There is no such thing as Christian music, only Christian lyrics.

Over the past decade or so, I have experienced and witnessed the development of the so-called “modern worship movement”.  Worship music has become so popular that even the contemporary Christian music community has embraced “worship” music into its itinerary–Christian pop artists writing, singing and leading worship songs on cd and concert without any prior training, calling or gifting.  What I just said may be a bit extreme or generalized, but in short, those Christians who formerly only did music to make money are now making money out of worship.  I could name names and you could rebut me by saying all Christian music is basically worship in content… but what I am talking about is the congregational worship music that is used in western evangelical churches today.

There is, has been, and if we don’t stop it, there will be… a lack of theologically-informed worship music in the church.  The influx of songs that lack theological, biblical and doctrinal depth is too popular in today’s worship music sets.  A lot of songs focus on me me and me, sound like some love-song off of your local easy-rock radio station, and quite frankly, talk more about how we feel in our circumstances rather than who God IS and what He has DONE despite any circumstances that come our way.  And as inviting as these songs are to get the teens jumping and dancing, they provide little solid biblical reasons as to why you should jump, dance or say “I love you I love you I love you… you are my best friend” to God.

More recently, Charles Colson wrote an article in the April 2006 issue of Christianity Today that presented an extreme opinion that the church is “soothing ourselves to death“, a serious warning the author wrote in response to experiencing “endless repetitions of a meaningless ditty called “Draw Me Close to You,” which has zero theological content and could just as easily be sung in any nightclub.”  Colson’s article provoked numerous discussions on around the Christian blogsphere, some were positive, some negative, and others taking neither side.  Read the original article and the resulting discussions and responses, and you will see that regardless of what the different opinions about the aforementioned song are, theological/doctrinal/biblical adherence in congregational worship is the paramount issue facing our church music today.  While telling God how we feel and expressing to Him our thoughts is right and good, these feelings are only reliable and true as they are rooted in who God is, what He has done, and what He has said to us.

On such theological accommodation in today’s worship, Albert Mohler shares this:

What is the result of this accommodated Christianity? I quote Tozer again: We have simplified until Christianity amounts to this: God is love; Jesus died for you; believe, accept, be jolly, have fun and tell others. And away we go–that is the Christianity of our day. I would not give a plug nickel for the whole business of it. Once in a while God has a poor bleeding sheep that manages to live on that kind of thing and we wonder how.

True worship begins with a vision of the God of the Bible–the true and living God.

Maybe I am wrong in my analysis, and maybe you’ve seen better in the churches you’ve been to… I’m just saying that I see this stuff happening in this side of evangelicalism–and it scares me!  Such man-centered worship music that lack in biblical truth will only get us further and further away from God and make everything (even the Gospel) about us.  More and more songs coming from a certain overseas church and song publisher frightens me as to the mindset that it gives the rest of the church that such music is OK and acceptable, when it is not and unacceptable.  In this I see that there is an great wealth of worship music being lost amidst a sea of over-simplified contemporary praise choruses; we need to have modern worship songs that are full of powerful, rich, biblical truth.  Whereas hymns have long been a rich source of deep lyrics, it should be our goal in this postmodern culture to combine these classic, truth-full hymnal texts with contemporary tunes so that believers can be helped to feel the truth of what they are singing.  Most young people today do not like hymns because they sound like those old, boring songs that their parents sing… but if we could wed they lyrics of these hymns with attractive, modern arrangements, I am sure we can have a truly powerful worship experience that enables God’s truth to settle deep into our minds and hearts.

In general, I am thankful that in most cases and times, the songs that have been sung at my church have been God-centered and do contain enough historic evangelical doctrine to keep us worshipping in spirit and in truth.  However, as of late, there has been a lack of songs that are explicitly about the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the penal substitutionary atonement that the Father provided for us through Christ our Lord.  I have pondered these past months–is it necessary to explicitly sing about the sacrifice that Christ paid on the Cross for our sins that we may have life and be forgiven?  (And to this extent, I have wondered also if it is necessary to have it mentioned explicitly in preaching every week)  I do not know of any rulebook or Bible passage that says that we must sing the Gospel every week… but I have concluded that we should sing (and preach) about it every week.  I cannot think of any reasons why we shouldn’t sing about THE reason we are still breathing and are allowed to entire into His presence; singing about how Christ died and defeated sin and death to make us a new creation will only give us a clearer understanding of God–the greatest reason to sing and praise in the first place.

