How To Lead Music Well at Church

Good thoughts here from Jamie Brown:

It’s not rocket science.

Sing songs people know (or can learn easily). Sing them in congregational keys. Sing and celebrate the power, glory, and salvation of God. Serve your congregation. Saturate them with the word of God. Get your face off the big screen. Use your original songs in extreme moderation. Err on the side of including as many people as possible in what’s going on. Keep the lights up. Stop talking so much. Don’t let loops/lights/visuals become your outlet for creativity at the expense of the centrality of the gospel. Point to Jesus. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t sing songs with bad lyrics or weak theology. Tailor your worship leading, and the songs you pick, to include the largest cross-section of your congregation that you can. Lead pastorally.

Read the rest.

Facing The Church Music

Mike Wittmer:

The wise pastor told his new worship director, “There is one style of music I hope you never play in our church.” She grabbed a pen and asked, “What is it?” He replied, “I will never tell you. If we all insist on getting our own way, we will never sing anything.” 

Few issues are more controversial in church than music. Some churches solve the problem by providing two worship options, a traditional service for older folks and a contemporary one for those who enjoy more upbeat music. This often keeps both groups happy, but at some cost. 

Marva Dawn warns, “it is utterly dangerous for churches to offer choices of worship styles.” She says it divides the church, treats Christians as consumers whose tastes must be catered to, and robs us of the opportunity to serve our neighbor. We should rejoice when a tune is sung that we don’t like, for that is an opportunity to deny ourselves for the sake of our brother or sister (Matthew 16:24). When veteran saints try to learn a new chorus or young people sing an old hymn both are saying to the other, “This may not be my cup of tea, but I’m willing to make room for you. I will sing along for your sake, and the whole church will benefit.” Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we are unwilling to do this during worship, when do we think we ever would? (Mark 12:29-31). 

God expects there will be variety in our worship services. He made us different, and He says that Spirit filled believers will variously sing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…making music to the Lord in your hearts” (Ephesians 5:19). Our great God deserves to be praised by the widest variety of worshipers and styles. Keep your preference, and keep it to yourself.

Read the rest.  

My New Favorite Song for Corporate Worship

Get the recording here.

Idolatry in Corporate Worship

Bob Kauflin lists some possible options.

• Musical Excellence
• Musical Preference
• Preaching Skill
• Creativity
• Experiences
• Liturgy

Read the rest for his explanations.  Very helpful.  

Donald Miller and the Culture of Contemporary Worship

Of all the responses I have seen to Donald Miller (certainly some better than others) this one has been the best.

Mike Cosper writes:

As James K.A. Smith argues in Desiring the Kingdom, all of our gatherings are formational – even the gatherings that aim at spectacle. Where a more traditional approach aims at an orientation towards hope in the coming kingdom and patience in affliction, the contemporary model often aims our hope in the institutions, leaders, and experiences of Church. Our hope is built on the coming sermon series, or the upcoming evangelistic push, or the ability of the pastor to inspire us, or the ability of the worship leader to "usher in the Spirit of God." Practiced regularly, week-in and week-out, these efforts shape us to love and hope in a particular way, and like any idol, it will ultimately disappoint us.

To this, Miller, like so many others, has said, "No thanks. Doesn't work for me." And in this sense, I don't blame him. But his solution is no less tragic. His new liturgy will orient his life around himself or around his work, and these masters will be as cruel and disappointing as any mega-church or celebrity pastor has ever been.

So yes, I think Miller needs to be challenged and corrected. But I also think his comments reveal the tragic lack of spiritual formation in many of our churches today. They remind us that many Christians have no meaningful vision for why the church gathers; for why we sing, preach, and pray.

Read the rest.


Books by Mike Cosper:

• Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey 
• Rhythms of Grace: How the Church's Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel

Ever Wonder Why You Do What You Do in a Church Service?

This short post from Joe Thorn is very helpful for enriching your experience of Sunday worship.

This book from Joe Thorn is also very helpful.

On The Wisdom of Learning From Church History

Michael Haykin:

Ah, one good reason to read the history of the church is to avoid the follies of the past. With the passage of time, the folly is patent, though at the time when it was committed, it may well have passed for wisdom. One thinks of the defence of slavery by God-fearing men and women in the 18th and 19th centuries and further back, the “learned’ ripostes by Christians to the new science of Copernicus. In the realm of worship, we Baptists can learn a lot from the conflict that ripped apart the London Particular Baptists in the 1690s. So fierce was it, that eventually some of the pastors called a halt to the treatises being written and so attempted to find a pax Baptistica.

