Toe Praise

In the early years of the twentieth century, missionaries from the British “Brethren,” came into central and southern Africa.  Here, the Good News of Christ evoked celebration and responses largely unknown to the stalwart and strict English evangelicals.  One of the missionaries, Dan Crawford, (in his book, Thinking Back ) recounted watching an African woman break into exuberant dancing during the church service:  

“The amazing, maddening mix-up of the prayer in the heart, and the prance in the feet! Asked her what it meant at all at all, and she quaintly replied, ‘Oh! it is only the praise getting out at the toes.”

Sometimes you just gotta let it flow.

I Don't Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary

While criticism of contemporary worship music is sometimes fully justified, I'm baffled that older gospel songs seem insulated from such scrutiny.  The truth is hymns, gospel songs, and contemporary worship music all have their fair share of either shallow, silly or even wholly heretical (a phonetic oxymoron) lyrics.

We ought to stop longing for A Mansion over the Hilltop.  In 1611 the word "mansion" simply meant a place to live.  The actual idea in John 14:1-2 is clearly the "Father's house" has more than enough room for everyone.  The gospel song seems to suggest heaven is going to be a land of millions of eternal antebellum southern plantations.  I would note this is an image of heaven many black Christians, for some reason, find less than appealing.  

World Without End: Unpacking a Perplexing Lyric

Try as I might, it's hard not to be a teacher.  So, with apologies for giving way to the pedantic, I'd like to help explain a perplexing phrase used by many churches in one of the oldest praise songs still is wide use today.

While some evangelicals may not know it, a large number of believers regularly sing a doxology called the Gloria Patri:

Glory be to the Father,

 And to the Son,

And to the Holy Ghost.

 As it was in the beginning,

Is now and ever shall be,

World without end. 

Amen.  Amen.

(Traditional musical setting by Cynthia Clawson)

The problem comes from the second to the last line.

The Problem with Praise

Amanda was pretty excited to find out her husband, Jack, was reading the new bestselling book in marriage enrichment, A Praise Centered Marriage.  It wasn't that their relationship was bad or anything.  It just wasn't always as good as Amanda had hoped it would be.

Her hopes seemed to all come true  when, that next Tuesday evening, Jack looked at her across the dinner table and said, "You are wonderful.  You are simply the best.  I love everything about you. You fill my life with joy."

What more could a woman want out of a marriage?  At least, that's what Amanda thought six months ago when the process started that would eventually ruin their marriage. 

Dancing in Church

Around the year 1900, Plymouth Brethren missionary Dan Crawford asked a Congolese woman why she got up and started dancing in church,  "Oh! it is only the praise getting out at the toes."

Dancing is a form of art that you do.  And I mean that in an absolute sense.  You dance.  You become the art.  It is not something you do to someone or something else.  People can play a piano, beat a drum, paint a canvas, lead a choir, carve a statue, or write a praise song.  But, for people to dance you do not have to have a piano or a drum or a canvas or pen and paper.  You just need willing and able to move your own body.

Good Bad Worship

"So, you got your wife a diamond ring for your 25th anniversary?"
"I sure did. Two and half carets."
"That's great, Bill. One thing though, I thought you said she wanted a new SUV?"
"She did. But, where was I going to find a fake jeep?"

Accidents and Substance

Gifts of love are wrapped in marvelous subtlety and nuance that dramatically change them. The change is more fundamental than the fabled curse of King Midas, turning ordinary cheap tableware into solid gold with a touch. To employ the Aristotelian language Thomas Aquinas brings to play in his teachings on the Eucharist, we can wholly change the substance of a gift, while leaving the accidents untouched.*

The Growing Gap in Worship

Welcomed or not, the contemporary music-centered approach to worship that has been both dominant and effective most large and mega church worship service is being challenged.  This challenge, however, does not come from traditionalists who are still demanding a return to the Hammond B3 and southern gospel.  This challenge, which has been slowly growing over the past decade, is coming from the same age-group that once pioneered praise bands and raising hands:  Teens and young adults.

My Church Looks Like a Bar

When people walked into First Christian Church on a Sunday morning not long ago, most of them were not prepared to see the newest fad in popular worship music sitting in the front of the sanctuary.  Some of them had enough musical background to know they were looking at a percussion instrument.  For a lot of people, the one thing they knew was it made their church look like a bar.  

Contemporary is Getting Old

Contemporary getting old?  Well, certainly for some people this may be true.  But there is another sense it which it is true for everyone.  Contemporary music is increasingly tapping into the ancient history of worship to recover lyrics and thoughts the move beyond the "dating Jesus" lyrics of earlier decades.

