What's In a Song? - A look at "Traditional" v. "Contemporary" worship.

"For I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to your name!"
 2 Sam 22:50

Several years ago our son, Ben, came home from church and asked, “Why don’t we sing any of the old songs in church anymore?”  A little surprised, I asked him what he meant by “old songs”. 

“You know, like Shout to the Lord and Jesus Messiah.  Why can’t we sing those anymore?”   I had to chuckle, here was our 10 year old boy bemoaning the idea that his favorite songs might be going away at church!  I tried to explain to him how we’d sing those songs again but its good to learn new ones too.  My answer didn’t satisfy him very much. Coincidentally, just a few days before Ben’s lament, I was with a group of senior adults who were asking the same question, only their version of “old songs” was much different! And it did not involve chord charts or amplifiers, but instead a book with four-part harmonies held inside stanzas, neatly bound with gold lettering on the front.  I offered to them the same answer I gave my son and their response appeared equally dissatisfied.  No matter our age the issue of what we sing at church sits close to the heart!  

I suppose we all want to sing songs we can relate to and that feel familiar to us.  

For the record, at our church we sing hymns as well as contemporary choruses.  (...and I probably shouldn't mention how hymn melodies were often taken from "contemporary" bar tunes of the day.)

The other day while driving to work the old Michael W. Smith song, Friends, came on the radio. As I listened, my heart was transported back in time by 30 years!  The emotions of saying goodbye to high school friends at graduation came flooding in and I felt like a teenager all over again! (Sappy, I know...) But that’s when it hit me.  Songs, in their unique way, help us remember.  My son wanted to sing the songs he knew because they were not only familiar to him, but because he was building memories associated with them. They were important memories that would help him recall God years down the road.  Emotions were tied to those memories as he stood with his friends every week singing about God's truth in ways that were new to them.  The Spirit used those lyrics and melodies to help root their growing faith in God.  

The same can be said of me. Sometimes songs not only trigger special memories, but anchor me in the storms of life.  I remember one Sunday when I was grieving a second miscarriage. The worship team at church started to sing “Shout to the Lord”, and oh man! I did NOT want to join them!  But as I sat and listened to the words, “Shout to the Lord let us sing.  Power and Majesty and praise to the king.  Mountains fall down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name...” something in me started to change.  It happened about the same time the song changed keys…”I sing for joy at the works of your hand.”  Suddenly while everyone else was sitting I found myself rising to stand, “Forever I love you, forever I’ll stand, nothing compares to the promise I have in you.”  For a moment my grief had been swallowed up in the larger expression of God and I was finding relief from the weight of my loss.  In it came the strength to inwardly declare: “Though I am in pain, yet will I praise you.”  To this day when I hear that song I remember the ministry of God that happened to me that day.

And so it is with that sweet senior adult community I spoke with as well.  Singing their familiar songs from long ago, allows them to recall God's faithful work.  My grandmother wept every time she sang Great Is Thy Faithfulness because events throughout her life had shown her how faithful God really is! 

All of this causes me to really consider what we are doing and why we do it when we sing in church.  I’m becoming more and more convinced that as long as there are people with stories sitting in our pews, then we ought to be singing their songs. – New, old, whatever.  Something marvelous and beautiful happens when we stand with one another and, through song, bear witness to the work of God in each other’s lives! Songs hold our story.  Lets not mute such a testimony based on style or preference.  Instead let Grandparent stand beside Grandchild while together we sing both the old and new melodies that bear witness of God's redeeming work.  Perhaps a story is held in the words of Amazing grace for one, and Jesus Messiah or Oceans for another.  What we have in common is how these melodies become the collective expression of our faith-story.  And Sunday becomes the time when we gather, find cadence with each other, pause to remember, and receive Grace.

So senior adult, when the young ones are singing a new song, take a moment to learn it, notice the story being weaved in its melody, and rest in the work of God being done.  Introduce them as well to the songs that tell your story.  Teach them to regard and remember the Faithful One who has gone before you and will go before them.  After all, the value of a song is not in its style, but in its capacity to hold the stories being written in the heart of it's singers.

What songs's hold your story?

The Power of Praise

This is a story about one church in a small valley town that set out to encounter God together...well, this is one of their stories... 

One Sunday our church was asked to consider how we as individuals worship best...that is, where is it easy to sense God's presence?  We were then challenged to engage a venue where worship may come naturally for us and see what God does through it during the next week. The idea being that in doing this we might encounter God's abiding presence, and develop a practice or two that might help us posture in such a way that being with Him becomes familiar.  Some chose to go for a walk in the mountains or tend to their garden, others chose to study a passage of scripture, or serve side-by side with someone, and some chose to just sit in quiet contemplation with Him. It wasn't always easy nor was it automatic, but giving credence to different pathways to worship was profoundly valuable because it allowed us to set aside the "how" and simply seek HIM....And things always seem to go better for us when we turn from staring at ourselves and instead gaze upon God.  In those separate places of "Sabbath- worship", we - as God's kids - had a chance to breath in His goodness.

Upon returning the following Sunday, we shared our experiences and sang like we'd never sang before.  Then, something happened that no one would have expected.  The head grounds keeper was the first to see it.  He has an app on his phone that allows him to keep watch on the church facilities from a distance.  He knows if a door is unlocked or a light is left on or if the climate controls are off.  During the time of our worship, while we sang that second Sunday, his phone alerted him that the air quality in the room where we were gathered was dramatically off.   The carbon dioxide levels were reading way too high. After considering all possible scenarios, here's what seems to have happened (and my interpretation of it):  As we "breathed in" God's goodness throughout the week, it gave us something to celebrate, so we SANG!  We lifted high with abandon, the name of the Lord no matter our struggle or consolation, we just sang! And our collective exhale changed the climate of the room!  It was beyond what we could have imagined... in our praise we set off the sensor!




WOW! God inhabits the praise of His people…He lives in it...He’s found in
it! 

The stories shared that day were just like yours and mine.  Some involved real difficulty, others, a season of renewal and strength.  And some were quiet and not very sensational.  But God inhabited ALL of them because He inhabits each of us. The praise we lifted up together that day was an expression of shared fellowship in God's presence along life's bumpy sacred way.  

Now, when I am tempted to come to church and lazily go through the motions, or when I think that a moment with God won't amount to much and I consider dismissing the opportunity, I remember that day and refocus my easily distracted heart.  Because there are no ordinary moments... God is in them all.  He gives breath to his people.  His presence comes to life in our praise...and best of all, when we spend time with Him, He shows up in us.