I posted yesterday about how much better Sing To The King worked in our worship setting than did O Praise Him.
But that got me thinking.
Because when do Sing To The King — or Marvelous Light, Glory To God, or Blessed Be Your Name — I am into it. I sing. Tap a foot. Raise a hand. Sometimes even sing in a spirit language.
But if we were to do Leaning On The Everlasting Arms? Not so much.
So: do I worship the song . . . or the God behind the song? Those songs I really like sort of fit my personal style — melodic, singable rock, with lyrics that are neither simplistic nor obscure.
The ones I don’t like are generally none of the above.
So I hope I’m worshipping the God of the song and not turning the song into a little tin god.
What about you?
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It’s sometimes hard to separate the two – God and the song – because he created us to be stirred by music. As far as I know no other major religion includes a part of the library like the Psalms in their sacred scripture. Advertisers and movie makers certainly know the power of music by playing a 70s rock ballad at key moments.
Worshippers need to pay attention to the very things you discuss in this post. The same holds true for worship service designers. The Holy Spirit can and does work through our worship music but that same music can sometimes be a mere human effort to put some energy into a service with an upbeat song or to motivate a congregation with a sure fire favorite.
One final comment – I especially appreciated your comment on lyrics that are neither too simplistic nor obscure. How many church goers have no idea what Biblical image “Here I raise mine Ebenezer” is supposed to evoke? But that is also why I find such value in the great hymns and sometimes complain about Christian Contemporary music. The best of the former can stand alone as great poetry. A lot of the latter falls (for me) in the “too simple” category.
As Wesleyans, we have the wonderful language of “means of grace.” Aside from the sacraments, prayer, and scripture I would say music is among the greatest means of grace we have.
Our God is incarnational. To me, this means God cares about aesthetics and imagery and poetry. Bread, wine, pottery, psalms, apocalyptic visions, parables, etc. God reaches us through art, but not just any art, good art. If the media is the message then outdated music teaches an outdated faith.
Our God is contextual. God reveals God’s self in different ways through time. Music, like all our ritual and theology, must be rooted in the culture in which we live. I am 27 years old, but Leaning on the Everlasting Arms resonates with me because I am from the deep south old school traditional worship world, so I can see God in that. I am also 27 years old, so I have the blessing of seeing God in the contemporary music, as well. Tex Sample has a good book about this called Powerful Persuasion where he says each culture has its own “beat”, a sort of melodic language that is “spoken” through the music and art used in worship.