DISCUSS THIS
Pastors, church musicians, and those who hate/love the music in their church might want to get in on this.
posted by Shaun Groves @ 7/31/2006
11 comments
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11 Comments:
I could be way off here and it wouldn't be the first time, but why are the unchurched singing worship music in the first place? Not that you have to be "churched" to be a Christian of course, but since "worship" music is typically sung in churches, most of the audience is familiar with the meaning of most lyrics. I can certainly see where they would be strange to a new comer, but so would the rest of the service, so why should the focus be only on the music? I don't agree with "dumbing down" church, but we certainly need to make sure that all who come, for whatever reason, understand what's going on and be made to feel welcome.
Beth
That was my exact thought. Is he looking for worship music to worship to or worship (outreach) music to reach the "un-churched"? My opinion is, like everything else in Christian music, it will take time. There is new music out there that is worshipful and "progressive". Leeland, for one. Rend The Heavens, for another, and yes even David Crowder. In my opinion we will see Leeland at the forefront of all that though.
Here is what I said:
Blog you pointed to said: "Generally speaking, worship music doesn't sound like the music I hear on the Top 40 radio channels."
I have to ask, what does top 40 music sound like? I would submit that you can't pin it down. It is fruitless to try and sound "hip" in church or "relevant" - of course there are extremes that we could point to that would enver work in church, but for the most part - "relevant" from one person to the next is so diverse these days that it is way too hard to try and hit that mark. I would say that the best "relevant" factor is excellence. Be yourself and be excellent and God will most likely use you is you are submitted to him. l
Music in the church wil never sound like the radio because it is not the radio - music in the church is played live and usually not by professional musicans like we hear on the radio- to hold our churchs to that standard is unrealistic and unhelpful.
I'm sort of indifferent to the music in church as it's not really that important. The words are what matter. I'm more concerned that the words are theologically on and have a purpose of edifying the church.
Ah, we're into the old "outreach" verses "uplift" discussion on the purpose of Christian music. I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't chased my own tail on this one in the past (okay, I still do, but just for fun). What is the purpose of Christian music: to praise God. What does "to praise God" mean? Does it mean to present the gospel to the lost and hopeless: of course it does. Does it mean building up and encouraging the body of Christ: you betcha. Does it have to sound like Coldplay or Greenday or Eminem? To some people, this is the best sound to catch their ear for teaching or encouragement. Does it have to sound like The Oak Ridge Boys, The Statler Brothers, or a Stamps-Baxter song? Again, some people will listen to nothing else.
What gets my goat is when I see an overwhelming trend to one direction, in exclusion of the others. When, for whatever reasons (marketability, freshness, old-timey feel, etc.), you only have one portion presented (be it the outreach, the uplifting, the new, or the old) you not only exclude music but also people. At our congregation, we have committed to singing all types of music and to not diving into traditional and contemporary services. We do not want to split the body, even as far as worshiping separately in the same building, over what we present to God. There are still people who complain, but that is always true.
"Music in the church wil never sound like the radio because it is not the radio - music in the church is played live and usually not by professional musicans like we hear on the radio-"
Uummm, yeah- live music usually doesn't ever sound like recorded music. Why wouldn't you have stated the question; "Why doesn't U2 sound the same on CD as they do live?"
I'm not totally sure that I follow your point.
Wouldn't our outreach be the real part of worship? If you look up the word for worship in the greek new testament and then translate it it has nothing to do with music!!! It was a word that ment service, to work as a slave. Our service to God is our worship. Maybe if we focused more on the working as a slave for Christ part we wouldn't worry as much about the music part and draw more people to Christ. *rant done*
It's funny...you never hear people complaining about the preaching sounding "Christian."
Amy, (mustard packet)
you're exactly right. worship in NT times means service. when the NT talks about singing hymns, etc, it seems to be for the purpose of edifying the believers. There is definitely a place for music in a gathering of believers, but not the sort of place we give it today.
The worship service does not exist for the lost person. The worship service exists to edify the body. That's not to say that a person can't come to know the Lord during a worship service, because he can. That's just not what the focus of the service should be. As we study the scripture and read the records of our early church fathers, we see that it would have been extremely rare for an unbeliever to gather with a local assembly. Why? Because the gathering of the local assembly existed for the purpose of edifying the body. The participated in the Lord's Supper and received instruction from their shepherd, and sang praises to God. Then they left, and in their everyday lives they brought the gospel to the people around them. Somewhere along the way we got this confused. Instead of going and making disciples, we ask the lost people to come to us so we can convert them. This is not the New Testament concept of church. So to answer the question... no the music does not need to be sensitive to lost people. Lost people can't worship Jesus, they don't know Him.
My response to this can be found here.
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