I think a good place to start is to recognize the difference between a meaningful worship song and a song that means much to someone simply because they grew up with it. To me there are some really awful songs out there that we continue to inject into worship to please the older members among us. One example is "Precious Memories" which doesn't praise God or comfort the hurting, but seems to have been written simply to be a tear-jerker. I would classify it as a dirge. I could go on, but you get the picture.

I appreciate today's praise songs. To me they are upbeat, largely well-written, and evoke in me a strong sense of how truly awesome is our God, and how much I want to draw closer to Him in worship.

Having said that, I am struck by the conflict between projecting words on the screen (which I think is a wonderful innovation for getting singers to lift their heads) and our need to learn 4-part harmony. Are we heading into an era when we only know the harmony, because we haven't had the opportunity to look at a page of notes? I don't know what the answer is.

To address the question, my preference is for praise songs for the bulk of the worship, and a serious, thought-provoking set for focusing on communion, the centerpiece of worship.

Hey Mike,

This morning I led singing at Madison's "Villa," a home for some precious elderly saints. After breakfast, we sang some Christmas songs. One elderly brother insisted that I lead "Tempted and tried..."

At first I told him I was only doing Christmas songs, but after seeing how much it meant to him, I sandwiched his song in between "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night."

Even though our tradition for this annual Christmas breakfast has included only Christmas songs, you should have seen his eyes light up when we sang his song.

Although I do love the contemporary praise and worship songs, I do think there needs to be a balance. Many in the younger generation are only going to know the contemporary songs if we don't start mixing in some hymns. We have so many great hymns that are being forgotten about. I think each and every congregation could benefit greatly with a balance of old and new.

Julie,

I found out today that we are going to bring to Madison my new friend, Dr. Jerry Rushford, the hymnologist from Pepperdine (I got to work with in Washington D.C. last month.) He makes the hymns come alive and helps us appreciate the RICH heritage in these songs.

Looks like he'll be with us in early July.

Lament is an example of what I believe is missing in our worship.

Anyone who knows me realizes how I strongly believe in joyous celebration and enthusiastic praise as our primary assembly description. Yet, having worked with a local church for many years, I see that suffering and trials are widespread in the church family. Divorce, cancer, depression, death, tragedies, and all sorts of problems are on the minds of a large number of our people. To ignore this completely in our worship (as I often have) seems to be dysfunctional.

Frustrating feelings and contradictions like these are dealt with openly in the Psalms (a worship book) to bring us closer to God, our ultimate refuge.

Note these excerpts from Randy Gill’s song, “Deep Calls To Deep:”

“From the depths of my soul I cry out:”
“Have you forgotten me?”
“Lord can You hear me?”
“Where are You Lord?”
“Save me, the water is over my head.”

Yet, even after honestly acknowledging these deep frustrations, we conclude, “Still I will praise you Lord.”

So, is it just me, or are we greatly lacking in songs written to express lament? And, how do you plan this into worship flow?

Although we live in a country that values education, sometimes I find that words of deep thought like "Lament" need to be stripped down to how we use them when we talk with one another.

I'm suffering,
I'm annoyed,
I'm dissappointed,
I'm sorry,
I lamented.

As Christians, once we experience the mountain top, whether it be at a summer camp, a devotional, a concert, a worship service, we are all still going to experience the valley. It has to be hard for a worship leader to manage the diversity of a congregation who has such a vast age difference that the valley rears its ugly head in soooo many diffierent forms.

Throughout the Old Testament we read about servants who felt forgotten. We read about servents that felt they were being unjustly abused. We read about servents who were given a promise and then through the trials of life were told to wait. The cool thing about being a christian is that God has already figured out His plan. As Keith mentioned in Randy Gill's song of lament, "Deep Calls To Deep, we hear dispair. We hear doubt and we hear abandonment, but you know what we can also hear? My deep love for you Lord, crys out in my time of need. If that is not worship then I don't know what is.

With our diverse culture, I have a hard time saying "We need to have this style or We need to sing this type of song. I believe that when God gives the gift of song writing to one of his servents, he has a plan for who that song is going to touch and when. I guess my only response to this survey is that if we focus our musical worship celebration soley on tunes that are familiar or that must tie into the preachers message, then we may have missed his point. A song of praise can pull someone from a pit and a song of Lament can bring one who is not hurting into a closer communion. I am so thankful that we worship a God who has it all together As for which way I lean on this issue, I will only say.

