I've been thinking a lot about church music recently. For the first time in my career I have found myself in the position of selecting the hymns for worship as our choir director takes the summer off.
I grew up in a traditional Presbyterian church in Ireland and we sang songs from the hymnal every week accompanied by the organ. The vast majority of those songs were over a hundred years old and represented a long tradition of Christian hymnody going back Isaac Watts, Martin Luther and others. I came to appreciate the best of these songs and dreaded the rest.
As I grew older (around 9 or 10) I came to understand there was a disconnect between the songs we sang on a Sunday and the music of the world in which I lived. This disconnect was heightened in my teenage years as I discovered the music of The Jam, Madness, AC/DC, Deep Purple, Duran Duran, U2, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and many others. When I became a Christian I was introduced the world of contemporary Christian music, Petra, Stryper, The 77's, Altar Boys, Larry Norman etc. but even though this was "Christian" music it didn't seem to find a place in the worship services I attended.
By the mid-80's I was aware that some Pentecostal churches were now singing new songs in worship and a couple of other churches had started "contemporary" services, in which music born out of the folk tradition was sung.
Today the only place you hear a pipe organ is in a church. It is for me a nostalgic feeling singing with a pipe organ (real pipes or digitized) but it is nostalgia, it is like a comfortable old sweat-shirt that I like to wear once in a while. But it is not the world I live in and more importantly it is not the world my children live in or have any desire to enter. They were not raised in this environment and entering it is like visiting a foreign country in which the language and culture are alien.
Last Saturday our family visited a large church in our area with a very simple service of worship, singing, prayer, offering and sermon. The music was led by a worship leader (we used to call them cantors in the days before church choirs, we have come full circle) and played on guitar, drums and keyboard. The music, while being God honoring, reflected the music of the world in which we live. I believe, Luther, Watts and Wesley would be delighted by this. But more than that my daughter was delighted by this, she lifted her head high, as did Jenny and I, and following the lyrics on the screen we sang our hearts out.
I asked her what she thought of the service and she said she loved it. I realize my children will not end up in what I think of as a traditional church. There will be no hymnals in the church they raise their kids in as the print media gives way to digital media. Many of the classic hymns will be rewritten or consigned to a place in the history books and rightly so as the music of a new generation fills the air in praise of God.
I do pray my children will end up in a worshiping community that honors the tradition of the church to proclaim the gospel in a culturally appropriate manner.
Two quick questions on "classic" hymns...
1. All Hail the Power of Jesus Name - without resorting to a dictionary, what is a "diadem'?
2. All People That On Earth Do Dwell - what does "serve him with mirth" mean?
