Five Thoughts on Church Music - Part 2

Continuing with a few thoughts on church music....

3. Burn the Hymnbook

Okay, perhaps that's a little extreme, but I do want to draw your attention to something that is dying in a lot of churches - originality. And, I think the hymnbook is partly to blame.

Allow me to throw in the disclaimer that there isn't really anything wrong with hymnbooks. There are hundreds and thousands of great worship songs in them. But, if you know anything about the history of the songs in them, you would realize that many of those songs are outdated and somewhat irrelevant to today's world.

Starting around the time of our nation's birth, the first worship war, if we can call it that, began with the compositions of Isaac Watts. Isaac's songs were from the heart, spoke to the needs of the people in his day, and we still sing them today. But, after Isaac's generation of writers passed on, those songs gradually stopped speaking to people in the way they did Isaac's generation.

Why? Because the needs and culture changed.

This brought about another change in writing style in the 1800s, another in the early 1900s, and yet another in the late 1900s. Each of these time periods saw the rise of writers who composed music that spoke directly to the people in their churches. At first, their music was only locally supported, but time allowed for the music to spread.

Today, technology has allowed new music to spread through the church at a much quicker pace than Isaac Watts' or Fannie Crosby's writings ever did. New music can be recorded in one country, put on an album, or downloaded from the Internet, and incorporated into a church on the other side of the planet within a very short amount of time.

Australia's Hillsong Music is probably the best example of how technology has impacted church worship. In the early 1990s, Hillsong recorded "Shout To The Lord." It was still being introduced as a new worship song in some areas in the early 2000s. By contrast, their song "Mighty To Save" was released in September 2006. By the start of 2007, that song had been incorporated into many worship services in America, and has been covered by a couple of mainstream Christian artists.

Back to the hymnbook. In many ways it is a history book of worship music. It contains songs that have been handed down over the centuries from generation to generation. It is very good stuff. However, I believe that our modern-day reliance on the hymnbook, especially in traditional churches, has squelched the writing creativity in those churches that use them.

Think about it this way - Isaac Watts got his start writing music, because he was tired of the unorganized screeching that went on in the churches of his day. So, when he presented his pastor-father with his concerns, his dad challenged him to fix it by writing new songs for worship. And, that's just what he did.

Today, our churches need to encourage new compositions to offer praise to God in the language today's culture uses, and in ways that speak the hearts of today's Christian believers.

You have talented people in your congregations who likely have the gift of writing and composing. Let them loose to see what they come up with.