Be still and listen.

Love to all

Mark

Mark, thanks for sharing those insights.

The worship leader is a shepherd. The shepherd has a destination in mind (throneroom), but he must also tend the needs of his flock. It is not an either or. It is a both and. Sometimes, the flock moves with the shepherd attentively. At other times, the shepherd must gather his sheep. Keith has taught many of us by example that flexibility (even with old overhead projector slides) is important as the leaders reads the crowd and responds to its needs. This doesn't mean the the leader must flap in the breeze of the flock's whims, but intuitive, spirit lead attentiveness helps connect and strengthen the bonds of the worshipers to each other and to God.

Great analogy. Sometimes the shepherd leads and the flock moves, and sometimes the shepherd gathers. Very thought provoking.

I'm not sure we ought to be trying to determine what songs we should be singing - or rather, that such determination can be made by vote. The problem is not so much the songs we sing, but whether their message speaks our heart. I'm not so sure "Mansions over the Hilltop" actually speaks our heart anymore, but perhaps it ought to. Perhaps most important is that when we sing, we acknowledge either that the hymn expresses our heart, or what our heart ought to be.

Mike, you are so right. My polls can bring out the surface-type, easily quantifiable type questions, (and thus miss the core issue) when it is the heart that really counts (and what our hearts "ought to be.") Thanks, Brother for your life.

I agree with you on the laments, Keith. I keep getting more and more uncomfortable with the songs that seem to say that everything is great since I've found Jesus (you know, "Trouble and sorrow have vanished away, I have been...redeemed"), because I can look out at the congregation and I know what struggles these dear people are going through. I appreciate more the songs that declare we will praise Him in the midst of and in spite of the struggle (al la "Blessed Be Your Name" and others). Those seem to hit home more. And they are exactly what we are called to do when we come together - with those words we are spurring one another on to love and good works.

As to what type of song we should sing more, that's hard for me to comment on because I'm the one picking the songs we do sing...and I try to select those songs with the shepherding instinct that Jeff refers to. So, I have to rely on someone else to provide a different perspective.

Shane, you brought up an important point. How do we know (as worship planners) that we are leading/planning effectively? What ideas do others have on the best way to know (and seek feedback) on the effectiveness of the planning?

What a powerful song: "Blessed be Your name, on a road marked with suffering - though there's pain in the offering - blessed be Your name." And later in the same song we repeat, "You give and take away, you give and take away..."

As I recall some of my earliest attempts at writing Christian songs, I realize that some of them did project a naive view regarding Christians and suffering.

For several years I've used an excel file that my son Jeremy wrote for me to track our use of songs. I assign each song one of two categrories (probably should be several, but I use 2) - hymn or contemporary. Over the last few years we've used about 35% hymns and 65% newer songs. Our approach week to week is simply to prayerfully select the songs that "fit" best with our worship experience for that week, regardless of whether they are older or newer. Some weeks we'll sing nearly all newer music and other weeks will be hymn-heavy. I agree that there are many great hymns and other older songs that continue to be meaningul, but I also think that either focusing on hymns for the purpose of maintaining a heritage or focusing on new songs because we like the cool harmonies both miss the point. For me the question is what songs will help us worship this Sunday. Our church seems to respond well to this content-oriented approach to song selection.

I'd also like to comment about the "vertical" vs "horizontal" songs. While there are many good songs that sing "about" something instead of addressing God directly, I think it's important to remember that we "teach one another" as much through the vertical worship songs as through the songs that are intentionally trying to teach. It's sorta like kids learning from parents. They certainly can learn things we tell/teach them directly, but they often learn more fully by watching and listening as we interact with others. In a similar way, "vertical" worship songs allow us to model for one another a response to God, "teaching and amonishing" in ways that are perhaps less didactic but potentially more in tune with the Spirit's desire to shape us as we worship. Just a thought.

Rick, we track our song usage too. I agree with the prayerful approach. Your comment reminds me of hearing Randy Gill talk about picking the right song for the purpose, regardless of whether it is old or new.

