When it comes to worship music, I strongly resonate with most of theologian Wayne Gudem's thoughts below. So you can understand why, listen to my oscillating heart.
When I can turn my head toward the back of the room, and the voices of the congregation fill my ears, I feel like a part of the body, a family.
When all I can hear is one voice at the microphone from the stage, I feel like a spectator.
When songs are as easy to sing from memory in the dark with a group of friends at Cottonwood Beach when wind blew the sheet music away and everyone's cell phone is off, as they are with a live band and words on a big screen, I feel like I can "take the Name of Jesus with" me wherever I go.
When songs are belted out in a key above my normal vocal range, with a nondescript verse, anthemic chorus, and two bridges and a thumping drum and electric guitar solo, I feel trapped, like I woke up in a concert at the Clark County Amphitheater that I didn't buy tickets for, and I know I'll have no way of remembering any of the words on my way home except for the chorus.
When I hear the strains of a song from my childhood and notice myself and everyone around me swaying and swinging, or when I find a lilting melody I can harmonize with, I know I've found my place.
When I feel the sanctuary room start to fill with electric sounds and panic starts to rise within me, when I can no longer hear my own voice or that of the person behind me, and I grab my backpack and run to the lobby only to find one or two friends who're there for the same reason, I start to realize that the worship-industrial experience was not designed for people like us.
And my friends and their kids are in the band. How can I love what they love and still respect my own feelings?
Try a thing seven times and you'll like it. It almost worked with jelly rolls. I even found a BlackPink song that I liked after listening to their entire discography.
And the mystery I cannot yet grasp is how some musical experiences can move others in and yet close me out.
In the shower Monday morning, I find myself humming "I'm fighting a battle you've already won", even while wrestling with thoughts that I don't quite believe it yet, that the words and their catchy tune don't take hardship seriously enough. And so I switch to "Where are you, Lord" or "Teach me to abide", and then back comes the catchy tune with the bold words, and this time I like it better in spite of myself. We need both, and the one song makes more sense in light of the other.
And still, I think there is such a thing as a different spirit or ethos, both between songwriters, and between songleading styles.
I asked ChatGPT to evaluate the songs of Phil Wickham with those of his brother Evan, and decide for each whether the lyrics reflected the theology of Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now or Joseph Hellerman's When the Church Was a Family. ChatGPT said Phil's songs were just a bit like Osteen's book because of his emphasis on the individual worshiper celebrating their victory through Christ (although Phil focuses more on the glory of God and Osteen more on self), while Evan's songs were more like Hellerman's book because of his focus on community and contemplation and drawing from the wider historic church tradition. If you listen to Evan's story of his crisis of faith and reconstruction, you'll understand why. I especially recommend the breath prayer (mentioned here) which he uses to help submit his identity as a songwriter and every other identity and make them secondary to his one identity as loved child of God:
"Nothing to lose. Nothing to prove.
My life is Christ. Nothing else matters."
And now on to Mr. Grudem:
"Worship Music: Some Personal Observations"
(from Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 2nd edition, chapter 51. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2020.)
In the following section, I have included some arguments from Scripture and also some personal observations and preferences based on my experiences. I realize that some readers may have different opinions, but I hope that, in general, churches will find these observations helpful.
a. "Look at Me!" Vs. "Look at God!"
The first consideration when thinking about worship music is the heart attitude of the worship leader (and the same questions could be asked of any others in the worship band or choir). Is the worship leader's main goal to get people to think, "He (or she) is an excellent musician and put on an excellent musical performance," or is the main goal to get people to think, "He (or she) led me into the presence of God, and I truly worshiped God." The first answer produces a "performance mentality" where the musicians seek to show off their musical abilities, and if people clap at the end, they will be mainly clapping for the musicians. The second answer leads to a "worship atmosphere" where people often sense the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, where the time of singing sometimes will end with reverent silence, and if people do clap at the end, they will be clapping for God, as in Psalm 47:1: "Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!"
