I note that the bloated plutocrats who run television have chosen to put “House” opposite “Chuck” on the schedule tonight. Thus am I torn between two monosyllabically titled series that I especially enjoy.
I’ll have to go with “House.” “Chuck” is great, and even has a hot girl character named Walker, but Gregory House is the one character on television with whom I most identify. The pain of losing “House” will be greater than that of losing “Chuck.”
Someday (probably when I’m old, blind and deaf) I’ll get Tivo.
I went to a different church this past Sunday. Actually I’ve gone to this different church for the past two weeks. I was contemplating changing my membership (same national church body, different congregations).
As you may have noted from occasional blog posts of mine, my mild enthusiasm for what is called “praise music” in church has cooled over the years to indifference, and has now settled into plain loathing. Some people hate the music, but I can live with the music. It’s the lyrics that scratch my chalkboard. There are exceptions (I can think of exactly one, which we never use in our church anymore), but praise song lyrics are pretty generally amateurish, banal in sentiment, incoherent in theology, and repetitious. Some of them are like a slap in the face to anybody who’s ever attempted to write a decent song lyric.
So, since my home church has welded itself solidly to the praise song format, I thought I’d check out another church, which is only a little farther away, and where (I understood) they offer a traditional service.
I went to the late service last Sunday, only to learn that their late service is a praise music service. Their traditional service is the early one.
Yesterday I got up bright and early and went in for that.
It was very nice. I felt far more comfortable in a “traditional” (traditional by low-church, pietist Norwegian standards) service.
Right up until the pastor announced that now we’d all be breaking up into small groups for prayer.
Here’s advice for anyone planning church outreach to shy people—we don’t like breaking up into small groups. Especially when we’re strangers in your church.
I guess I’ll stay with my old church. Maybe I’ll get lucky and sustain a massive brain injury, and come to love praise songs.
It’s the lyrics that scratch my chalkboard.
Can you do better?
I could do better in a coma, but nobody’s asking me.
I could do better in a coma, but nobody’s asking me.
Nobody asked you to write for Baen, either. Why don’t you try it, write a good song, show it to us to critique, and then e-mail it to your Pastor?
Unless you’re a prophet, God sends you into the world with a roving commission. “I’m giving you these abilities, I’m not telling you what they are good for – go out there and do good”. This means we need to try different things to see where we can do God’s work.
It’s not a bad idea for somebody with a positive attitude (obviously not me), but it would only help when that particular song came up in the rotation. I’m confident that our worship leader would still schedule “Our God Reigns” (the new one, not the older one of the same title) every other week.
I’m with you, Lars. And the thing is, you don’t HAVE to write new church music with good words, because it’s been done — by people with last names like Wesley, or Fortunatus, for example. Sometimes a bad attitude is a good thing, because some wheels just really didn’t need re-inventing.
(I gave you guys a little blog award, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.)
Praise songs. Yech. I vividly recall attending an Army military chapel while stationed in Germany which mixed praise songs with hymns. One Sunday, I remember mumbling my way through some insipid praise number and then moving into the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” whose words directly contradicted the theology behind the last crappy song. I felt like poking my eyes out. When I pointed the contradiction out to the pastor later, I was told I “pay too much attention to the words.” Unbelievable.
You “pay too much attention to the words.” That explains almost everything that’s wrong with the church today.
There is another church from your denomination a short ways south of your regular church, just off Hwy 62. When I attended there from 2000-2003, they still had a traditional service. And you don’t have to worry about them breaking up into small groups. They already are a small group with only about a dozen members.
Greybeard, I’m not familiar with that one. What’s it called?
Keith and Kristyn Getty, an Irish couple, do a good job of writing contemporary hymns. They aren’t praise songs.
The artists with Indelible Grace Music are also doing some great work.
That’s great. I hope people understand I’m not criticizing any music on the basis of its being new. I’m all for new hymns. There’s one praise song we used to sing called “Before the Throne of God Above,” which I considered exquisite. It was actually a hymn, and a pretty good one. So naturally we never use it anymore.
A couple of decades ago I was eager to leave behind the bowed head form of worship that was hymnal dependent for the upturned face, shining from the glow of the overhead projector.
Now, there’s not much reason to look up.
“Before the Throne of God Above” is one of my favorite songs. I love the second verse especially.
You know, if we really wanted internet hits, we ought to just make this a music blog. James Dobson always says that no subject (not abortion, or homosexuality, or child discipline) brings in more mail for his show than music.
Of course there is the drawback that I don’t really know much about music…
Maybe it’s the emotional appeal. We’ve talked before about liking Scrooge or certain songs, even though the words were weak.