Great point about how vertical worship can influence each other in modeling worship. This past Sunday we sang "We Will Worship The Lamb Of Glory" by Dennis Jernigan and I witnessed an auditorium of people with "hands lifted high." That would not have been the case five years ago. In fact, if one person did lift hands, they would probably have felt very self-conscious by all the other perplexed people gazing at the anomaly.

I can remember growing up in a very traditional southern country church and noticing one Sunday that every song we sung never made it back to praising God. We sung about heaven and evergreen trees. We sung about ships and mansions. But I distinctly remember one Sunday never singing one song that addressed God at all. Now this is an extreme example, and I'm not bitter at all about it . . . :) But you see my point!
Truth is, there are waves of inspiration in worship music, we write what we are experiencing and frame it within the biblical story. During the depression, we wrote songs of hope and longing for the future when we wouldn't struggle like we do. Recently, we have written songs expressing the joy we feel was missing from the corporate worship.
In light of this, I agree that the element most missing in our worship is lament. Everyone goes through painful situations, divorces in the family, loss of loved ones, etc, etc, and there is very little to express that in our services. We tend to clean things up a bit in our offerings to God. But that shouldn't be the point, should it? God wants us to be geniune and come to him in the midst of our pain, our dark times. He wants our heart, broken or not.
As I read through the Psalms (our guide to "worship music" from ages past) and it seems that about 2/3 of the songs has massive elements of lament vs. 1/3 which are upbeat and positive. It seems to me that we have some writing to do! We need more songs that express our questions, confession of sins, and just simply "God, where are you?"
Off the top of my head, I can think of only a handful that do this well: Deep Calls to Deep (being the only true lament I know), Healing Grace; Lord Have Mercy; Have Mercy O God (another Randy Gill original); Create in Me a Clean Heart (maybe?); and Blessed Be your Name.
I love the honesty in these songs. It doesn't clean up our spirituality, it leaves it messy. God is big enough to handle our problems AND our questions.
I suggest reading through Walter Breuggemann's little book on Psalms called "Spirituality of the Psalms". It has really changed my thinking and perspective on the content of what we sing. Great for a series going through the Psalms!!!

And finally, with the blend of services, I really believe we have to look at the demographics of our church to help us determine the answer. There is no one "RIGHT WAY" to "do" church. But your own dempgraphics help determine how much or hymns/contemporary you do (at least to start, right?). Also, what works for a blended/ southern gospel rooted service in South, may not work for a contemporary/ high church congregation in the North.
Just my $.02.
-chris

Chris, you made a very VITAL point. Within the past year, I sang for a funeral where I do not recall hearing the preacher even mention the deceased. His entire lesson was about evangelism and pretty much ignored the life of the dear Christian who had passed. That thought came to my mind when you mentioned an entire service that talked about everything but God.

Yes, God can handle our honest offerings, without trying to hide our feelings. In fact, one of my attempts to deal with this idea of lament is entitled, "Hide Me Away, O Lord" (in the day of trouble). This song seems to mean a lot to some people, but when I compare the music to the message, it does not have the same effect as, say "Deep Calls To Deep," because my song is in a major key. The minor key seems to be very pertinent for lament. Or, as Gary Bruce has arranged, design chords with "tension," but move to soothing chords of resolution, much like the structure of some of the Psalm examples.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You have much wisdom, young Skywalker.

Our assemblies and songs must be Christ centerd. That is the only thing we have in common each and every day and week of our lives. While some of may be celebrating new life, some may be mourning the loss of someone, physically or spiritually. While someone may be celebrating the so-called-great material blessings from God, others may be filing bankruptcy and on their knees begging with the world to free them from their debt. Some of us may be glad that our families are being fruitful and productive, while others are shedding tears for the family that is breaking up in which they have no control over. We all come from different economic, social, religious, educational and family backgrounds.

As worship leaders & ministers we have a responsibility to know whom we are standing before and love each of them genuinely. Love should be the foundation of our assemblies, and our assemblies shouldn't be self-seeking, or prideful of how well it's done, or full of envy, but should be filled with attitudes that are hopefuly, truth-seeking and honorable (1 Corinthians 13).

