Muzical Musings I

At a certain independent chapel I know well, much thought, many hours of debate, and not a little angst has been poured over many years into the murky waters of the subject of 'Worship Music'; it has often been the very epitome of a fruitless discussion, indeed, it was one of my offspring who first pointed out that it was so after a particularly circular discussion one Sunday afternoon.

So, having been goaded into action by the wisdom of one so young (sic), I put together the following musings.


First two(?) presuppositions around sung worship...

I take Singing to be accompanied singing in the main. I hold that those who reject musical accompaniment at all times have no biblical support, and their pragmatic reasons for rejecting it represent a failure of teaching and good old disciple making. Hence in the below I presume some combination of instrument(s) and voice(s) as normal.

It seems to me that are a number of specifics that are tied to time and place or that fall into grey or elastic areas where judgement is called for. Hence I'll make no comment about ages, levels, genre, percussion, harmony, instruments, numbers, duration, repetition or composers. Many of the specifics are balances between competing objectives, and cannot be ruled upon in advance or absolutely. So, broadly speaking, age is really about a person's 'maturity' and 'attitude', genres and styles are about culture, sub-culture and demographics, there are no biblical or unbiblical 21stC instruments only instruments, composers are almost irrelevant if the composition is more than 5 years old, and so on …


What do I/we mean by Worship, Sung or otherwise ?

Genuine Christian Worship springs from true truths about the God of the Bible as revealed in the Bible, some measure of understanding of them, resulting in an appropriate expression of, or responses to those truths, directed towards God. In their responses and expressions, Christians worship the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, through the Lord Jesus Christ, aided by the Holy Spirit (whether they are conscious of this or not), and in so doing bring Him glory.

The expressions/responses may be silent (internal/unspoken), or audible; the latter spoken (extempore or written) or sung (the how sung varying from culture to culture), and may also be 'visible' in a worshipper's countenance and bearing. At the same time there will often be an invisible 'felt' experiential component - a moving of the emotions frequently accompanies this. Worship is private and personal, and also corporate, and it should be expressed in both contexts – the individual disciple alone before his Father, right up to the largest of gatherings; but the corporate cannot exist without the private, and neither can the Christian.

Among the range of responses, the OT and NT takes Singing to be a normal one. e.g. The Psalms, 1st Temple Worship arrangements, in the Gospels Jesus & the Disciples singing, and Paul's 'Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs'. The Psalms themselves specify musical accompaniment and name melodies, and they frequently use three words that cover what might loosely be called adoration : Exalt, Praise, and Bless, meaning (briefly), i) to say something great is truly great, ii) to praise, iii) to approve at our most heartfelt and deepest level. And then in addition to Adoration, the Bible offers us Lament, Celebration, sung requests, ballad-like reflections on historic events, songs of triumph and of repentance and more, almost all of which are ultimately directed god-ward.

Only the born-again can worship. Unless our hearts of stone are replaced by hearts of flesh, and we have the Spirit of Christ within, there is no worship. While 'all you have made will praise you', the dead cannot, as the Palmist puts it succinctly, therefore, neither can they assist living Saints in authentic Christian worship.

So, have established all that, what of Sung Worship itself. What should happen so that it happens ? That'll be the next Posting ...