Thoughts on Worship
Posted by Michael | Posted in Culture | Posted on 02-11-2009
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At the risk of sounding prideful, I begin this post with quoting something I said on twitter last week: The reason worship bands all sound the same is because they work on songs and not a sound. I’d like to expand that thought and throw a few more darts into the worship dart board.
Take a listen to some of the songs in the iTunes Top 100 and then listen to any popular worship album. You’ll soon find out that while there is great variety in “secular” music, an amazing number of worship bands sound like Steve Fee in a different key. Where are the worship bands that sound like Tim McGraw or Owl City? Why so little hip-hop? Why no country? For every David Crowder Band that brings some originality to worship music, there are 50 others that phone it in. I’d love for some church worship bands to focus on creating a sound, not just playing Hillsong or Tomlin stuff.
Furthermore, when did worship become so feminine? I’m not a sexist (nor am I a hunter), but if Jesus is a dude, why are we singing so many songs calling him beautiful? Is it really common for men to refer to another man as beautiful? I believe this is one reason that men don’t feel like the church is for them. Singing is already tough for a lot of people (unless it’s a birthday party or during the seventh inning stretch), but asking guys to sings songs to a beautiful guy might just be over the top. We need more worship songs that honor Jesus as ruling King and fewer 80’s make out praise songs. It’s time to bring back the balance. Upon twittering this observation, I was met with lots of @reply hostility, mostly from worship leaders who wear girls jeans.
Finally, where are the worship songs that teach people something about God? Call me old school, but I love a good hymn. Many of these songs teach people theology, that is…they teach us something about God. My fear is that we’ve gotten so poetic and artsy with some of our songs, that we’re just giving people an emotional reaction to Christ. There’s nothing wrong with this, and music is largely emotional, but why not capitalize on the memorable aspects of music and use songs to teach people something theologically important? How many times have you heard people walk away form a worship experience and say “that was amazing worship.” Many times, that’s craving an experience not experiencing God.
Those are just a few of the thoughts I’ve had about worship and worship music. Feel free to chime in. Comments are open.
I think you are onto something…
We have embraced the U2 sound in worship music. There is nothing wrong with U2… I love U2. However… when was the last time U2 been in the top songs on iTunes?
The culture is shifting in music taste. David Crowder Band’s “Church Music” is trying to start people down the path music is going. However, I am amazed at how the only track the Christian community is embracing off of that album is “How He Loves Us”
Yes – there are huge concerns with this new sound. Auto-Tune is being uses by more then just T-Pain. Most of the top songs on iTunes use it.
But – We can start embracing this new electric sound. This “club banger” sound as Mr. Crowder calls it.
The latest Jay Z hit “New York State of Mind” has a refrain that has a structure to it that could be sang in a group format. (I’m not saying this is a worship song… I am talking about the hip-hop format)
The hip-hop sound can be used in corporate worship.
I do agree with you though – that hip-hop done by white people comes off as awkward at times. It may be that we need to look at adding more diversity to our worship bands.
I do not disagree with you for the most part, however, I do watch your services online very frequently and my question would be how has Oak Leaf put into practice these things that you blogging about?
First off, I loved the tweet about this the other day.
I totally agree about the sound of worship bands. And honestly, I don’t listen to much Christian music at all. Most of it is boring to me because it is all in a style that I would not listen to, much less want to play drums to.
The feminine worship songs is a good point to bring up. I was talking with a dude at work the other day about the church that he goes to. It is all very touchy-feely worship stuff. He was put off because his wife asked if there was something wrong because there were toehr dudes there lifting there hands in worship and some in tears during the music. It was a very uncomfortable situation. If the point is to be open to people who don’t like church or have been hurt, then why make them feel even more out of place. Let’s play and write songs that will be like Jesus melting your face off.
Just my 2 cents.
kyle rocks my face off
I mean it’s the epitome of a vicious cycle…
the clean-guitarist who would make Tomlin proud gets together with a drummer who has a love affair with 4/4 “that” beat and a bassist whose favorite band is Casting Crowns.
When THAT is what is happening, people who can create music in other genres just don’t get on stage. And a *switch* would be too drastic, people would freak out.
For what it’s worth, worship bands often play *every* week, and it’s tough, I’m hesitant to criticize. But there’s definitely something wrong with the system
“A good song should make you wanna tap your foot and get with your girl. A great song should destroy cops and set fire to the suburbs. I’m only interested in writing great songs.”
Tom morello – Rage Against The Machine
I have personally been dying for what’s next in the area of worship music! Sure there’s alot of “new” songs, but it’s very much Hillsong, Fee, Crowder, etc. sounding, and most of the time empty and hollow lyrically. We’ve got the spirit part of worship down, but where is the truth?!
I personally feel the CCM Industry is very much responsible for creating this culture. Let’s be honest, it’s not really a ministry as some claim, it’s a business, and business produce whatever will sell. Has anyone else noticed that most new worship songs are radio singles?!
Not that there’s anything wrong with worship being on the radio, but when radio play becomes an issue, whatever sells, takes over, not truth or creativity.
Personally I’m tired of hearing Christian/Worship bands labeled as “sounds like *insert random secular artist*”, we are made in the image of a creator God which means we have the innate ability to CREATE, not COPY.
I’m ready for worship leaders/churches to have their own sound, mine is pop country. It’s where I’m strongest, sure I use other styles of music when I lead, but why deny who God has made me to be by simply covering everyone elses songs/styles, and what’s hot on 104.7 the fish?!