I am old enough to remember a wise pastor making the following statement in a public worship setting, and I quote, “There will be no rock music in heaven.” Yet, fifty years after the rock n’roll of the sixties, is it not true that in many of our worship settings, some of the music by which we worship the Lamb could not be envisioned without the rock revolution? Are we to regard this way of combining chords and rhythms as sinful or is it better seen as part and parcel of the creativity that God has packed into the human frame? And is it not true that some of the music that we like in worship or that we don’t like has more to do with personal preference than divine fiat?

Read the rest.

Why Is It So Critical That We Sing Together?

Great meditation here from Mark Altrogge.

How To Think About Singing on Sunday

Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God. As a brother put it to me, it’s a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset. This point is acknowledged in a praise chorus like “Let’s forget about ourselves, and magnify the Lord, and worship him.” The trouble is that after you have sung this repetitious chorus three of four times, you are no farther ahead. The way you forget about yourself is by focusing on God—not by singing about doing it, but by doing it.

D.A. Carson, Worship By The Book

No Squishy Love

Timothy George:

Sin, judgment, cross, even Christ have become problematic terms in much contemporary theological discourse, but nothing so irritates and confounds as the idea of divine wrath. Recently, the wrath of God became a point of controversy in the decision of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song to exclude from its new hymnal the much-loved song "In Christ Alone" by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.  The Committee wanted to include this song because it is being sung in many churches, Presbyterian and otherwise, but they could not abide this line from the third stanza: "Till on that cross as Jesus died/the wrath of God was satisfied." For this they wanted to substitute: "…as Jesus died/the love of God was magnified." The authors of the hymn insisted on the original wording, and the Committee voted nine to six that "In Christ Alone" would not be among the eight hundred or so items in their new hymnal.

Further on:

The problem comes when we use an anthropopathic term like "wrath" and apply it univocally to the God of eternity. Before long, we have constructed "a god who looks like me," to use the title of a recent book of feminist theology.  Then caricatures of divine wrath proliferate:  God having a temper tantrum or acting like a big bully who needs to be “appeased” before he can forgive or, as is often alleged with reference to the atonement, practicing cosmic child abuse.

But God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s wrath is not like our wrath. Indeed, in his brilliant essay, “The Wrath of God as an Aspect of the Love of God,” British scholar Tony Lane explains that "the love of God implies his wrath. Without his wrath God simply does not love in the sense that the Bible portrays his love." God's love is not sentimental; it is holy. It is tender, but not squishy.  It involves not only compassion, kindness, and mercy beyond measure (what the New Testament calls grace) but also indignation against injustice and unremitting opposition to all that is evil.

Read the rest.  

Mediator

Guest post by Aaron Armstrong

Great song from Ghost Ship:

Buy their album, The Good King, on iTunes or stream it here free.

The Christian Music Industry: Should We Love It Or Leave It?

Good reflections here from Bobby Giles.

Rhythms of Grace: An Interview with Mike Cosper

Ed Stetzer: What would you recommend for a church that doesn't want to follow a traditional liturgy, but does want to format the service in a way that retells or traces the entire gospel story?

Mike Cosper:  I think one beautiful aspect of Church history is the window it provides into the pastoral theology of previous generations. Resources like church liturgies and prayer books are often seen as dusty, stodgy "tradition" - the kind of thing most contemporary Christians and non-Christians would struggle to comprehend. But if we get below the level of language, and if we look hard at what the men who created these resources were trying to accomplish, we get to the pastoral theology - and there's some beautiful stuff there. Traditional liturgies were one way of saying, "Let's reenact the gospel story in the gathering."

I think there's a lot of room to take what's gone before us, reimagine it through new language (and where appropriate, new technology) and try to tune it with the spiritual formation of our congregations in mind.

Frankly, I think everyone should be aiming at fresh language, fresh metaphor, and fresh creativity in the ways we are spurring on and encouraging our churches.

Read the rest of this great interview and get Mike's new book here.

Grounding Worship in Reality and Not Slogans

We increase the intensity, joy, and fidelity of our worship, not by including the verb “to worship” in every second line in our so-called “worship songs,” but by knowing more about God, and bringing our adoration to him, as he is.