I do believe there are appropriate times for a church body to experience lament or celebration as a whole, but I also fear that we as worship leaders may sometimes fall into the problem of our worship and songs and words in worship being self-seeking, which would be planning what we're feeling this week and not looking for God's glorification and adoration first and then second, looking and blessing others with what we plan/do. I believe our songs and prayers of more extreme (don't like that word) lament and celebration may be more appropriate in smaller circles, like families, small groups, places where we truly know individuals and we are more intimate.

We must strive to be Christ centered and when that becomes who we are and what we are together, then we have not lost sight of what is righteous, a relationship with GOd through the sanctification that Jesus Christ has provided us.

THANKS Andrew. I think most readers would be amazed by your age, judging by your insights. We should explore the benefits of meeting different needs in different settings, especially with the small group idea.

I actually learned a lot about what I said from Gary Bruce when I interned with him this summer. This is one of the questions I always ask worshi ministers- how do you connect with the church through music/scripture/whatever and teh assembly, when you've got all ages, all soci-economic backgrounds, etc. How??

Lee Milam pointed out this same idea of how heavy a responsibility it is to lead worship for such a diverse gathering as we find in most any assembly.

Keith, this is a terrific question, and already there have been several strong responses from people who have given a lot of thinking to the subject. I wrote a thesis on this very topic some 20 years ago, and what I was working on at the time was how often evangelicals sang shallow songs of testimony and invitation, rather than reflecting the balance of the book of Psalms. I won't bore anyone with that tome, filled with statistics. But I would like to include a more recent article I wrote dealing with this matter of using the Psalms as a model for balance and seeing how we stack up. Let's see how it comes through in this blog format (there's a chart included):

Are We Really Singing the Psalms?
The Church has rediscovered the Book of Psalms! For years neglected by evangelicals, Psalms have reemerged from their long exile in the middle of our Bibles to find their place among hymns and spiritu¬al songs once again. New Scripture choruses have been intro¬duced into most of our churches, to the point that some churches are using them almost exclu¬sively. So we are singing the Psalms now! But are we really singing the Psalms?

The Problem
Contemporary choruses have much that is good. They are often, perhaps even usually, Scripture chorus¬es, often taken from the Psalms, and this is extremely com¬mend¬able. But what bothers me is that they seem to be taken from short, carefully-selected sections of Psalms, geared only toward what is currently a “hot” subject. “Hot” subjects of the seventies seem to have been Testimony and Evangelism and the Names of God. In the eighties, charismatic worship added subjects of the Holy Spirit, the Royal¬ty and Majes¬ty of Jesus, and Signs and Wonders in His name. Hot topics of the nineties continued in the vein of Spiritual Warfare, and more recently the hottest topic is Personal Love Songs. The rich young Baby Boomer might say, “All these we have sung since our childhood. What do we still lack?”

André Resner, Jr. suggests that we have neglected the subject of Lament. Almost half of the Psalms have either individual or communi¬ty lament. In contrast, no Christian hymnals today seem to have even a category in their topical indexes for Lament. Likewise, a few years ago I compared four evangelical hymnals to the Book of Psalms. I discov¬ered that some of the evangelical hymnals of the 1970's had been badly neglecting the area of worship (especially individual prayer) as they focused on songs of testimony and invitation. Believers were telling their story to unbelievers more than they were addressing the Lord. These may be some weaknesses in our hymnals, but that trend has largely passed.

What about today's Psalm choruses? If previous evangelical hymnals were biased toward evangelistic testimony, and if they neglected the concept of biblical lament, what about the choruses more recently in use? How do they actually stack up to the Book of Psalms itself? New Testament practice, church history and many theologians and liturgists concur that the Psalms are the standard by which all congre¬gational song can and should be measured.

A quick survey of Scripture sources for a modern col¬lection reveals that about a third of them are drawn directly from the Book of Psalms. Un¬like psalters of the past, however, which included every verse of every psalm, today's praise and worship choruses seem to choose very short, very select verses of Scripture. Are some topics being over¬looked? Has the Christian commu¬nity satis¬fied itself with the “form” of Scripture choruses but ne¬glected the “sub¬stance” of the whole counsel of God?