I am ranting but lastly Michael I agree on the theology part, the way we experience God emotionally throughout life changes so much, and songs based on those experiences fade quickly as new ones come out…
But why is it that it is well with my soul has been such a huge song in the Christian faith for so many years? It’s grounded in the truth of who God is and how “when sorrows like sea billows roll…whatever my lot thou hast TAUGHT me to say it is well, it is well, with my soul”
it’s the reminder that because of who God is we have learned by his faithfulness (not felt like saying) it is well. I think those timeless teachings are what make those songs so powerful.
As a disclaimer though, there are almost as many hymns that aren’t even biblical that are sung, as modern worship songs. Just because it’s in the hymnal, or written by Tomlin doesn’t make it scripturally sound!
Michael, you had a good point. I @replied about remembering that we are the bride of Christ and you reminded me that not many brides call their grooms beautiful (well maybe here in Iowa…).
Yesterday we sang two hymns (what a friend and I stand amazed) at our mostly edgy-modern church. More than a few of our older people thanked me because we played hymns, and I smiled and said ‘glad you enjoyed it,’ but what I wanted to say was, ‘We didn’t do it for you.’
We play hymns for the same reason we play the newest song by Fee, Hillsong, Tomlin, etc: because it fits the day and communicates exactly what we’re trying to communicate. There’s too much great theology in older songs to throw them out.
But if these old songs, chock full of truth and meaning aren’t palatable to the younger generation of hungry people coming to our churches, we need to do whatever necessary to tweak them or change them completely so that they achieve their purpose… aiding people in connecting with and experiencing God thru worship.
Anything else is (even hymns) is just entertainment.
I’ve heard a lot of pastors and have seen their twitters leaning this same direction in the past 18 months or so. There is one fact; we don’t like seeing our worship banders in girl jeans and toms shoes. It’s turned into the new choir robe.
This angst towards “chick’ish” worship isn’t a new one.
Um, there is country christian music. Lots of it. It’s just not as popular.
Also, there’s some great worship music out there that these Fee-Tomlin-Crowder lovin’ 20-something year old worship leaders refuse to recognize or they do know about it and call it “cheesy”. And their love for U2, Mute Math, and Coldplay is getting really old. They need to look around their congregation and understand that we’d actually prefer a foo fighters sound over Fee every so often. Sorry to insult your musical genius, guys.
Seriously, I’ve got some worship music on my ipod that I know I’d never hear at my church, but I hear some other churches play the songs. My church worship leader, like all the other Fee-is-god-love-the-new-hillsong church worship leaders, will always play what they want and not try to play something that’s not “their style”.
Very frustrating that the best worship songs I know, I can only hear on my iPod. But it’s also not about me. I’ll manage.
I thought they wanted to be different?
I agree with you, especially about the theological significance of worship music. The book of Psalms is one of the most theologically rich books of the Old Testament, so much so that we often forget that the Psalms were actual worship songs. I think one reason very few songs have much theological depths these days is only partly due to musical tastes. The bigger issue is probably marketing. Theologically deep songs have a tendency to offend people who don’t share the same theology. Many of the most popular worship songs these days are suitable for play by people from just about any denomination, sect or creed. Many of them could be enjoyed equally by Protestants, Catholics, Mormons and the merely generally religious. This isn’t true of all popular worship tunes, of course, but as a general rule, the more specific a song is in its theology, the fewer potential consumers there are. Christian music is big business these days and I’m sure the publishing companies are aware of this, too.
@josh: interesting thought about the marketing. I think you’re right.
@all: i’m not saying I don’t enjoy Steve Fee songs…I like a lot of his stuff. This post really isn’t a knock on any of those famous worship leaders…it’s directed more towards church worship bands
@corbett: excellent point. worship is much more than style or lyrics anyway. and music can easily become an idol
@BG: i’m just now beginning to process all of this. it’s definitely a work in progress.
Probably the most “all about God” CD i have ever listened to is a rap CD by Lecrae. I think He wrote the CD after listening to Michael speak or visa versa.
I agree 100%. I find contemporary christian music to be very annoying. They play it nonstop at chick-fil-a and i consider it as annoying as country. I consider Red a good exception. Also my wife showed me a new worship song by kutless called all is well (Matt should check it out). I hate touchy feely stuff, but i love the deep stuff (like the great old hymns).
Hmm.
I think a big part of the problem is that we’re talking about “popular” Christian worship. Because why would we talk about anything else? Popularity with Christians usually involves a lot of lowest common denominator thinking, which often results in exactly that. The lowest common denominator in Christian circles is usually inoffensive. I don’t mean that it’s not blatantly offensive, I just mean that to be the popular-Christian-whatever you’ve got to appeal to the broadest audience possible, which means that you’re going to go out of your way to not bother them with a ideology that’s contentious or a guitar that’s too abrasive or a style that’s too much like a style that’s different from another style that they might like better. Because if you’re in Christian music you’re in a tiny market to begin with and establishing a “sound” will shrink your already relatively small audience. And we must not forget that people will not sing our songs if they can’t hear them, so a tiny audience just won’t do.
My suspicion is that there IS good Christian worship to be found with actual songwriting and style involved. We just haven’t heard it, because taste is so subjective that committing to a style reduces your accessibility and your audience. I know, I know, it’s not your audience, etc., etc.
I think that variety will eventually come in whatever the new musical landscape is as labels fade and private releases continues to rise. But the variety will come from people that are willing to forgo popularity for musicianship, people for whom the creation of sound is its own act of worship.
Sounds like worship to me.