A journey away from contemporary worship
 

http://www.dancogan.com/my-journey-a...-worship-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 Which only served to confirm my bias that hymns were simply out-of-date.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:

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:
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.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

If he thinks old hymns are good, he'll think he hit the motherload when he rediscovers psalmsinging.

The worship we offer to God as the church isn't supposed to be "contemporary" ... it is supposed to be eternal.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

I liked the part about songs that repeat the same shallow phrase over and over.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

He's just burned out on the K LOVE type contemporary songs. I understand that. I have always stuggled with that. TO ME it seems as if EVERY song ALWAYS is something about how terrible we are and yet God always just keeps loving us.

They ALMOST always seem to downplay holiness. Much of it is really shallow.

With that said very few of the hymns move me any more than K LOVE does. I can remember the drowsiness that settled over the congregation when I was in the Church Of Christ and the song service began.

With writers like Martin Luther I would not expect much and frankly dont get much.

Now as Esaias said THE PSALMS have always offered a richness that cant be otherwise found. Why? Because they were inspired by God! Thats what the early Jesus Movement and the early Charismatic Movement songs were. The Biblical Psalms.

That style of music is long gone now for the most part.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

I dont know about martin luther, but there are MANY awesome old hymns that both theologically rich and spiritually moving. There are also a metric crudload of old hymns that are as lame as all get out.
As for church of christ music, a lot depends on the worshippers. I have heard I Can Only Imagine at a UPC that brought the house down and turned into a 1 and a half hour prayer meeting during which one of my daughters got the Holy Ghost. I heard the same song performed at an AG church that was L A M E and my kids were asking me "are you sure this is a pentecostal church?" lol

Most of the really good hymns are little known. Sanctuary, Jesus Thou Art the Sinners Friend, Help Me To Be Holy, Fill Me Now, Baptised Into The Body, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah, I Am Satisfied, When Our Lord Shall Come Again, When I See The Blood, Go To Dark Gethsemane, and many other lesser known and nearly forgotten hymns are treasures the church ought never to lose.

But psalms beat them all. :)

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

Now about psalms... there is a growing movement across the board to return to the psalms. I believe this is of God and he is calling people to authentic worship and apostolic experience. The problem is (with psalms) people aren't quite sure "how to do it". But God is doing something in this area.

Every culture expresses itself in its own unique way but God is unchanging. His worship will be "universal" but expressed with the unique sound and sight or "feel" of each congregation.

Metrical psalms are a start, but we need better tunes/melodies to complement the few truly good melodies available.

Straight psalmody (responsoriallyfor example) is usually what we do, with original melodies that are an outgrowth and evolution of our southern, pentecostal, scotch-irish heritage.

We even hand clap when "chanting the psalms" in our "southern/appalachian pentecostal" style.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

There are contemporary artists who sort of revive hymns and give them a fresh sound like Chris Tomlin and Hillsong.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

I found a neat site. A guy does "scripture songs" as well as old hymns and adaptations of hymns. Check this out:

http://www.scripturesongs.net/mp3/os...Praise_You.mp3

http://www.scripturesongs.net

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

Yes!

http://www.scripturesongs.net/mp3/ss...gUntoJesus.mp3

Picture this. A living room full of people singing along with this. People raising their hands in praise some with tears streaming down their faces.

Now you know what the 70's and 80's Charismatic meetings were like.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

Speaking of Psalms. This group does Psalms only last I knew.

Sons Of Korah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ00rNoKhDE

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

reminds me of my younger days when I would try to sing scriptures... I have one for 2Chron 7:14... i will try to record it later. :-)

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

That was cool. You learn scripture and a song.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

"Sons of Korah?" :lol Sorry, but why would a Christian group want to be named for a dude who rebelled against God and was swallowed up in an earthquake?

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

I've thought about resigning from leading worship more than a few times because of these music wars. It gets tiring hearing complaints about the songs.

I love old hymns. I love that they're rich and each stanza is full of meaning. But before we have a contemporary song burning, consider the times in which those hymns were written, then compare the language used then to the language used today.

People gripe about the shallowness of contemporary songs, yet should understand it's just a reflection of the times in which we live. For decades, there has been a dumbing down of the English language. We may have achieved great scientific, medicinal, technological and other advances, but we have regressed in language.

Words are shallow these days. Slang has replaced true speech. Words are no long defined by Oxford or Mirriam Webster; instead they are defined by www.urbandictionary.com.

This is why modern worship songs seem more shallow when compared to hymns. Bluntly, most of today's society is too stupid to understand, write or even sing words like the old hymns.

But the good news is even though many of today's modern worship songs are shallow, compared to the old hymns; people are still blessed and touched when sung with anointing.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

:toofunny I should have known this. I had to write about this in Bible school. #embarrassing

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

Does anyone have any thoughts about the frequent mention of singing a "new song" in the Bible? Why do you think did the psalmists say that?

