In light of my postings on "Can We Rock The Gospel?", it got my mind thinking about the relativity of music. This led me to reflecting upon the frequent divide of churches in the last 15 years between traditional hymn users and churches that use newer, simpler and more emotional songs, usually called, "choruses".
My take:
To draw sharp line in the sand saying that one musical song form is inherently better than another is completely simplistic and potentially idolatrous. Hymns have a distinguishing musical form as does choruses. These are just arrangements of notes and rhythms and lyrics. That is all. Some are good and some are bad. To say that one form of song is inherently better than another is very short-sighted.
I believe that there are reasons why we have been singing, Martin Luther's, "A Mighty Fortress is our God" for around 400 years now. It's because it is an amazing song. Time will tell which songs are worth keeping around and which ones are not. There are great hymns and literally hundreds if not thousands of them which you have never heard of because they died off over years. The cream always rises to the top. The strong will survive. Musical natural selection if you will.
The same will be true of our newer songs that have been written in the last fifteen years or so. The problem is that we don't have the luxury of time to test all these songs; the church on the whole is doing that right now. There are many songs that I used to lead 5 years ago that will never see the light of day again. This is fine and they served the purpose that they needed to for that time. Other songs like "In Christ Alone" and "Shout to the Lord" will probably be sung for years and years to come.
The question is not hymn or choruses. The question is what are the best songs? There are some from both camps and both camps need to be drawn from to honor our past and continue to "sing a new song to the Lord".
As I see it, three main questions need to be asked in reference to songs in church, hymn or chorus:
1. Who is playing the song? Can they play with relative skill? (Psalm 33:3)
2. What sort of instrumentation is used?
3. Is it a good song? (subjective I know, but leaders need to decide this together)
6 comments:
Does it have to be 'versus' and not 'and'? How about Col 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spirtual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God."
Can I say that the word of God must be central as the Church does what it's suppose to do-teach, admonish, worship, etc, with thankfulness?
If that's true than we need to be wise and only sing those songs that focus on Him, who alone is worthy of all our worship and praise.
My preference would be to sing all sorts of music in our worship service-psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
Feedback Z?
I agree. I think that's what I said in my post - did you read it?
Perhaps add a fourth point? The songs/choruses (or is it "chorai" or "chorae"?) must be in accord with scripture!!! This is a tough task which includes among other things defining the general ballpark of what "in accord with scripture" means, but there are some doozies which are sung (both old and new) which are more the reflections of the songwriter and have little to do with scripture. At least show that there is some sort of real struggle to understand and live what scripture teaches--an enterprise which includes real discussion of what songs are in accord with scripture and which are not and how we determine this. We need to be engaged in this sort of dialogue!! Eventually, continual singing of such songs not in accord with scripture makes it difficult to teach something that is in accord with scripture to a bunch of people who have the lyrics of a song not in accord with scripture floating around in their heads. So, however you put it, I would suggest adding this fourth point: songs must be in accord with what scripture teaches, and not pop-Christian "doctrine."
I agree - I think that is a whole other blog post - I was assume this under the heading "they must be good songs" but was too lazy to define my terms. I take for granted that "good" in good songs points to lyrical content that is theologically sound and not just good chord changes and melodies.
BTW - congrats on the PHD stuff. Way to Go!
Zach,
I thought as much, but wanted to post anyway to see if there would be some more discussion.....you need to get all the folks at your church to read your blog more! You put up a lot of good posts, but I so often see "0 comments" at the bottom of a post. I'm sad.
BTW--how did you know my exam results? (assuming that it what you were referring to).
Peace, bro.
Your wife has me and Kim on the mass email list I think.
In terms of comments I don't know what to say... I'm just a blogging wanna be.
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