Comments on: The latest Lingamish rant on worship

By: Peter Kirk

Peter Kirk — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:59:08 +0000

Interesting. I didn’t know this list existed. I still don’t know exactly what it means, surely not an accurate measure of how much the songs are sung – and it only includes ones in copyright, so no old hymns.

There is a lot of overlap between the UK list and the US one, but I note that the UK one still includes several of your favourite Graham Kendricks, as well as “How Great Thou Art” whose royalties benefit your organisation. On the other hand the songs on the US list are closer to what I currently like singing. Perhaps you and I should swap countries!

By: David Ker

David Ker — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:32:07 +0000

Eddie,
When I look at these things on the micro/tribal level a lot of our objections disappear. In my family, or my cell group, or my little community church there is a well-loved and often well-worn set of songs that everyone gravitates to naturally and sings with gusto.

On the macro/globalized level “worship” tends to follow a pop-song trajectory. But even so, if you look at the Top 25 songs at CCLI they look very similar today to what they were a year ago: http://www.ccli.com/usa/LicenseHolder/Top25Lists.aspx

On one hand I’m really tired of almost all of those songs, but with a few exceptions they’re all terrific songs.

Dancing queen! That is a scary thought.

By: Eddie

Eddie — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:26:32 +0000

This is worrying, I think I agree with everyone here!

Just a thought… Communal singing is alive and well in the UK (and other countries where they play real football). Though the tunes are hardly new.

I’ve also been told that the whole audience joins in with the songs at the Mama Mia movie (I dread to think what that sounds like – especially if it is an inflight movie).

Could it be that part of the problem is that our churches sometimes fail to express the sense of commitment shared by a football crowd or the sense of togetherness shown by a bunch of forty somethings watching Meryl Streep singing Dancing Queen.

Wanders off into the distance singing to himself… ‘Friday night and the music’s low…..’

By: Tim Bulkeley

Tim Bulkeley — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:56:39 +0000

Another question here is the way community singing is changing. The examples you give of singing being alive and well outside “American Idol. High School Musical. Karaoke” strike me as people imitating “performers” and not communal singing. What seems to be happening is that singing in public has become almost exclusively performance – even the national anthem at rugb matches is mianly a performance… And singing in church too, except that there if one can manage it one can shout along as well as dance along with the performers If this sounds like a grumpy old man that’s OK, on this issue that’s what I am. I liked singing tunes that were singable by everyone, with words that were theologically profound. Relevance is a chimera – you can never catch it.

By: David Ker

David Ker — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:41:18 +0000

Eddie, I think you’re right. My rhetoric got ahead of reality there. The first question is should worship have a short shelf-life? I’m all for the idea of rootedness but is it in fact an illusion? The second question is should worship within the church sound like music outside the church? I listen to the radio while driving and the CCM is so crappy compared to just about everything else that I can’t bear to listen to it. My three favorite stations: jazz, classical, classic rock.

Peter, you know I prefer Graham! But that possibly says more about my age than the music.

Chris, excellent point about tribalism. I think some of these discussion suffer from over-generalization. When you look at specific instances you often find a long tradition that is interacting albeit uncomfortably with modernity.

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Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e28v5(a) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:07:04 +0000

[...] Another view of the “dying of singing in worship”. [...]

By: Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Friday Highlights

Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Friday Highlights — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:06:09 +0000

[...] Another view of the “dying of singing in worship”. [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:44:18 +0000

Also worth remembering that in our fragmented, tribal culture there isn’t any such thing as “contemporary culture”. There are lots of cultures. So I think that trying to run a church service that is aimed at being relevant to everyone is more impossible now than it ever has been. Do what you do well I say, and lets not get into slagging off what someone else is trying to do well. No point. I don’t think our choice of music will lead to committed discipleship (in fact the evidence I see is the opposite in fact). But it is worth encouraging lots of styles of worship so that people can get a chance at worshipping in a style that they can enjoy.

By: Peter Kirk

Peter Kirk — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:44:13 +0000

If Matt and Darlene are getting to be old hat, they will soon be overtaken by a new generation which is not, just as they overtook Graham Kendrick and the other 80s favourites. Indeed there is a new generation of worship songs already in use at my church’s youth service, in a new style which the youth pastor thinks are not so alien – although more rock than hip-hop. I find them hard to sing along to, but I blame that not on the songs, but on my age and the fact that I don’t listen to that kind of music outside the Christian ghetto.

By: Eddie

Eddie — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:23:23 +0000

Sorry, but Matt Redman and Darlene Zschech sound alien to me precisely because most of my music listening happens outside of the Christian ghetto. If churches were singing R&B and hip-hop inspired stuff, then I think your argument would have more weight.

Contemporary Christian worship music is more up to date than, say, Sankey. But it still isn’t contemporary – at least not contemporary to any radio or MP3 player I’ve been close to in the last few years.