Never a Dull Moment: Music in the Worship of the Church

By Robin G. Jordan

One of the things upon which I place a high value is a singing church. While I believe that choirs, music groups, soloists, and special music have a place in Christian worship, I do not believe that they should be allowed to overshadow congregational singing. The standards of the cathedral choir, concert hall, and MTV have their place but it is not a church’s sanctuary or worship center on Sundays and other occasions. While I believe that we should aim for excellence in everything that we do and do everything that we can to improve the singing of the congregation, I do not believe that we should hold the congregation to the same standard as we might a professional singer.

In selecting hymns and songs for church services and other gospel gatherings, we want to choose hymns and songs that the congregation is able to master and sing with confidence and enjoyment. I say enjoyment because I believe that it is a serious mistake to select hymns and songs that will make singing drudgery for the congregation—a task they would prefer to avoid and, if they are unable to avoid it, to get it over and down with as quickly as possible. When congregations experience congregational singing as irksome, they are likely to pressure pastors and music ministers to reduce the number of hymns and songs in the church service and to shorten hymns and songs without regard to the logic of the text. The result is the congregation is deprived of a major form of participation in the church service. The congregation is often as not asked to sing nonsense. God is not honored and the congregation is not edified.

When selecting hymns and songs for a church service or other gospel gathering, worship planners need to keep in mind that worship is a conversation between God and ourselves and between each other. We speak to God through the words of the hymns and songs and he speaks to us. We also speak to each other. They also need to be mindful of what Paul wrote about praying with understanding. They should ask these three questions:

1. Do the words of the text fit with the place in the service at which I am thinking of using the hymn or song?

2. Does the mood and tempo of the tune of the hymn or song fit with that place?

3. Will the hymn or song contribute to the flow of the service if I use it in that place?

The key is to select hymns and songs whose tone and subject is appropriate to the particular place in the service where they will be used. Over time worship planners will develop a sense of what hymn or song will work best at a particular juncture in the service. Like a hymn or song, a church service has its own logic. A good choice will flow out of what preceded it and flow into what follows it.

Attention should also be given to the season or the occasion. This does not mean that every hymn or song must be appropriate to the season or the occasion. An all too frequent result of giving priority to this principle is that the hymns and songs, while they fit the season or the occasion do not fit the place where they used. Rather none of the hymns or songs should conflict with the season or the occasion.

Worship planners should avoid choosing hymns and songs solely on the basis that they like the words or the tune or they are old favorites or the latest hits. On the other hand, worship planners should always pick hymns and songs that are accessible to the average singer in the congregation. If they are new, the congregation should be able to learn them and sing them well. Thoughtfully-selected hymns and songs will foster the congregation’s desire to worship God in song. They will not discourage the congregation from singing.

The principle that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer articulated in regard to ceremonies may also be applied to church music. We should not discard a hymn or song because it is no longer new. If it can still be put to good use, we should go on using it. The caveat is that the hymn or song must be scriptural and theologically-sound. It must also make sense to a twenty-first century congregation. Some hymns and songs are timeless; others are not. We also may want to sing the words to a new tune. At the same time we should not let our affection for old hymns and songs and their tunes prevent us from using new hymns or songs or new tunes.

A genre of church music that enjoyed a degree of popularity in the last century was what was sometimes called “celebration songs.” They had simple lyrics and easy-to-learn tunes. They exhibited a number of the characteristics of folk songs—refrains and other forms of repetition—which made them accessible to children as well as adults. The tunes of a number of these songs were so easy to pick up that the songs seemed to sing themselves. Singing them was a rewarding experience which encouraged the congregation to attempt other hymns and songs.

As bands and Christian music and praise and worship songs grew in popularity toward the close of the century, these simple hymns and songs were displaced by songs with more complicated lyrics and more difficult-to-learn tunes. The latter were increasingly written for the band’s vocalists. They were performance songs. Congregations were relegated to singing the chorus.

The songs in this particular genre would have a dampening effect upon congregational singing. The band would replace the congregation as the principal worshipers at church services. Rather than singing themselves a large part of the congregation would listen to the band. They would come to mistakenly believe that passively observing others worship was itself a form of worship. Worship leaders did little to disabuse them of this misconception.

The transition to this type of song was a gradual one. Members of the congregation would hear a particular song on Christian radio or an electronic recording and after hearing it sung over and over again would pick up the tune. They would then go to the worship planners and ask them to use this song in the church service. They erroneously concluded that the congregation would also be able to pick up the tune after hearing it sung once or twice even though they had only learned it after repeated hearings. They seldom gave thought to whether it would work well in the church service. Their primary motive was that they wanted to sing at church what they were hearing on Christian radio and electronic recordings. Such folks can be very persistent and eventually will have their way. As the demand for contemporary Christian music and praise and worship songs grew and churches catered to this demand, congregational singing declined. Congregations always had someone clamoring for something new and bands quickly tired of singing the same songs week after week.

The principle of choosing a hymn or song because it was singable, that is, the congregation would be able to sing it was lost in the process. It is an important principle and if you value a singing church, it is not one that you want to neglect. It does not mean that you have to use the same tired hymns and songs over and over again. But it does mean that you want to be intentional in introducing new hymns and songs. You want choose ones that are accessible and which the congregation can master in a reasonable length of time. You also want to give the congregation sufficient time to master them.

I would like to see a revival of the “celebration songs” as well as the better older hymns set to singable tunes. A number of the older tunes are very singable. However, some hymns need to be sung to more singable tunes. A number of new hymns were written in the second half of the twentieth century and the opening decades of this century and would be welcome additions to a congregation’s repertoire. The contemporary Christian music and praise and worship song genre has a number of songs that have similar characteristics to the “celebration songs” and I would incorporate these songs into a congregation’s repertoire provided they were scriptural and theologically-sound and could be put to good use in a liturgical context. Our aim should be, in the words of Betty Carr Pulkingham, “to release the congregation into praise.”