The exciting song of both Christ's resurrection and our spiritual rebirth by Matt Maher and Mia Fields,  Christ is Risen, reflects Maher's deep roots in the classic liturgy of worship.

Inflexible Worship

"Let's sing number 319 instead of the one in your bulletin."

In 1970, the phrase would hardly have raised an eyebrow.  In an era when less planning and work went into the music portion of worship than went into mowing the church's grass, it was not unusual for song leaders to make on-the-spot changes.

There's a lot about those good old days that weren't so good.   Mediocre was perfectly fine.  An exceptionally well-planned song service meant the music might, if you thought about it long enough, actually be on the same theme as the sermon.  It really was all rather stale, at least on most Sundays.

Still, that sentence, "Let's sing number 319 instead of..." is worth remembering.  And not just because it reveals churches used hymnals.  What is really shocking is that anybody could make that big a last-minute change in the worship music.  

Sorry Church Music

       I really would like to hear some sorry church music this coming Sunday.  Honestly.  But, chances are, since I'm going to be in the worship service of an Bible-believing Evangelical church, I won't.  What a shame.

If We Sang Reality in Church

       The music we hear and sing in church.

       This music often reflects the highest ideals of our faith.  From the church's repertoire of music emerge some of the greatest achievements of art and beauty in history.  In these lofty realms of glorious music Handel joyfully sings the songs of Issac Watts, while Graham Kendrick quietly plays the ancient plainsong chant on his guitar.

       In the church's songs of worship the people of God embrace the highest ideals of what the Christ-centered life is to be on earth, as it is in heaven.

       But, in a moment of wild abandoned, I found myself thinking, what if we changed the rules one Sunday. 

Randy Garris: Music Means More than Just the Words

Randy Garris (College Heights Christian Church, Joplin, MO) offers an insightful and thought provoking article in the Christian Standard online edition on how each of us has our own collection of worship music through which we connect to our own faith's story and out of which we share a sense of belonging.


What Do You Say About Church Music?

Hauerwas Critiques Contemporary Worship

In 2001 Time magazine called Stanley Hauerwas America's best living theologian (Hauerwas wryly responded, "Best is not a theological category.")

Here's a link to a brief video in which he expresses his dismay over the ugliness of contemporary worship.  Always challenging. Sometimes outrageous.  Consistently Christ centered and radical.  Hauerwas' observations need to be watched and serious discussed by anyone interested in pursuing worship that is faithful to what God intended to the church to be about.


Hauerwas on Contemporary Worship

Ballad of the Geezers' Revenge

It was a typical Sunday.  So typical no one suspected it would mark the beginning of the last great battle of the worship wars.  Then, out of nowhere, the Loyal Daughters class struck.  

Oops: Singing the Wrong Lyrics

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.  Praise Him all creatures here me low.

Okay, technically that’s not exactly how the lyrics go.  But, hearing it as a child, that’s what I thought it said.  In fact, since I thought I knew the words, I kept singing it that way.  No one around me noticed.  It wasn’t until some point in college that I happened to actually look down and read “all creatures here below.”  

Oops.

But, when we learn something first by hearing it instead of reading it, of course we hear whatever we think we hear.  This is especially true if you grow up in church.

The results can be interesting...

Musical Communion

Many years ago, I was involved in my doctoral studies at Abilene (Texas) Christianity University.  ACU is associated with the churches of the Stone-Campbell Movement that do not use musical instruments in worship.

Most of Sunday worship was familiar.  The order was typical.  The music was generally well known.  Since the churches of Christ had a great emphasis on vocal harmony, it would not be remotely accurate to describe the services as unmusical.  Some outsiders have labeled them as the people who don't use music in worship.  That is so untrue.  They are only the group that do not use instruments to accompany their music in worship.

The most obvious change that struck me as unexpected and awkward was the Lord's Supper.

Of the Clean and Unclean Instruments...

Behold, these are the laws of the clean and unclean instruments.

Write them on thy cue cards and post them on the tops of thy instruments.  Talk about them in the sound check and in the time thou dost tear down thy stuff and depart unto thy dwellings.

1000 Tongues 10,000 Reasons

Charles Wesley’s joyous hymn has endured for well over two hundred years.  “O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace!”  Each stanza pours out new causes for worship: He bids our sorrows cease. He breaks the power of sin. He brings life to the dead. 

The words reflect both Wesley’s skill as a hymn writer and the depth of his own immersion in the Bible.  It is theologically rich. 

Can You Stand It?

I confess to a secret dream.  I have imagined beginning a forty-minute sermon by looking over at the members of the praise team and saying, "Listen, why don't you guys all stand up.  Right.  Now, stay standing.  I think this sermon will be a lot more meaningful to you that way."