15 October 2015 A.D. A journey from the loondom of contemporary “brain dead” praise music
15 October 2015 A.D. A journey from the loondom of contemporary “brain dead” praise music
My Journey Away from Contemporary Worship Music
I have been what many would call a
"worship leader" for close to two decades. When I first became
involved in "worship ministry" in an Assemblies of God youth group we
sang such songs as The Name of the Lord Is a Strong Tower,
As the Deer, Lord I Lift Your Name on High, and others of the era of the 1980s and 90s. Ours was
considered a stylistically progressive church since we used almost exclusively
contemporary songs.
This meant that if I were to visit a
"traditional" church, not only would I be unfamiliar with the hymns,
I would also likely cringe when they sang them and in my heart ridicule them
(the people rather than the songs) as being old-fashioned.
It was during these formative years in my experience
as a worship leader that I began to introduce even more contemporary songs to
our youth group. It was then that I discovered artists like Delirious, Darrel
Evans, Matt Redman, and Vineyard Music with their songs Did You Feel
the Mountains Tremble, Trading My Sorrows, Heart of Worship, and Hungry.
As a young musician who desired to honor Christ, I
found these songs to be particularly compelling. I felt different when we sang
them. The way Nirvana gave voice to the angst of Generation X, bands like
Delirious were giving voice to a generation of young Christians who didn't feel
they could relate to the songs of their parents and grandparents.
Over the years when I would occasionally hear a
hymn, the language was always strikingly foreign, with Ebenezers and
bulwarks, diadems and fetters. Which only served to confirm my bias that hymns
were simply out-of-date. They had served their purpose. They had run their
course.
The problem with my youthful logic only began to
dawn on me about seven years ago. I had come to recognize that these ancient
hymns accomplished something that the new songs weren't. While
contemporary worship seemed to take the listener on an exciting and
emotional rollercoaster, the old hymns engaged the mind with deep and glorious
truths that when sincerely pondered caused a regenerated heart to humbly bow
before its King.
When I accepted my first post as a paid member of a
church staff in 2007, I began the practice of singing one hymn each week. There
were times where my peers would teasingly ask what an "Ebenezer" was.
What I found was that when I gave them a basic definition of these seemingly
obsolete words we were singing, their response was usually something akin to,
"Oh? Cool. I never knew that!" I think when they asked, they half
expected me to say, "I don't know! Weird word, huh?" Instead they
were being challenged to learn, not merely a new word, but how to
ponder the things of God deeply when we sing His praises.
Nowadays, I still choose songs for our congregation
to sing that were written recently, but they are becoming increasingly the
minority. And the criteria for selecting them is becoming more and more
thorough. Hymns have begun to take precedent in my song selection for two
reasons.
First, hymns
have been sung by the giants of the faith who have gone on before us over the
last two millennia. When
we sing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, we join with Martin Luther who wrote it, and with
Calvin and Spurgeon and Edwards who invariably sang and cherished it. When we
sing It Is Well With My Soul we are encouraged by the faith of Horatio Spafford
who wrote the hymn in the wake of the tragic death of his four daughters.
And while many contemporary songs have certainly been written by wonderful
brothers and sisters in Christ who have surely endured trials, the fact that we
can join with generations past and be reminded that the Church is vastly larger
than our local congregation, farther reaching than our town or state or
country, and much, much older than the oldest saint living today is something we should not
take lightly.
Indeed, this should birth in us a desire to sing the
songs that our Family has sung together for two-thousand years (and beyond when
we discuss singing the Psalms).
Second, the
content of hymns is almost always vastly more theologically rich. When I say rich, I don't necessarily mean every
hymn recounts the Gospel in it's entirety, or that all hymns clearly
teach the Five Points of Calvinism. Rather, the theology in the
hymns is typically more sound or healthy than much of contemporary worship music. As I said
earlier, contemporary songs engage our emotions more often, where the hymns
engage our hearts by way of the mind.
By way of example, one of the top ten contemporary
songs being sung in American evangelical churches right now is called One Thing
Remains. While there is nothing in the
song particularly bad (in fact, much of it is pretty good), it seems to me that
the purpose of the song is to work the listeners into an emotional state. The
chorus is:
"Your love never fails / It never gives up
/ Never runs out on me / Your love never fails / It never gives
up / Never runs out on me / Your love never fails / It never
gives up / Never runs out on me / Your love / Your love / Your love."
With the repetition of a simple lyric like that, it
isn't a stretch to say that the composers' goal was not to engage the listeners
mind.
Whereas Augustus Toplady's hymn Rock of Ages is doctrinally sound, it also is a very moving
song of our dependance upon Christ our Rock:
"Rock of Ages cleft for me / Let me hide myself
in Thee / Let the water and the blood / From Thy wounded side which flowed / Be
of sin the double cure / Save from wrath and make me pure."
So I make this plea to my fellow ministers, do not
neglect these milestones from ages past. In fact, I would make the case for the
abandonment of most contemporary songs. If you choose a song for
congregational worship based on it's content (say you have chosen a
contemporary song because of it's focus on the Cross), do the hard work of
finding a hymn that more than likely addresses the same topic or doctrine in a
much deeper way. If on the other hand you have chosen a song because of the way
it feels or the emotion it evokes, ask yourself whether you are depending
upon the Holy Spirit or your own skills to engage our brothers and sisters
in singing to our King.
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