The Case of Psalms v. Choruses
In this current age, the Book of Psalms may well sue contemporary Scripture choruses for misrepresenta¬tion. The accusation would be that Scripture choruses use the label “Psalms,” but do not fairly represent the balance of what the Psalms contain. Called to repre¬sent the defense are a 2002 CCLI Top 100 list, a 1991 CCLI Top 25 list and Word's collec¬tion of choruses Songs for Praise and Wor¬ship.

In 1 Chronicles 16:14 it says that David “appointed Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, to make petition, to give thanks, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel.” This verse seems to imply four purposes for the Levites (some of whom would be musicians): minister before the ark (priestly songs), make petition (requesting songs), give thanks (thanksgiving songs), and praise the Lord (songs of worship and praise). To this passage might be added 1 Chronicles 25:1, where some of the men are set apart ”for the ministry of prophesying, accompa¬nied by harps, lyres and cymbals.” So a fifth category of prophecy (teaching and exhorting songs) is added. These five cate¬go¬ries correspond roughly to the types of expression Artur Weiser sug¬gests in his categoriza¬tion of the Psalms.
Presentation of the Evidence: The Book of Psalms
Priestly songs are the smallest of the five categories in the Psalms. They represent the relatively rare occur¬rences where the writer speaks of presenting sacrifices and offerings to God, or being in the presence of God and minis¬tering to him in some way. Most are quite brief, often just one verse that mentions bringing a sacrifice or lifting hands in the holy place. “Ministering to the LORD” in a self-referential fashion is relatively rare in the Book of Psalms.

Petition songs are much more common in the Psalms. Petitions are often indi¬vidual lament before the Lord. Sometimes they are corpo¬rate or national lament. Some of the psalms are even imprecat¬ory psalms (Ps. 35:1 “Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me”) or penitential psalms. More than a fourth of the words in the Book of Psalms contain some form of petition, directly addressing God and asking him for something. It the second most common catego¬ry in the canoni¬cal collection.

Thanksgiving songs and praise and worship songs overlap, and are the hardest to distin¬guish from each other. The writer may be giving thanks to the Lord for things he has done and move indis¬tinguish¬ably into the realm of praise; or when elabo¬rating on things he praises God for, the writer may also list some per¬sonal benefits. At least one of the two catego¬ries is found in most of the book of Psalms. Altogether, thanksgiving, praise and worship make up more than half of the verses in the Book of Psalms.

Many of the psalms are also prophecy songs. Prophecy songs will contain wisdom or didactic elements, some piece of doctrine or teaching or some call to repen¬tance or other exhortation. Prophe¬cy songs are directed toward people rather than toward God. Prophecy is a relatively rare category in the Book of Psalms.

The Choruses
The defense for modern choruses could point out that they reflect the balance of the Book of Psalms in many ways: Both choruses and Psalms have a strong empha¬sis on thanksgiv¬ing and praise and worship elements. Both are similar in the amount of priestly songs and prophecy songs. But the most notice¬able difference between the choruses and the psalms is the almost total lack of petition in the choruses. Most of those petitions ask God to help the worshiper love Him more or please Him, so they are personal priestly petitions. And almost none of those petitions contain any kind of lament. So while half of the psalms contain some petition, less than ten percent of the cho¬ruses have any.

What do the choruses have instead of petition? Praise and worship. A graph comparing the choruses and the Psalms is found below:




Final Arguments
Some of today's bias toward praise and worship is proper. This is, after all, the New Testament era. Christ has come and has fulfilled the prophecies. He has brought about mankind's forgive¬ness and spiritual healing. The promise of eternal life is se¬cured, and the seal of the Holy Spirit has been granted. There is less need for dwelling in doubt or despair in light of all that we have in Christ. Rather, rejoicing in the promise of heaven or in the fulfilled hope of the Old Testament is in order. Howev¬er, there does remain a sense in which the human body is not fully saved, and there does remain a sense of groan¬ing for the comple¬tion of all things in Christ. The choruses would do well to reflect the full gospel of redemption in a fallen world.

