Davey Boyd

I love this hymn, its words and this arrangement. Very very good. It can be a really struggle in some churches – the music that is. What do we sing and in what style do we sing it? To what I know of, of course, its really only a problem that churches in Western countries or Western-looking countries seem to struggle with. However, for the most part (and at times only just) I’m glad to still be sing hymns in a fairly traditional, organ n’ piano style although I do wish we’d give the style a lift. I want to take a moment to think about this.

Take for example this problem: artistic abilities. What are the chances (or should I say providence) that each church here in Australia or in the UK or America will have in their gathering, a decent 6 piece contemporary band? Usually to be soft-rock and contemporary you’ll need a keyboard, drummer, bass, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, lead singer, 1 or 2 backing vocals and maybe someone shaking a tambourine. Pretty slim I think from my experience. I suppose I’m working from the premise of, ‘a job worth doing is a job worth doing well.‘  BTW: The same goes for the organ-n-piano-only brigade – if you’re gonna play in that style, then it’d better be good. If you’re going to sing unaccompanied shouldn’t it also be done well as onto the Lord?

So if singing praise to the Lord isn’t all tightly wound up in the quality of the performance then it only matters how? The response of our hearts? Yes but not entirely perhaps.

Here some of my thoughts and principles which I hold to be true:

• The Lord Jesus himself said, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” John 4:24
• Traditional does not automatically equal biblical; neither does contemporary automatically equal true, vibrant worship.
• Musical style and doctrinal emphasis are bound to be expressed differently from one culture to another and from church to another – and there should be Christian liberty enough to allow for that.
• Musical style and doctrinal content of songs is an issue worth examining in order to see how we can do better.
• We need to be aware that different people have varying taste and there are real and actual distinctions between the tastes of generations.
• When believers gather together to break bread or hear teaching from God’s word it is for believers, not unbelievers.
• The leadership of the church should be making the decisions on music.
• In matters of style music should be convey key doctrinal truth.
• Some songs should be about God objectively i.e what God says about Himself.
• Some songs should be about our corporate response to God.
• Some songs should be about our individual response to God.
• Music style and words should sometimes be lofty and grand.
• Musical style should take backseat to the words!
• Musical style should avoid being glib, frivolous, trite or hackneyed.
• Musical style should avoid being overly repetitious. Whilst it is true that there is an acceptable level of repetition found in Scripture (Psalm 136) we should mantra-like repeating of vacuous lines in our own songs.
• Some musical styles should be avoided altogether (such as trance, really heavy rock) because could they convey to us about God?
• We’ve all got favorites but particular songs should not be endlessly over-sung.
• The musical performers must be believers if they are leading the congregation in worship to God.
• The musical performance should be as good as possible.
• In regards to the singing, believers should invest time and energy in getting better at singing.
• The musical performers must not be unnecessarily distracting.
• The local assembly should strive to make strike a good balance between time/importance put on music practice and teaching/preaching.
• The doctrinal level of the songs should follow along with the level of maturity that the teaching is at.
• Should avoid being exclusive in choice of songs. So hymns and Psalms should not be neglected in favor of “Hillsong“/soft rock songs only. All hymns and “contemporary” songs should be evaluated on the basis of their doctrinal merit and musical style. Bear in mind, some hymns are rather poor in the doctrinal front but are popular among older generations.
• Surely the Holy Spirit of God still inspires (in a non-revelatory way) wonderful, doctrinally rich and powerful songs & hymns in the midst of our time.
• Surely a church that is writing its own doctrinally rich and true songs written in response to the teaching from the word of God is healthy.

What do you think? Have you say in the comments.