Avoiding a "performance mentality" is admittedly difficult, perhaps especially so for highly trained musicians who have been receiving acclamation for years for their outstanding musical performances. But it is certainly possible through prayer and through recognizing that "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).
Because of these same considerations, my personal preference (others may differ) is for a worship leader to speak to the congregation between songs rarely, and then very briefly, and sometimes not at all. At the end of a wonderful worship song, I am often thinking about God and his presence in the room, and then if the worship leader starts talking, this breaks my concentration, and I have to start thinking about the worship leader and what he or she is saying.
b. Volume.
Many years ago, my wife, Margaret, and I were part of an exciting new church where God was evidently at work, many people were being saved, and the church was bursting with hundreds of people in their twenties and thirties. We especially loved the times of worship with new contemporary worship songs. But one Sunday a friend from another state visited our church. After the service, he said, "The drums were so loud that I guess you don't want anyone over forty years old coming to your church." (He himself was a mature, wise pastor of a large, influential church.) I didn't understand what he meant, because we loved the music in that church, but now at age seventy-one I clearly understand. After age forty or so, many people's ears become sensitive to loud noises, and for some it becomes physically painful to sit in a church with a loud worship band. (This is true for many but not all people after age forty or fifty.)
I am now aware, through many personal conversations, that there are several churches in our area with good Bible teaching but with music so loud that many of our friends won't consider attending, or they will show up thirty minutes late so that they miss the worship time but hear the sermon. In either case, they are prevented from participating in the corporate worship life of that church. Commenting in Christianity Today on the same problem, Canadian professor John G. Stackhouse Jr. wrote, "I find almost every worship band in every church I visit to be too loud -- not just a little bit loud, but uncomfortably, even painfully, loud."
The situation has some parallels with the church at Corinth, where some people were enjoying speaking in tongues during the worship service but other people could not understand what they were saying. Paul rebuked them: "You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up" (1 Cor. 14:17). The Corinthian tongue-speakers were genuinely worshiping and giving thanks to God, but when there was no interpretation of the tongues, they were leaving others out and not acting in love. Reflecting a similar concern, my comments to the worship leader in a high music-volume church would be to paraphrase Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 14:17: "You may be praising God well enough, but your music is so loud that many other people are not allowed to worship with you."
Of course, there is a place for Christian bands to give loud concerts aimed at (for example) people under thirty. This may be for an evangelistic purpose, or it may simply be a special concert for people to enjoy listening to. But the Sunday morning worship service, where the whole church should be worshiping together, is not the place for such a concert.
c. Are People Mostly Singing or Mostly Listening?
Corporate worship should be a time when the vast majority of people in the congregation actually sing songs of worship and praise to God. A worship leader should lead people to worship, not simply worship God by himself or with the band while everybody else watches.
Paul was writing to the entire church in Colossae when he said they should be "singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God" (Col. 3:16). This was not just a command for a few Christians with unusual skill in playing instruments or singing, but it was for everyone. But I have visited churches I could see hardly anyone singing but almost everyone standing listening with mouths closed. In such a case, the worship band was not leading congregational worship but was replacing congregational worship with a mini concert.
In a related verse, Paul writes to the Christians in Ephesus, "Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart" (Eph. 5:18). In this verse Paul specifies that the songs in our worship times can be addressed both to "one another" and also to "the Lord." One implication of Paul's encouragement to be "addressing one another" in our songs is that a congregation should be able to hear itself singing. When a worship band is so loud that people in the congregation cannot hear themselves or others singing, the people can hardly be said to be "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."
On the other hand, sometimes a worship leader will silence all the instruments and lead the entire congregation in a cappella singing. I find these times especially meaningful, as I hear the entire congregation "addressing one another" and "making melody to the Lord" in songs of worship.
d. Are the Songs Easily Singable?
Many of the most popular hymns that have endured in the church through centuries have melody lines that are relatively easy to remember and easy to sing, even without musical instruments. (Think of "Amazing Grace," "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," or "Great Is Thy Faithfulness.") Some contemporary worship music shares that characteristic: once you learn the songs, they are easy to sing.