There are many more songs and choruses of lament and petition in recent years, though songs of lament tend to have intimate thoughts less appropriate for corporate singing, due to their more personal and introspective nature. Many of the psalms were also origi¬nally sung without congregational participation. In fact, congre¬gational in¬volvement in the Old Testa¬ment was much more spec¬tative than later worship has been. Congre¬gants were more likely to listen as David or a Levitical choir presented the message than they were to sing together. So perhaps the trend today toward having a soloist present some honest petitions before the Lord, and then having the con¬gregation together with the solo¬ist proclaim God's faith¬ful¬ness with thanksgiving for prom¬ised answers is not so far from the spirit of the Psalms.

The Psalms are longer and less tightly organized than modern Scripture choruses. The current trend in modern choruses is toward brief, single-thought songs. In the process of choosing one verse from a given Psalm, it would be natural to choose the optimistic, rich core verse of praise from among the other verses. It would be nearly impossible to write an easy-to-learn chorus for Western society from an impre¬catory psalm, let alone to have people enjoy it and sell it.

The Decision of the Jury
What is the conclusion of the matter? The current return to Scripture choruses is positive. The use of brevi¬ty is necessary. The Church is gaining a good supply of praise and worship songs. But the Church could use more songs (and hymns) of petition. Let the Church give thanks to the Lord; let her honor her King; let her be built up with truth and have everyone prophesy in her midst. But let her also in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, pres¬ent her requests to God. And then the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard her heart and her mind in Christ Jesus. Let's really sing the Psalms!

Here is part of another article I wrote on the subject of balance and the Psalms.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (Jesus)
By Ken E. Read

It’s all about Jesus, you know. I’m sorry if you have gotten the wrong idea. In spite of what we may sing week after week on Sundays, the Lord is our song, Christ Jesus is our refuge, God is our salvation, and in the Lord Jesus Christ is our forgiveness. I guess I feel a need to clarify, because otherwise you might come to the wrong conclusion. Let me explain myself.

Here are some statistics that could reveal some general trends in our society:

Christian History magazine reported that using “Yahoo” as a search engine in late 1998, there are almost 900 (896 to be exact) references to “Jesus Christ,” but nearly 1000 (976) to the word “Celtic.” That may show what’s important to our society.

But Yahoo is a secular source, so we would expect such things. How are things within the church? Maybe it’s significant that in The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration, 92 of the songs begin with the letter “I,” while only 42 begin with the letter “J.” Could it be that we like to sing about ourselves twice as much as we sing about Him?

What’s more, a student looked through a collection compiled by a major publisher of the most popular choruses used in churches today. In the collection, the word “mercy” appears 16 times, while “Jesus” appears only 14 times. Could it be that week after week people are learning about mercy, rejoicing that they are guilt-free and forgiven, but that they are not hearing Who forgives their sins, or how they have come to receive that mercy?

It’s all about Jesus, but perhaps some people are thinking that the center of the Gospel is all about mercy, rather than about Him!

Compare that to the New Testament epistles. The review of an exhaustive concordance reveals that the word “Jesus” appears 341 times, but “mercy” only 38 times. Perhaps we should learn from the balance that the Holy Spirit gave us in the Bible, and remember that the One who bought our salvation is more worthy of our attention than the mercy itself.

What I have come to call “creeping liberalism” is a problem in our churches today. Many of our churches are not overt liberals who question the validity of the Scriptures. But we sometimes simply leave out the controversial in an attempt to be seeker sensitive. We have purposed not to be offensive, lest we turn people away before we’ve had a chance to preach the Good News to them. But remember, the gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ, not the Good News of Mercy.

Week after week goes by, and slowly it dawns on me that we have not preached or sung about the blood of Christ, about the cross, or about repentance for months—not because we don’t believe in them anymore, but because they never seem to be appropriate. But if we never get around to the hard truths—the glorious truths—of the gospel, have we given the full truth? Jesus’ one-word sermon was “Repent!” What is ours?

Worship renewal is taking place in our country—praise the Lord! But it seems our worship renewal has more to do with musical style and emotional expression than it does truth. Worship leaders choose songs based on emotional closeness to an often-unspecified deity, but in many “contemporary churches” we never get around to singing doctrine. Jesus told us that the Father was seeking those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth.

In the history of our movement, we have strongly tended to err on an overemphasis of the “truth” side, but have lacked spirit. We have become Christians “from the neck up” in many cases. That has needed correction! But I’m afraid that now the pendulum has already swung past center, and that many of our worship planners have led us to imbalance the other way.

