something that I’ve never sung before and singing my part by reading the music. And yes, I love singing harmony.

I have to be careful in church because there’s a big difference between singing for the sake of singing, singing as part of a performance group and singing as part of an assembly. I mustn’t get so caught up in the singing that I forgot the song and I forget whom I’m addressing.

I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that I take singing seriously. It frustrates me when someone starts a song to “sing them in” or leads “The Lord Is In His Holy Temple” as a way of getting the kids quiet. I hate when people talk during a song in a way they wouldn’t do during a prayer. I get frustrated when we sing songs whose lyrics are at best hard to understand and at worst flat out wrong. I think singing needs to receive a more elevated place in our worship.

The role of singing is not an instrumental vs a cappella issue. It’s a heart issue. It’s a problem of understanding.

I don’t like the contrived notion of five acts of worship. I don’t think it’s biblical. I think it’s been harmful to the church. At the same time, I do like the awareness that preaching shouldn’t be elevated over any other portion of our worship. It typically is, but it shouldn’t be. We need to see that singing is every bit as important. It too teaches. It too edifies. It too encourages. It’s a corporate activity done within the assembly, second only to the Lord’s Supper in that regard.

Singing deserves a place of honor within the Christian assembly. I hope that we’ll give it that place.