A second genre of church music that worship planners may want to explore is the songs of the World Church. They are, for the most part, very singable. A number of them can be picked up in one or two sessions. The songs that Christians sing around the world as well as the songs that they sung in the past are a part of their witness to us and to future generations. When we sing them, we are not only worshiping God but we are also affirming their faith and expressing our unity and solidarity with them. Like “celebration songs,” World Church songs are not difficult to integrate into traditional worship.

While written in the 1980s Bishop Michael Marshall’s Renewal in Worship is full of useful ideas as is Betty Carr Pulkingham’s Sing God a Simple Song: Exploring Music in Worship for the Eighties. Ms. Pulkingham's book is available on line in Portable Document Format (PDF).

Bishop Marshall’s book introduced me to the principle of tailoring worship to the circumstances of a church.

For example, the music in the worship of a new congregation holding its church services in a hotel conference room would be a lot simpler than that of a new congregation holding its services in a rented church. An electronic recording of the tolling of a church bell, a very ancient way of calling Christians to prayer, might be played at the beginning of the service. After a moment of silence and stillness the minister might enter from the side and the congregation which had been seated might stand. The minister might read a sentence of scripture appropriate to the day and then invite the congregation to join him in a prayer of preparation such as the Collect for Purity. The congregation might then sing a hymn of praise such as Stephen P. Starke’s “All You Works of God, Bless the Lord!,” sung unaccompanied except the beat of a djembe or box drum and hand claps.

Between the Old Testament reading and the epistle the congregation might recite a psalm antiphonally, from side to side. After the epistle the congregation might sing “Halle,Halle,Halle” without accompaniment, a song leader beginning the song from the midst of the congregation.

During the gathering and presentation of the gifts and the preparation of the table the congregation might sing a hymn or song that echoes the theme of the readings or the sermon, responds to the sermon’s message, or puts the congregation in the right frame of mind to receive communion. An electronic recording might provide the accompaniment.

As the communicants come forward to receive the bread and wine at the one or more communion stations, they might sing a hymn or song that does not require them to look at a hymnal, church bulletin insert, or multimedia projection screen. After the Lord’s Prayer and the Post-Communion Thanksgiving they might sing a final hymn or song. The minister might then pronounce God’s blessing on the congregation and dismiss the congregation. The music in the worship of a new congregation holding its gatherings in a living room would be even simpler.

Whatever a church does, it should avoid making its services so onerous that only a few hardy souls attend them out of a sense of duty and the fear of hell fire. This can be a real problem in small traditional churches that have become so accustomed to doing things one particular way that they cannot even imagine doing it any differently. It is very easy to develop bad worship habits but it is extremely difficult to undo them.

The worship of God, the act of turning our hearts and our eyes away from the world and ourselves to God, should be more than a duty. It should be a delight. It is something that we should look forward to with eager anticipation. We are doing what we were created to do—to worship God and enjoy him forever. We are looking away from what is temporary and fleeting and gazing upon what is eternal. It should not be allowed to become something that we dread—like a visit to the dentist’s office when we have a cavity or worse.

The purpose of church services is not to entertain us. Church services are one of a number of ways that we are able to declare the excellencies of the One who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Hymns and songs provide us with words to make known his character and his deeds as well to express the gratitude that we feel toward God for being who he is and for what he has done for us.

Church services are one of the ways that we build up each other in the Christian faith and life. Hymns and songs provide us with words with which we can instruct each other, invigorate and strengthen each others’ faith, give encouragement to each other, and urge each other to walk more closely with God.

Church services are also one of the ways that we give tangible expression to our unity in the Body of Christ. Hymns and songs show that we are one body when we sing with one voice.

God has blessed us with an incredible wealth of hymns and songs, treasures old and new, that we may use in our church services and other gospel gatherings. Even a small congregation of a dozen or so people gathered around God’s Word in a living room has an abundance of hymns and songs from which they may choose and which they are able to sing.

Something that we should not forget is that all the great spiritual movements within the Christian Church have been accompanied by a renewal of congregational singing—the Protestant Reformation, the Great Awakening, the Welsh Revivals, the Azusa Street Revival and the Pentecostal Movement, the East African Revival, the Charismatic Movement, and the Third Wave Movement. When the Holy Spirit is working in people’s hearts, he puts God’s praise on their lips. No matter how well the band plays on Sundays and how well its vocalists sing, if the congregation is not singing, something is seriously wrong.

If the Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of the congregation, then the fault is ours. We are not offering them the right hymns and songs with which they can praise God, build each other up, and show their unity in Christ. We are resisting the Holy Spirit rather than cooperating with him. This should cause us to stop and think carefully about what we are doing. By catering to the desire to listen rather than to sing, we are keeping the congregation from growing spiritually. We are hindering the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

While a few people cannot sing, most people can. Every night I hear one of my neighbor’s daughters sing along with her favorite group whose songs she is playing on her smart phone. She is not alone. People may not gather around the piano and sing like they did in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. But they do sing. They go to karaoke and sing. They sing in their cars. For those who are able to sing, it is a matter of offering them the right hymns and songs. Unless they are hard of hearing or tone deaf, those who cannot sing can always hum the tune. They can make music in their hearts.

I think that we are sending the wrong message to the congregation when we do not encourage those present to join in the singing and enable them to do so. For the most of its history the Christian Church has been a singing church. Christians have voiced their faith in song.