But other songs used in modern worship have strange melody lines that are hard to learn and hard to remember. Some have pauses that need to be filled in by musical instruments, with the result that people cannot easily sing them by themselves or in small groups. And on Sunday mornings, few people will sing along with songs that are not easy to sing.
e. Do Most of the People Know Most of the Songs?
There is certainly a place for teaching a congregation new songs ("Oh sing to the Lord a new song," Ps. 96:1; see also Ps. 33:3; 40:3; 98:1; Rev. 5:9; 14:3). But the vast majority of songs in any worship service should be ones that people already know because people worship best with songs they know.
Twice a year at Phoenix Seminary (where I teach) we have a special evening chapel service for the whole seminary community, and every time we do this, we invite a worship leader from one of the more than 100 churches that send students to our seminary. These different worship leaders nearly always do a good job of leading such a diverse group in worship because they stick to familiar worship songs that almost everyone already knows. But occasionally a worship leader will try to teach us a new song that he himself has recently composed. It never works well. This is because people cannot worship very effectively while they are trying to learn a song they have never heard before -- their minds are concentrating on trying to learn the melody and the words, and not very much of their attention is focused on coming into the presence of God.
f. Older Hymns Vs. Contemporary Worship Songs.
I am thankful to God for the proliferation of many thousands of new worship songs in recent decades. I find many of them conducive to deep, heartfelt worship, both in the assembly of the church and in private times of praise at home or in my car.
However, I am surprised that some churches now sing only songs written in the last twenty or thirty years (or less). The church of Christ has a rich history of hymns that have endured through the centuries and have effectively expressed people's faith and love for God. It is true that in previous generations churches have regularly adopted new songs and hymns, but they have not entirely discarded the older ones.
I have carried around a favorite hymn book for about forty years, and when I went through the index recently I found that I knew 324 of the 538 hymns in that book. I would feel a great loss if I attended a church where none of those familiar hymns were ever sung. While I appreciate many contemporary worship songs, I also love to sing songs like "Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts," originally written (in Latin) by Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived 1091-1153. If this song has ministered to people's hearts for over 800 years, that is a good argument for continuing its use from time to time. What about "Be Thou My Vision" (from an Irish hymn, eighth century AD), "All Creatures of Our God and King" (Francis of Assisi, lived 1182-1226), or "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," written by Martin Luther (lived 1483-1546)? More recently composed but still nearly 300 years old are hymns by Isaac Watts (lived 1674-1748), such as "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross."
Future generations will continue to reap spiritual blessings from the richness of these older hymns if churches today continue to use them in worship, along with contemporary worship music as well. But a word of caution -- worship leaders who incorporate some older hymns as well as newer worship songs should realize that, for people who have sung these hymns for decades, they are truly the music of their hearts, music with which they have long familiarity. Therefore any efforts at "improving" the words or the music should be done minimally, if at all, and only when really necessary, not just for novelty, because this would then be asking people to learn a (partially) new song (see section e above). Just as an older generation can learn new worship songs, so a younger generation can certainly learn some of the older hymns of the church.
g. The Theological Content of Worship Songs.
It is important, as a first priority, that the words of all the songs used in worship faithfully represent the teachings of Scripture. Paul tells Titus, "Teach what corresponds with sound doctrine" (Titus 2:1), and that also applies to worship songs because the songs sung by a church have a teaching function -- and that teaching needs to be theologically sound.
Over time, the songs should also encompass the wide range of topics taught by the Bible. The well-used hymnal that I mentioned in the previous section has a "Topical Index" with 101 categories of theological and practical topics that are addressed by these hymns. I do not know if a compilation of modern worship songs would have such a diverse range of topics. Whatever songs are used in worship in a church, it would be beneficial to the entire church if, over the course of months and years, the songs as a whole imitated the content of the teaching of the apostle Paul, who proclaimed "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27).
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Note from Nathan: I posted this on Facebook on 12/2/2024, and then revised it slightly and posted it here, after some encouragement by my FB friends, particularly Brenda Boerger and Joana Jones.