Someone needs to call us back to Christ-centered truth. One of my favorite song lyrics of years past is “One Day.” The music is dated by today’s standards, but the words are a gold mine. In its refrain, we express the fullness of The Christ Event:
“Living--He loved me,
Dying--He saved me,
Buried--He carried my sins far away;
Rising--He justified freely, forever:
One day He’s coming--O glorious day!”

Similarly, I applaud the newer version of The Christ Event in song as written more recently by Rick Founds in “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”:
“You came from heaven to earth to show the way;
From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay.
From the cross to the grave,
From the grave to the sky;
Lord, I lift Your name on high.”

These are the kinds of songs we need. Yet, it’s not enough to say, “We need writers to create songs like these.” What we really need are worship leaders to fill our congregational singing with songs like these.

It’s all about Jesus, you know. It’s about His life, His teachings, His atoning sacrifice, His resurrection, His exalted position, and His return. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Church is not just a party over the death of guilt; it is a celebration of the Lord Jesus Christ. O come, let us adore Him—Christ, the Lord!

Thank you Ken, for sharing this with us! After reading your book (I reviewed earlier in my blog) and your comments, I realize this forum should be led by you, Jeff and Leslie. I'm learning so much from this discussion.

Did you say your doctoral work was in music composition? What are your duties at the university (what subjects do you teach?)

Keith, I have taught a variety of courses over the years, including music history and theory, worship leadership, hymnology, world music and various composition and arranging and keyboard classes. I'm sort of the utility infielder of our music and worship department. Did a couple of Masters theses, one on The Use of Person and Number in Selected Hymnals in Light of the Psalms (to which I referred in the first article) and the other Changes in Harmony in the Music of Michael W. Smith, which explores sort of a history of pop harmony and how MWS embodied the trends of the early 90s. Mostly, I just love Jesus, and I want to worship Him in spirit and in truth, rather than snatching up the latest stuff. Thanks for asking about me; i hope to get to know you and your circle of friends better, as the Lord allows.

Ken,

I'm so glad I got to know you at NACC this year. Yes, I hope our fellowship opportunities grow, because I have been blessed so much by you already. And, the people who read this blog enjoy hearing from experts like yourself. Glad you took the time to post.

Keith,

I think this is a relevant topic considering it may be the single most divisive issue in churches today. It boggles my mind how much time we spend criticizing this style of worship or that instead of paying attention to how each style ministers to the needs of different people. I heard a great speaker one time talk about how three buddies are fishing at the lake. All three are using different bait, tackle, reels and fishing styles. And yet, all three are fishing and catching fish. Sometimes, we need to not worry so much when a certain song or song style doesn't appeal to us. We should remember in those times that God is fishing for someone else and we should rejoice with the angels when He catches one. We also need to remember that worship is for Him, not us.

Speaking of that, let me add one more thought. I have heard the argument that contemporary choruses are too self-centered and not about God. This can only be the argument of someone who is not paying much attention to the words. It is my observation in a weekly service that is almost completely choruses that most of them sing directly to God about his greatness, grace and right to be praises. Most of the tradtional hymns seem to talk about God and his work instead of praising Him directly. I do love many of the old, favorite hymns of faith. I do not think it is sacreligous to update the tempo a bit to appeal to a generation that my hear them new for the first time.

I have always felt that our worship is our sacrifice to God. We should always strive to be giving God the first fruits of our labor. My personal preference is to have primarily songs of praise to God and to Jesus. I also believe that there are times when our worship calls for other things, like a focus on communion or songs of lament to show our dependence on God. Other times, it's good to just sing songs from our past to help remind us of where we have been and where we are going. There are so many older hymns that are still very good and relay just the message that needs to be relayed.

It is a challenge to keep a worship service relevant and meaningful and at the same time balance that with different types of songs that everyone will like. Ultimately, I believe that God is pleased with our worship as long as it is from the heart and that we worship him in spirit and in truth.

Morgan

Yes, Morgan, great thoughts. Remember in our previous discussion how it was pointed out that teenagers are RE-discovering the hymns. Actually, DIscovering the hymns (it's their first encounter with them in many cases), and when set to a contemporary arrangement, they are finding many of the rich hymns to be as meaningful today as ever.