Yesterday evening (pre-recorded), whilst Mike P from Soul Survivor was talking about worship... about it being a sacrifice, something we should give to God, because we love Him.
At the same time, I was writing a blog, complaining about worship... but not worship, the people that have written some of the songs that we sing at church. Mike P then convicted me (perhaps actually it was God!) and I deleted the post, for the first time ever. I felt awful, how could I complain about something that is a sacrifice - Mike P even said that we should sing with our whole hearts, that we shouldn't grumble when we hate a song, but actually I think he's wrong.
What if the song is theologically incorrect? It doesn't happen very often, but if you think what is being said doesn't sit with your sense of God, you shouldn't just sing it blindly... or if you're singing something you don't understand, is that appropriate or helpful either. I love imagery, so the song These are the days of Elijah is great for me, but others would think I was weird for singing it aloud! I get it, but others don't, so is that right?
My thought that I deleted was about song writers who write in funny keys, so it is near impossible to sing if you have a normal range voice (as I do), normally, it's too high and if you don't have years of learning how to harmonize, you haven't got a chance. So you have to sing like a man, which is equally as painful. Even at one point, Beth Croft struggled with a song - too high. If you don't know how to transpose, you don't have a chance either.
I think I have a point, I think that bringing your all to worship the King of kings is a really key idea, I can't imagine what the church would look like with sacrificial worship, rather than some awfully sung songs for 20 mins on any given Sunday!! It would be different that's for sure.
But no-one wants to sound like a strangled cat, no matter how much the phrase 'it's all heavenly to God' is used... so if you are a song writer, don't write in a key so that you can sing it well, but if you have to, when it becomes mass produced, please change the key, so that when a congregation sings it, we're not straining to reach difficult notes. I have heard many a time 'that's a lovely song, but it's not a song for the congregation'. If you're doing it for yourself, you're doing it wrong, if you're doing it for the glory of God, the church will see that and sing with you.
1 comment:
Very good post.
I think that you are both right on this issue.
Mike was talking about the attitude that people can sometimes have towards worship, declaring that "It did nothing for me" as though they are the important ones in the process. So in this he was completely correct.
But you are also correct, because one of the important things for worship leaders (and song writers are as much a worship leader as the people who sing their songs) is to enable people to join in with the worship. If you sing in an abstract key or sing in a language that hardly anyone else knows and you don't enable the congregation to join in then you are failing in your responsibility.
Psalms is a very good example of this, as we have various descriptors on how they should be sung. "Selah", for example, is saying that there should be a pause in the song.
When worship leaders don't do a good job they should be held as accountable as the preacher that preaches heresy as they are disenfranchising the Church when they fail to enable the worship of God. But the Church also needs to hold itself accountable when we allow the focus of our worship to stray from God.
As Mike quoted, "...I'll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required...I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about you...Jesus"
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