Shout to the north and the south
Sing to the east and the west
Jesus is saviour to all
Lord of heaven and earth
Let’s sing that 12 more times–come on!
It’s a flashpoint for a lot of people. And I’m not anti-new-hymn, either, just anti-bad-hymn. What people don’t realize is the extent to which hymnody is catechism — hymns function in much the same way that altarpieces functioned in medieval churches — to spell out WHAT WE BELIEVE. Hymns essentially engrave our creeds into our minds, in, one would hope, infinitely-faceted but always-orthodox ways. So I want to find myself singing “Christ Whose Glory Fills the Skies” while I’m washing the dishes. I do NOT want to find myself singing this hymn we did a couple of weeks ago, which contained the line (and the conceit is that Jesus is saying this to his disciples): “Will you love the ‘you’ inside . . . ” Ick. No. Jesus doesn’t say that. Fortunately the words are so banal that I’m in no danger of remembering them, though I can’t get the tune out of my head. Which begs the question: if these words are so forgettable, why please are we singing them in church? And if this tune is so nice and memorable, WHY WHY WHY can’t anyone come up with some decent words that actually correspond with the Christian faith?
Sally, I think I read (or heard) somewhere that somebody said that the reason John Wesley never wrote a systematic theology was because his brother Charles explained Methodist theology so well in his hymns.
A good hymn is a wonderful educational device. First a person gets the poetry stuck in his head, and then (perhaps years later) he comes to understand the doctrine and says, “Oh! That’s what that means!”
I was referring to King of Glory Free Lutheran Church.
Christianity Today has an editorial on the volume of praise bands. Apparently what they lack in talent or theological content, they compensate with extra volume.
Something about this conversation has been bugging me, but it’s taken a while to figure it out.
This morning, it came to me. Regarding the hymns that we love so much (and count me in as a hymn lover; or rather, a lover of some hymns): What percentage of the hymns in any given hymnal get sung with any regularity? I’d be surprised if it was more than 10 percent. Why do we not sing the other 90%?
While there may be some undiscovered gems in there, I’m willing to bet that it’s because a) they’re not the old, familiar, comfortable hymns, or b) there not very good musically, theologically, or both.
Of all the hymns in the average hymnal, what’s the span of time they represent? A couple hundred years, at least; probably more. They don’t include all of the hymns written during those years, either. Why were all those other hymns left out? Most likely because they weren’t very good.
Fanny Crosby wrote about 8,000 hymns. Some are brilliant. (I particularly like “All the way my Savior leads me,” especially the Rich Mullins arrangement.) But some are bad, and consequently, are forgotten.
The point is that there has always been both good and bad music written by well-meaning believers of varying levels of talent. And there have always been complaints about the quality of that music. Here’s a bit from Lewis Carroll’s book, Sylvie and Bruno, in which the characters are discussing church music:
Why decry an entire class of music and praise another when they both likely share the same proportions of good to bad?
You make some good points and tell some truths, Roy. I guess I would contend that “praise music” (especially, for some reason, the more recent stuff) seems (to me) to be especially dim; written by illiterates for illiterates. No doubt there are exceptions. As I mentioned there’s one song classified as praise music that I’d be delighted to see in any hymn book. But that’s a rarity.
And on top of that, one is expected to stand all through the praise music section of the service, and the songs are repeated. Just when you’re ready to say, “Well, that’s one down,” they go back and do a couple verses again. I don’t know why, but I assume it’s an attempt to work the congregation up into some zen-like state of emotional elevation. In my view, that’s not what Christian worship is about.
And I’m old and tired, and I want to sit down.
Bad as the hymn cited by Carroll may be, it seems to me a work of art compared to the average praise song. Especially the new “Our God Reigns.”
A few congregations that have asked me to candidate as a potential pastor asked about transitioning to a modern praise music format. I pointed out what Roy noted above. Hundreds of hymns have been written every year since who knows when, yet only a handful are in our hymnals. I would explain to the call committee that that means a huge filtering process has taken place. I don’t think God stopped inspiring music in 1850 or 1925, but any congregation that chooses to exclusively use modern music also positions themselves to be part of the filtering process. They need to recognize that only a small fraction of the songs they use today will still be around in ten or twenty years, let alone a century from now.
Very few of those congregations called me back for a second interview. I didn’t mind. I’d gladly lead a contemporary or a traditional service, but refuse to lead a congregation through the transition from one to another. For the most part it’s trying to put new wine in an old wineskin. The music gets all the attention but is rarely the root issue. I’d rather dig for root issues without such a convenient mask to cover them up.