Insofar as our conceptions of him diverge from what he has disclosed of himself, so far are we worshiping a false god, which is normally called idolatry. To study hard what holy Scripture says about the Son of God, who has most comprehensively revealed his heavenly Father, is to know more about God, and thus to begin to ground our worship in reality rather than slogans. 

 - D.A. Carson, Jesus The Son of God

(HT:  Aaron Armstrong)

Excellence That Doesn't Draw Attention

Stephen Altrogge:

When it comes to doing church we can tend to gravitate toward one of two extremes. The first is the over the top, “everything must be awesome” extreme. The band should sound like as much like U2 as possible, and the worship leader should have that “I’m cool, but I’m not trying to look cool” look. Worship should feel similar to a rock concert, except, of course, we’re singing to Jesus. The lobby should feel like a fair-trade, organic only coffee shop, and the children’s ministry should resemble Chuck E. Cheese. If all these things coalesce at the same time it’s quite possible that the Third Great Awakening could take place.

The other extreme is the “it’s all about the heart”, don’t try to manufacture God’s presence, extreme. The worship band sounds like a steel pipe being put through a wood chipper? It doesn’t matter, it’s all about the heart. The children’s classrooms smell like vomit, playdough, and goldfish crackers? So what? The sanctuary is dingy, cold, and drafty, and the coffee served in the lobby tastes like peat moss? It doesn’t matter, because we try to attract people through the things that really matter, like preaching, and the gospel.

Neither one of these extremes is right.

Read the rest.

How To Write a Worship Song

"Oh and don't forget that one thing in your song should always be on fire. Something needs to be in flames."

Classic. This dude nails it.

Dear Worship Pastor: It’s Not About You

Good post here for music leaders by Timothy Dalrymple. 

Imagine the following scenario. A church service begins, and the music breaks in. The congregation warms up, and the music grows more intense. Yes, we all know the progression by now — the video “Sunday’s Coming” was so funny because it was so true — and yet the progression is there for a reason. It’s rooted in human nature. You get our attention, hopefully with some praise music not entirely devoid of theological content, and then you gradually press us deeper into more profound surrender to the will of God. 

–And then it happens.

Read the rest.  

Pursuing Corporate Worship That is Meaningful

Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God. As a brother put it to me, it’s a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset. This point is acknowledged in a praise chorus like “Let’s forget about ourselves, and magnify the Lord, and worship him.” The trouble is that after you have sung this repetitious chorus three of four times, you are no farther ahead. The way you forget about yourself is by focusing on God—not by singing about doing it, but by doing it.

D.A. Carson, Worship By The Book

Make Way for Lament

Michael Gungor:

There is a tension to the Kingdom of Heaven that is here but not yet here. That tension ought to give way to poetry. To lament. To art. Sure, there is room for some celebration, but if our faith has nothing else to it than positive messages and encouraging clichés, perhaps it has become a Band-Aid rather than a surgery.

Worship music doesn’t need to be medication. Our worship music ought to put us in touch with the deepest places of our humanity, not simply distract us from our pain and put is in a good mood for the preacher’s talk. It ought to stir things deep in us. Hope. Joy. Anger. Mourning. Doubt. Love.

Have you ever had a relationship that never can get past the surface of things? A relationship where the people never talk about anything deeper than the weather or favorite sports teams is not a very deep relationship. The people in a relationship that have never had any disagreements or conflict are those who have kept their true hearts hidden from one another. A Christianity that does not lament is a shallow Christianity. It is a medicinal, numbing balm that we use to avoid living life in a world that is groaning. It is a Band-Aid to cover our wounds. Fig leaves to be sewn over our humanness. And many of us need to be saved from our addiction to this anemic, shallow substitute for Christianity.

Read the rest and then go buy his music.

Why We Sing

Michael Kelley:

This weekend, I like many of you, are going to church. And while I’m there, I anticipate doing a number of things, not the least of which is sing. I’m going to sing, by God’s grace, loudly. But it’s a bit strange when you think about it, right? A bunch of people gathered together to sing? Not something many others do in other settings. So here are 4 reasons to break out in song this weekend:

His four points:

1. Because we are commanded to.
2. Because I am a man.
3. Because you feel like it.
4. Because you don’t feel like it.

Read the rest.