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(This post was written prior to 2016, in a blog entitled “Jubal’s Jottings.”)
Projection of lyrics for singing in worship presents a number of challenges that many people have yet to work out. One of the issues is whether or not the pronoun for deity is to be capitalized or not. I know that in some preferences of formatting a choice is made not to capitalize the pronoun for deity – even many versions of the Bible don’t do that. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about consistency that leads to clarity of focus in worship. I have often experienced projected lyrics in which some references to God are “you” and others that are “You” – in the same song! That’s a mistake that someone should correct, I assume. More confusing is having a song in which there are references to other humans – “you” – as well as references to God – also appearing as “you.” I have caught myself stopping in the middle of a song and asking myself, “Now, who was that “you” that I was just singing about? Was that “You” or “you?” To add to the confusion, some formatting choices show everything along the left-hand side of the slide as capitalized. In that case, you can end up with a “you” as a human, “you” as God, “You” as a human, or “You” meaning God…all in the same song! So, where am I to direct my worship? Help me out here!
The solution on this one is simple, of course Make all the references to God as “You” and all the references to humankind as “you.” That’s clear to me! After all, if God provided for my salvation, I think the least I could do is capitalize the reference to Him in my worship of Him.
Jubal, see the things you didn’t have to deal with before all this technology?