Now, please, I am neither a legalist, ritualist, nor a puritan. There is nothing wrong with making a joyful noise unto the Lord, as the scriptures commands us to do, but some of these praise/worship songs that I have heard in churches are nothing more than secular music with thinly veiled, shallowly religious sounding words attached to them for justification! The only thing that distinguishes them as faith-based songs is that they occasionally name God, they make use of some bible speak or Christianese, and they use religious sounding metaphors, yet they are just as dead as those that openly subscribes to secularism! Sometimes, at the end of a song, I have to fight off the impulse to snap my fingers and shout out "that’s really heavy man!" The songs say absolutely nothing, like being in a hippie commune with someone reciting vague poetry, and everyone thinks it is cool! I am not over-exaggerating! Have you listened to some of the songs these worship teams sing? Many of them are either meaningless echo songs that are likened to those sung around a campfire or they are lively songs with religious references but do nothing for the spirit. Just as I believe that when speaking in tongues the body of Christ should be edified, I believe the music should do the same thing. There is nothing wrong with entertainment for entertainment’s sake, but the purpose of singing in church is just another form of worship. However, with SOME of these songs, you find it difficult to even sing along with the worship team! I mean it is one thing to have a special number given by someone(s) or a choir for the purpose of blessing the body. A minister, likewise, blesses the body with his message. But I believe that a worship leader/team’s job is to lead the body into worship, and if the song is too progressive that the body cannot follow and only the worship group is singing, then the church body is just being entertained! I can not help but wonder sometimes whether some of these worship leaders are frustrated wannabees who, having not succeeded in a professional music career, they hold the worshipers hostage while they live out their dream each Sunday. I am not being cynical, just perhaps a bit sarcastic. Yes, I believe that you can worship and yet be entertained, and no I do not believe that only certain instruments are sanctioned for use in church; and, if you stray off the traditional Christian music reservation you are playing the devil’s music. On the contrary, clap your hands and stomp your feet, string up the band, bang the drum, and go blow your horn! But WORSHIP HIM!
I will say, however, that even the good worship music and the bad ones have one thing in common. Why must each song, each measuring about less than 20 lines on average, be sung six to ten times? I mean what’s the point? Has our fast food mentality in how we live our lives begun to now affect how we even worship in church? When I was a boy I knew numerous songs that contained multiple verses and a chorus. I learned them at a very early age from repetitively singing them over the course of time, and not through repetitively singing them over the course of one Sunday’s visit at church. In actuality, by the time a person has sung a worship chorus six or ten times, he has sung the equivalence of a hymn, except it is the same words over and over and over and etc! It almost seems as if it is perceived that the brain of today’s worshipers is deficient of mental bytes to handle a song with more than a few lines. "Let us sing short songs but let us sing them many times so they can grasp it!" It is difficult enough singing a chorus that you like that many times, but repetitively singing those that you hate is not going to make it sound any better or liked any more, no matter how many go rounds that you do them! At times I have been inclined to—in the words of Moses—shout out ‘let my people go!’ The worship leaders just don’t want to give it up! They may call it being raptured spiritually, but the repetitive nature of these songs are like a broken record or one in which the needle is stuck in the groove! It also makes me want to shout out, "Someone PLEASE pick up the needle and play it forward!" (Please explain that line about the needle in the groove to those that grew up with CDs.)
Now I can fully appreciate the church’s zeal in wanting to fill the pews with young people. I don’t think you would get any objections or arguments from anyone in regards to taking proactive steps to bring them into the congregation. However I believe the church is missing the big picture. Why must the church have to choose between one kind of music and another kind? Isn’t the church big enough to support each group’s taste in music? Am I to believe that we can have a blended, multi-cultured society, but we cannot find a way to blend two distinct types of music in our own church? The church is always boasting about being a family and yet in terms of music it generally comes down to slighting one and favoring another. A growing number in the Christian community have branded hymns as being archaic, out of date, boring, and no longer useful! How sad it is that what has survived hundred of years can so easily be supplanted. It appears that the church has told God that there is only room for one tool in his tool box and has chosen to retire the one THEY feel no longer has worth. In honest, each spiritual tool—much the same as a couple in a marriage—have their strengths and limitations, but when joined together they complete each other; and in the case of music, cast a wider net!
Even the world remembers its history, its roots, but the church seems to be determined to not only forget its history, but to replace it with something new. We have a rich musical history and it could all be lost on a generation because they never sing them, and the church no longer is encouraging them being sung. Wouldn’t it be a shame to lose old treasures such as Amazing Grace, Blessed Assurance, Softly and Tenderly, and, one of my favorites, Holy Holy Holy? Churches have found it easier to cast away their hymnals and robes in favor of what pleases the younger parishioners. True, you can never meet every individual need. No one is suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that the church, first, acknowledge the generational make-up of its members and then be willing to put forth an assertive effort so that it will feel like home not just for some but for all!
Some of the bigger churches’ solution to the growing divisiveness is to have two separate services, one featuring contemporary music while the other traditional music. It is a good gesture, but the problem still exists. It is still a church with a divided body! It does nothing in terms of bridging the generational gap. Some may be saying that I am being over dramatic and making too much about music in the church. It is not JUST about music, but more about today’s church forgetting who they are, where they have come from, and what kind of Christians will they be in the future! Music is a powerful catalyst for change! If it wasn’t so the church would not be dumping hymnals, burning robes, and rushing to buy guitars and overhead projectors as quickly as they can! They see music as the selling point for the kids.
Now as I said in the beginning, my argument is NOT against praise/worship music in the church, but against it being the ONLY music in the church. We do not have to choose one or the other. As the kids today say, "It’s ALL good!" We as a church must and should use what is good in this progressively changing world—its technology and musical flavors—while preserving the best of what has been. Can’t we all get sing along?