I have a lot of respect for the old hymns but I don't think it is healthy to generalize that old is better or vice versa. There are many contemporary songs with scriptural and meaningful lyrics, not to mention, beautiful melodies. Just saying. :-)

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

I think he meant that something just learned about God that one never experienced before, like something He recently did.

VERY WISE WORDS!

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

It IS healthy to generalize and say older is better when the truth is the newer music is shallow and sensuous and not spiritual. Being "blessed" nowadays is Christian slang for being happily entertained. Music has become almost just a tool for catharsis in many churches. Sure there are modern songs that are good. And like I said before there are many MANY old hymns that suck eggs. But music IN THE CHURCH is not for catharsis only but instruction, praise tp God as an offering, admonition and teaching, prayer and supplication, etc. We have to MAKE CERTAIN everyone understands it ain't a concert or music show put on for OUR entertainment.

Antiquarianism for its own sake is not the proper way, but neither is self-centered focusing on what entertains today's masses.

A major stumbling point is the fact that most if not all of the average church's meetings are designed as evangelistic meetings. Thus the music is designed to "win hearts and minds". We want visitors to like the music so they'll come back. We want members to like the music so they'll stay. In short, we think of music as offering an "experience" and we want it to be a good one. As a result we get redirected in our focus from where it ought to be. And thus the music wars.

If however we adjust our paradigm to put evangelism where it belongs - out there in the highways and byways - and we return to understand the CHURCH SERVICE is primarily the saints worshipping God, with HIM as the primary audience, the music wars would become more irrelevent.

As for today's dumbed down general population the church should TEACH through music. After all we are commanded to teach one another in song. Most good hymns are not so archaic people can't learn. Has anyone known someone who was member of a hymn singing church who said "I have never figured out what in the world we're singing"?

I mean is Amazing Grace really too hard to understand? And suppose most people became completely illiterate... should we go to strictly instrumental music with no words? Obviously not. So we have a challenge, to ELEVATE people, not dumb down the church.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

By the way, if you just cast your view across the religious landscape you will see a growing dussatisfaction with shallow, me centered worship experiences. I believe God is priming the population for a return to serious Christianity.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

One other thing... the NT as well as early post apostolic/ante-nicene history indicate a common feature of apostolic worship was the ecstatic song ... ie an impromptu spirit-inspired song often glossalalic. Bartleman in his account of the Azusa street revival describes the same phenomena as occuring there.

Does this still happen? If not then why not?

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

This is true, though most of the articles I've read have been focusing more on how music has become entertainment or a concert, not so much the content of the songs. Lights, fog, mega-screens -- all have been well-deserved fodder in several articles in the past year.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

Do a little study on the "sons of Korah" and you might be surprised.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

i still remember this from Evangelistic Temple in Houston. that was 35 years ago, however, but i would go back just for the praise service; and i am not a gospel music guy.

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I have a cd that gave a rough idea of the principles behind the Sons of Korah. I thought that they were ok, but they were decidedly not my style, but I could not find any fault with their music I heard at the time. I have no idea what they might sound like now.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

It was done occasionally in the early Charismatic movement. My favorite Churches were the ones who sang in tongues. Dont recall hearing that in any Oneness Churches right off hand.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

And yet.....Christmas plays are considered good.

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he lost me at the five points of calvinsim. not something I really care that much about.


I like the old hymns. I want my kids to know them and about them for some of the stated reasons, but not to the exclusion of what is being produced now.

they both have their place....

and I utterly reject the argument made that the repition of "your love never fails" is somehow innane or just trying to draw out emotion.

we live in a world where the idea of love is a moving target. love is dangerous and not to be trusted.

sometimes, some things need repitition to drill into the brain. I know a lot of church going folk who have been so damaged, who have been so misused by the modern moving definition of "love" that singing that song and its repetitive nature is GOOD for them.

everything has its place.


I will say to the music leader of today, you have a responsiblity to connect the modern ADHD mind to the beauty and struggle behind those old hymns. Give people a reason to relate to them. Dont expect someone who has no connection to a song written 400 years ago...or even 75 years ago, to get it by osmosis.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

One of the most gloriest times of church that I can remember as a kid would be during testimony service (another relic gone to the graveyard of modernism), an old saint would stand and start singing A Crimson Stream of Blood, Amazing Grace or I'll Fly Away. That was awesome.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

He is not a Calvinist. He is AoG. He only mentioned the 5 points thing because many Baptists read his stuff and knew it would strike a chord with them. He was only trying to make a point.

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No sense having a testimony service when nobody's got a testimony, eh? That and it means some unlicensed unprofessional might wind up preaching something unapproved lol.

Re: A journey away from contemporary worship
 

:lol yup

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Not to mention that a "saint" might actually be used in the gift of prophecy. :heeheehee