Lars, I agree about the standing forever thing. I remember when I started seminary I visited the church on campus. My wife had miscarried the week before, losing a lot of blood and was very week. I stood for 15 minutes during the praise time while my wife sat next to me. I was even getting wobbly kneed by the end.
The next week they had a potluck dinner welcoming the new students. I carried a hotdish into the kitchen where three members were holding a lively conversation. I stood there clearing my throat for a couple of minutes waiting for a break in their exchange of words so I could ask where to put my hotdish. Finally I set it on the counter and left unnoticed. That week I got half a dozen calls from various ministries in the church asking how they could put me to work.
During that same week, my neighbor asked if they could take my kids to the VBS at another church. The next Sunday I went to that church for their VBS program and never looked back. I didn’t go their for the music, which was often pretty bad. Rather they welcomed me as a person, not as someone they could plug into a program.
Not all hymnals are edited equally, as I understand it, but I think you’re right, Roy, in that many take the easy road of singing familiar songs. I’ve grown up under music directors who did not do that, so I’ve sung many more hymns in our excellent hymnal, the Trinity Hymnal (get one for your church and your family), than perhaps the average church-goer. I enjoy singing unfamiliar hymns. I’m told some are pretty bad for one reason or another. Probably not the theology, because that’s what the book editors were screening for, but the words may be difficult or the music too unusual.
But in a good hymnal, most of the hymns should be good and singable.
Something I didn’t mention: I help with the music at our church (a Conservative Baptist congregation), but I’m not often involved in picking songs. We sing a blend of hymns and praise songs at one service (and we’ve gone through that dreaded music transition), and praise songs at a second, outreach-focus service.
During the transition from hymns only to the hymn/praise song blend, we had some complaints about the new music. Had I thought of it and been willing to risk my hide, I might have suggested doing some services where we sang hymns only, but then picked hymns that we had never sung before.
But I guess I live dangerously. Ask Lars about the length of my hair. I think the thought of a church elder (yeah, I’m on the elder board, too; a glutton for punishment) with hair down to past his shoulders almost caused a few aneurysms in our congregation.
Roy, I’d like to submit to you the following lines from what appears to be our music leader’s favorite praise song:
“So much holy,
So divine.
Yours and so much mine.”
That’s how it starts. The chorus goes (as I recall it)
“Our God reigns, over the heavens,
Over the earth, our God reigns.
Praise His name, all still standing.
All that is, all that remains,
Our God reigns.”
I ask you in all seriousness, is there any excuse for those lyrics?
I was picking the hymns at one congregation, going deep into the hymnal. I figure that if there’s 500 hymns in the hymnal, at three per week, I shouldn’t have to repeat any for three years.
The organist was complaining that I kept picking hymns they hadn’t sung before in the 25 years they’d had their latest hymnals. She said they liked the good old hymns, so I picked hymns from late 1800’s. She said, “No. We like the old hymns.” So I picked hymns from the early 1800’s, then the 1700’s, then the 1600’s. After struggling through a few medieval numbers, she pointed out a few of the Good Old Hymns they were used to singing. Turns out that what she considered the Good Old Hymns were the gospel songs from the 1930’s and 40’s. In other words, Good Old Hymns were the songs that were new when our older members were kids or young adults.
Lars,
That first bit has me puzzled. The chorus doesn’t seem so terrible. I guess I’d have to hear the whole thing; I’m not at all familiar with it.
How about this one?
Seems pretty monotonous, at first glance.
Unless, of course, you recognize it as the opening lines of one of the most famous pieces of music ever. You know the one; it’s the one that caused King George II to rise to his feet when he first heard it.
I’m not saying that the lyrics you posted are fine, Lars. For that one, I don’t feel ready to pass judgment without hearing the whole thing.
J. Ellsworth Kalas says if you want contemporary music, put a drum kit with the Wesley hymns – the tunes don’t matter but the theology does. In fact, I may be in love with Sally – need to go check out her blog now –
(btw, I’m new here, that was a joke, the in love thing – or just virtual reality adulation)
Don’t worry about it. We’re pretty cool with hyperbole in these parts.
Be carefuly how we say things, I praise God only
I couldn’t agree more on the praise music! Part of the reason I’m not attending a church right now is that I’m not comfortable with either and ultra-conservative church (how I was raised) or an ultra modern one – and there don’t seem to be any locally that are a happy medium. And I miss singing the old-fashioned hymns. In college (yes, Bible college) we had a professor who opened his classes with the most esoteric hymns he could find! Some of them were very interesting theologically, but almost unsingable.
I’ve been in your shoes, Lars. You might enjoy my 2007 essay on that subject, “Because a Power Ballad is Not a Hymn” (linked).