Often when I myself am led in musical worship by a worship team, I ask myself silently: what am I doing?  In these songs I have just sung, what have I actually been doing?

You might say, like many others I have heard, that you have been glorifying God.  Other synonyms may be used… like praising, lifting up, magnifying His name, etc.  While this ultimate purpose is true, can we be specific about what we are doing from week to week as we sing?  How are we actually glorifying God in our songs?  If the songs that we sing are different from week to week, is not what we do in the singing different also?  To put it in a different way, with the few references to instrumental worship (Psalm 33:2-3; 150) that are far outweighed by the number of Scriptures inviting us to sing God’s praises, why do we sing?  The question that every experienced lead worship should be able to answer–for what purpose do we sing?

A year ago, I don’t think I have ever thought about this simple yet fundamental question to the worship ministry.  But recently, Bob Kauflin reminded me that there are at least 3 specific reasons why we sing:

1. to remember God’s Word,
2. to respond to God’s grace, and
3. to reflect God’s glory.

These are 3 things we are doing while we sing every (Sun)day, 3 reasons/purposes to why we shout God’s praise.  Even still, while this may be true of our songs each week, we must also meditate and be certain as to the very thing that we do in song.

As a lead worshipper (aka worship leader), I’ve found it also very necessary to be clear about my role.  What does a worship leader do?

An effective corporate worship leader,
aided and led by the Holy Spirit,
skillfully combines biblical truth with music
to magnify the worth of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ,
thereby motivating the gathered church
to join him in proclaiming and cherishing the truth about God
and seeking to live all of life for the glory of God.

Music is a very emotional thing, but without it being saturated with biblical truth, no Divine transformation can take place in people’s lives–and herein lies the very area where we need to train and develop our skills and gifts: skillfully combining Biblical truth with music.  With time and experience, we can and will through the Holy Spirit’s empowerment help others to magnify God’s worth and Christ’s work… motivating the gathered church to proclaim and cherish the truth about God will become less and less of our work and more and more of the Spirit’s working.

Since I won’t be directly influencing what’s sung at my church in the near future, I leave you with some songs that haven’t been done at my church which I hope will be sung in the near future.  Some are older than others, but all are catchy and yet theologically-informed, in my humble opinion=D

1. Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) (John Newton/Chris Tomlin; Sixsteps)
2. Everlasting God (Brenton Brown; Thankyou Music)
3. From The Inside Out (Joel Houston; Hillsong)
4. Glorious One (Steve Fee; 722)
5. Let The Praises Ring (Lincoln Brewster; Integrity)
6. Look What You’ve Done (John Ellis)
7. Made To Worship (Chris Tomlin; Sixsteps)
8. Mighty To Save (Reuben Morgan; Hillsong)
9. Precious Blood (Peter Gagnon; Sovereign Grace Worship)
10. Pure Glory (Christy & Nathan Nockels; independent)
11. You Never Let Go (Matt Redman; Sixsteps)

And for your reading pleasure, Dr. Albert Mohler wrote extensively about The Recovery of Authentic Worship in his commentary series “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory” published in early February 2006:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

In closing, from Part 3:
“We must not be satisfied with a laissez-faire, cafeteria-style worship combination at our pleasure. There is a biblical pattern that must be followed. Will styles change? Yes. But the worship must always be God directed. Will there be a diversity of styles in worship? Yes, but there must be one glorious purpose following this clear biblical pattern: to measure everything by the norm of scripture, in which God has revealed how He wishes to be worshiped. We must learn from each other in this process that as the people of God we must get this right as we stand before God and under scripture.”