Why can't we just sing real music?

I was reading a rather feisty entry in a friend's blog about his distaste for modern christian music (read it here- yo! preach it BB!). I started to write a comment about it in his blog, and got a bit carried away, so thought that I would instead write my own diatribe about music here.

As a throwback to my early faith formation in a somewhat conservative church, some of the good old hymns do get my spirit stirring much more than the more modern stuff (if only the old hymn writers had been thoughtful enough to write in a vocal range that suits those of us who are not sopranos- have you ever tried to tackle "O For a Thousand Tongues" and "Guide me o Thou Great Jehovah" first thing on a Sunday morning without a proper vocal warmup?! but I digress...)

I have to also admit that my ire has been raised on more than one occasion by the propensity of Together in Song (volume/version 2 of the Australian Hymn Book) to fiddle around with the words of some of the old hymns, to make the language more 'inclusive' and less ancient. But maybe that's just laziness on my part, of wanting to be able to cruise along without looking at the hymnbook for the words, and the discomfort of suddenly being startled by the fact that I seem to be singing something completely different to the rest of the congregation. (My friend Avril is glad that they didn't remove the hobgoblins from John Bunyan's text in #561 :-).

However the main reason why I tend to abhor the more modern 'worship' music is twofold, relating to both content and form. Firstly, much modern worship music (not mentioning any names but Koorong tends to promote quite a lot of CDs by one particular group that seems to do this) tends to focus on the "I love you Jesus, because you have done this for ME" kind of sentiment, which focuses solely on the individual's relationship with God, rather than acknowledging the corporateness of worship (ie we are all part of the body of Christ, and our worship of God is corporate- even when physically alone, there is a sense in prayer and worship that we are joining in with the never ending worship in heaven, and the concurrent worship of other Christians who are physically in other places at the time).

Secondly, this style of music also has a 'what's in it for me?" kind of attitude to faith, rather than a "what can I give to my Lord?" focus. I find both the individuality and self-interest of this approach hard to stomach. However, I am quite happy to accept an 'all things in moderation' kind of approach, but in some places where I have worshipped, there doesn't seem to be much of a balance between this and more corporate/servanthood oriented worship music).

A non christian friend of mine (who happens to sing in the choir of an Anglican Cathedral in a place other than Melbourne) once expressed his distaste for contemporary christian music thusly:

After Vatican II it all went downhill...
they introduced soppy "Jesus is my boyfriend" music.

However, even more than the content of modern worship songs (and I have to say I am with BB 100% here in noting the lameness of many of the lyrics), what bugs me is that the fine line between 'worship' and 'performance' is often crossed. Of course, here I am referring not so much to the Christian 'rock music' genre that BB was castigating in his article, (which is allowed to be more performance oriented) but rather the contemporary music that is played in our churches as 'worship', but that so often seems to generate a not-so subliminal cry of 'look at meeeee!' from the musos.

Now it's true confession time. I worship in a congregation which utilises a mixture of traditional and modern music (including a substanial amount of music written by members of our congregation). We are blessed to have a music team consisting of around 20-30 people, with a mix of instruments such as piano, guitar, bass, drums, violin, recorder, trumpet, french horn, organ, and singers- and probably others I have missed out. Each week, music is led by a group of half a dozen or so people, on a rostered basis. (I am one of the singers who participates in the roster).

I have often struggled with the fact that at times, the offerings of the music team can border on 'performance' and can be so loud as to be unhelpful and distracting to people in the pews (particularly at times when the musos have been asked to play some 'background' music to accompany the offering, or when communion is being taken etc).

This brings to mind a comment made by a fellow theological student only this last week (it was in the context of using technology in worship, but I think it also applies to music). She said: "In deciding whether to use this, you always have to have the question in the back of your mind:

Will this enhance the worship experience?

If the answer is yes, then go for it, but if you can't answer yes, then don't do it."

Amen to that, sister!