Worship

Posted by: Tom,

Yesterday a pastor friend posted on Facebook that he wondered about the trend in a lot of new worship music toward long repetition. He noted that pastors are taught to be concise and quit when they have made their point instead of rambling on. He wondered if that wouldn't be good advice for song writers too. Of course I disagreed with him.

First let me say that from what I know of my friend he probably has a well rounded view of worship. But he also likes to push buttons and if ever there was a place to push worship buttons it is Facebook. In other words, we probably agree a lot more than it may seem. He's just a troublemaker. :)

But it got me thinking about how annoyed I get with the worship wars. Every year it seems that some Christian university is adding a "Worship Arts" degree so there is a ton of stuff written on worship now days. I've read and listened to a lot of it and in my view the scope of opinions is still a cluttered mess. Maybe in time there will be more consensus.

For this post I want to stick with the music we sing on Sunday mornings at church and call worship. Yes, that is only a fraction of what worship is. Yes, there are a multitude of aspects to worship. Yes, even our work is worship, or should be. But I am just talking about the music on Sunday.

For me, that worship is simply giving honor and glory to God through an art form that a lot of people can participate in. I do have a friend who can't sing or keep time to music and this worship does absolutely nothing for him. But for the most part the majority of our society does engage in the art form on a regular basis.

That makes music a great form for worship. It allows us to engage with God in a way that we can express ourselves beyond what we can with words alone. It involves not just our minds but also our emotions. It can push us to raise our hands or fall on our knees. It helps us express our gratitude to our Lord and Savior.

Sometimes I think the Wesleys did a disservice when they came up with the idea of using music to teach theology. It was brilliant, of course, because it works. Even in primitive cultures music is still used to teach. But teaching is not what worship is about for me. I don't mind that we learn while we worship but that is not even close to its primary purpose. Go ahead and use music to teach, just don't call it worship.

One of the keys to worship music is recognizing that it is an art form. We engage with art differently than we do oral communication. Unfortunately, a lot of people try to engage them in the same way. Art is something we soak in over time. I love to read but I have read even my favorite books only 5 or 6 times. Most books I read only once. It's not the same with music. I have listened to my favorite songs hundreds of times. Henry Nouwen wrote a book on Rembrandt's painting "The Prodigal" and he spent days looking at it in the St. Petersburg museum as he wrote, soaking in all the details and nuances that are missed with a brief glance. That is the nature of the art form.

So I get annoyed when I hear people say they don't like all the repetition in worship songs just as I get annoyed when I hear people complain about our classic hymns. I get the feeling they are not considering the art form. They are just basing their opinion on what they like. Yes, we do that with popular music too. But I think that if most people put some effort into it they could learn to appreciate a wide range of musical genres, even if they aren't their favorites. I think we can do that in worship too.

I can appreciate the complex orchestration of some of our greatest hymns of the past. But I can also appreciate the repetition of a deep, heartfelt, expression of praise. We need to learn to engage in worship in a way that allows us to soak in the art form and let it help us offer up our sincerest honor and praise to God.


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So, I wasn't the person posting on Facebook about getting annoyed with long repetition in worship music, but I'll jump in and agree with them. But in a slightly different way.

You make a point that worship music is an art form and hence we should immerse ourselves in it differently. Fair enough. I'll take that as my starting point. But for that immersion to occur, the music must be ENGAGING. And quite frankly, I find a lot of worship music trite and twee. I find a lot of pop music trite and twee, too.

So while I can get in there and nod my head and tap my foot for ten minutes to something repetitive if it "catches" me (10-15 minute long rave music, for example), I can just as quickly turn the channel if I get bored. I haven't been able to stand the never-ending "woohoos" in Sympathy for the Devil since I was a teen, for example.

You say it's art, and that's the issue - art grabs or does not grab people differently. And a lot of CCM is so derivative I'd rather just listen to the secular music it derives from (I'm looking at you, Third Day).

Maybe that's part of the point. While Martin Luther and Thomas Dorsey both grabbed and milked popular music and reused it for hymn tunes to great effect, basically inventing their own "CCM," over time "hymns" and then "gosple" became genres. And we know what to expect from a genre, where it's going to "go" in a song.

But most song writers aren't as talented as Luther or Dorsey or the Wesleys. So when they derive something from secular music and make a similar sounding CCM song, they run the risk of making me think about what they're deriving from more than the message/worship/art at hand.

"Hey, that hook sounds just like Led Zeppelin. Frankly, I'd rather listen to Led Zeppelin than that, though."

Does that make sense?
It sounds like you are arguing about the quality of the art more than anything. Isn't that different than arguing about how the content is arranged? You admit that there is some repetition that can engage you so it seems that it is a different quality that is the problem.

I agree that there has been a lot of bad music that has been created and has become popular simply because it is Jesus music. I remember back in the early days of CCM you had guys like Norman who produced quality and a lot of hacks who thought singing the right words were good enough. I hate shoddy music too.

However, I think some people become very set in their ways and are unwilling to really give new art a fair shot. In college they tried to fix this with the Fine Art Appreciation class I had to take. It didn't work at the time but I have to admit that it started sinking in several years later. (I should probably send a note to my teacher and let her know that.) I went from having an almost instant opinion to being able to give a piece of art at least somewhat of a fair hearing. I think it is very easy for us to not give music a chance too.

In other words, I think we have to learn to approach worship music differently. Are we looking for God's handiwork in it? Do we see where the artist's soul is grappling or engaging with God? Does it resonate in some way with my soul? Of course, if it is simply cut and paste you won't find those things in the song. But I think we need to learn the skill of engaging the art in a deeper way than if it tickles our ears or not.

Note: You have to be careful when you talk about music and derivative. Some hear Zepplin and say, "Oh that's just Buddy Guy, etc."
What this reminded me of was all the repetition in the Psalms. Now there's some precedent.
Yeah, Dan. Especially in the Hallel Psalms.

I always think of the Psalms when I hear people talk of theologically correct hymns too. About 10 or 15 years ago I think some seminary professor made a big stink about songs being theologically accurate and there were a bunch of people who picked that up and created a mini movement to wipe them out of the church. But a lot of the songs they targeted were songs that asked questions about God but eventually stated the sovereignty of God. There are a lot of Psalms of lament like that and it isn't bad theology as much as expressing a human emotion. Also, some of those "heretical" songs were simply using imagery as metaphor and weren't meant to be taken literally.
 
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I'm Tom. I have a wonderful wife, 4 kids, a dog, and a cat. What more could a guy want.

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