In a modern-day reformation, when a lot of churches are switching over from traditional liturgy to a contemporary music worship style, it is important to be aware of the repercussions that follow. I understand that churches should, and in some cases need to, keep up with the changing culture in order to be relevant to today’s society and to simply survive. Yet, this needs to be done carefully, so important elements of the church experience are not lost. My stance is this, most Christian education happens within a church worship service, therefore the contents of the service is the depth of education that the majority of Christians will receive. If the contents of a worship service lack vital elements, then the faith of the congregation will lack those pieces as well because most will not take the extra time to continue in Christian education outside of the service.
Obviously, there will always be those members of a congregation who do attend Bible studies and research outside of Sunday morning worship, but the majority will not. Again, this means most ongoing Christian education takes place in the worship service itself. From my own church, only about a third of our potential youth (ages 5-18) come to our programming to continue education, such as Sunday School or Confirmation. Even though they make up the minority (26%) of the church’s population, they have higher attendance than weekly adult Bible Study attendees.
So, if the worship service is the main source of Christian education for people, including visitors who may be trying to learn about Christ, then there is a great emphasis on making sure the church covers a complete picture. I think most people would assume that the pastor’s sermon is the greatest time for education in the worship service. He has time to unpack the Scripture readings and apply solid exegesis, or how we take what the Bible says and apply it to our lives. The sermon has great potential to make some very good points about living the faith. Except most people won’t remember the sermon, and that’s to no one’s fault. It’s been proven time and time again that songs are significantly easier to memorize, it happens subconsciously, without us even trying. I catch myself humming tunes I heard in church all week, but I don’t think I’ve ever been repeating the words of a sermon over and over. In my life of going to church and working at a church professionally, I can only remember a handful of sermons I’ve ever heard. Yet, I can recall dozens of songs and hymns that we sing.
My point is this, the songs that are played in the worship service has a significant role, bigger than most people realize. Since the worship service is the time when most Christian education takes place, and since most people will remember the songs significantly easier than the sermon, the songs are where most people are getting educated on who God is and what He’s about. Now, I’m personally no fan of old hymns, but they tell stories; they lay a clear picture and show both Law and Gospel.
Contemporary music is a lot easier to memorize due to it’s repetitive and often catchy nature. Yet, most songs are only repeating the words that God is good. Not that that’s false, but that is an incomplete picture of the God we serve. Things get worse when songs belittle God’s character or put the focus on us and how we chose God and how good we are for being faithful. Some songs don’t even say God’s name, only addressing a “you.” Some even yet show more mysticism, rather than sound theology. Songs like these give Christians the wrong idea about how we come to faith (through the Holy Spirit) and grossly mischaracterizes God as simply a being that is good to us because we’re good to Him. There is an old Christian motto, “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi,” which roughly states that what we pray is what we believe, which in turn is how we live. The same principle applies to the songs we sing, like a confession of faith, the lyrics that are sung together imply that we believe the words we are singing.
We don’t get songs today about how we fail and are often unfaithful, we don’t get songs that show us the law. Why? Because they’re no fun to listen to. The Christian music industry gives the people what they want, so that’s also what churches will start to use. This phenomenon plays a role in the rise of mega churches, where most of the service is singing these modern songs, which draw people in, but fails to hold them, due to their lack of substance. Since we see a huge turnover rate in bigger, contemporary churches than in the smaller traditional congregations.
Another growing statistic is that churches now often have more women than men in their worship services. As pastor Jeffrey Hemmer suggests, this is due to the “emasculating” effect that contemporary music has. He points out how the language used in worship songs are often from a bridal point of view, disconnecting a man’s faith and over exaggerating the bride analogy of the relationship between the Church and Christ. He quotes lyrics such as, “to feel the warmth of your embrace,” “sloppy wet kiss,” and even “lavish my love on you.” He continues to say that modern thinking has shifted the focus from Jesus loving the Church as his bride to loving us, as individuals, as his bride. That contemporary “love songs to Jesus” only play into the increasing issue of the emasculated Christian man.
Now, to the point that the service is designed to worship God and wasn’t designed to educate per say. First, it does not honor God in any way if we sing false things about Him. Surely God is bigger than us and for us to create Him in our image and describe Him as a tool that we can use is outrageous. Second, education happens whether or not the service is designed for it, so we might as well be teaching and singing what is correct.
Another point, for the sake of argument, is that worship is not synonymous to singing. Worshiping can be done through a variety of means, not just singing songs. Yet, in a good number of contemporary songs, the focus is emphasized on how we worship through singing and how all creatures should sing to God. This has also created a false idea about how God can be glorified and has caused a number of people to scold me for not singing or liking Christian music. These songs skew the image of what it means to worship God, which is something we do in every action and can be done through how we live, not just how we sing.
To recap before I offer my ideas on some solutions, this is what I am saying. I believe Christian faith is becoming shallow because their main education is what they take away from the songs in the worship service. Since songs are either not painting a complete picture of God or are creating an entirely false picture, people will tend to stray from what is true. My solution, I think, is simple. I’m not going to advocate that we all switch back to traditional hymns. I think it’s good that the church stays in the same century as the people are in. But we need contemporary songs that are both theologically accurate and have a deeper basis for who God is. We need songs that honor God and the faith He has inspired in us.
As much as I don’t like singing in church, I know how big of an impact that the music can have on one’s worship experience. I have also seen where psalms and hymns are made into contemporary style, I think that is a wonderful idea and an easy way to connect the two demographics we are seeing in our churches (traditional and contemporary).
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