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(This post was written prior to 2016, in a blog entitled “Jubal’s Jottings.”)
So, I’m still working my way through the letters to the editor in my most recent Worship Leader magazine. This issue has me hooked…and I’m only on page 8!
Here’s another quote from a letter. Talking about worship leaders, the writer says…”They don’t think about the horizontal and the vertical. They find what’s hot and put those ‘hot’ songs together without much thought about how they really fit together. Thus, the congregation gets pushed into intimacy with one song and jerked out into a horizontal focus on the next…”
A few thoughts…
1) I’ve probably been guilty of this at times. Shame on me!
2) It takes me back to a very fundamental principle that I don’t hear much about – the lyrical direction of songs. I think a good practice would be to quickly analyze the top 20 songs you’re using and see if you’re talking to God, about God, to non-believers, to Christians, to adults, to children. It might be an interesting worship committee exercise with very practical implications. Try it!
3) There is definitely a tendency in modern styles to do the “hot,” and ONLY “hot” songs. There is also a tendency to either take the ones in a similar key or tempo and put them together – even when they lyrically don’t match – OR, just the opposite – do a song…stop…move the capo…start another song…stop…move the capo…IT’S MADDENING! It shows the musical limitations of the leaders! (Yes, we’re back to musical training issues!)
4) It points to a consumer-ish, selfish mentality when only the “hot” songs are used. Paying attention to what’s current is good, but it shows no creativity whatsoever to just pick a few songs because they’re “hot.” If you’re going to use them all the time, why not try new arrangements, new context, new keys…something to make them meaningful. When some of these songs get used so much, in exactly the same form, they lose their impact completely. And, when they’ve become used over and over and over…with choruses repeated 4, 5, 6, or more times! You get the picture.
So You’re Using Hymns?
There is a nice respectful return to the use of hymns in modern worship settings. I think the whole world of worship is applauding the refreshment of content and timelessness that many hymns bring to our current culture. There is also a surfacing of some hymns that haven’t been even commonly known from recent generations. That’s nice, too. And then, we have the modern composers who are writing brand new expressions in a hymnic style – very nice. What’s my issue, right? My issue is this. Some of the hymn things are so far from the original that they might as well not be familiar at all. I guarantee you that some of these arrangements are so artsy that people give up any attempt to participate. They get tired of singing in the rests – since there wasn’t one in the original. They get tired of going up with the melody, when you went down – since originally it went up. If you’re going to use a “familiar” hymn, then be creative inside the box, or else make it a performance piece for the offering or something. Don’t drag the congregation through a set of musical crashes that they can’t escape. If it’s confusing, they won’t like it – whether it’s a hymn of not. They quit trying! You’re not enabling the church’s song, you’re making it too hard! They aren’t as well equipped as you are, and the version they heard and sang for years doesn’t match your arrangement – no matter how great it is. So, what’s more important – the unified song of the church or your piece of art? Hmmm…?
So, Jubal, did you ever mess with someone’s song?