Criticizing Worship Music: Part 1
I recently made a post on Facebook which read “So tired of Christian musicians who are more interested in musical excellence than they are in connecting people to their Creator.” This resulted in significant feedback and activity, which my good friend Morgan Young ultimately concluded with the statement “It’s not an “either or” discussion it’s BOTH.” This was a great way to say that we should be concerned with reaching people with our music, but that we should also do it to the best of our ability, because God deserves our best.
My point in the initial post was that whether you’re trying to minister through secular music, non-corporate Christian music, or through corporate worship music, you should never care more about the music than you do about reaching people with it. We’ve all seen and heard musicians in the Christian world whose focus seems primarily to make music for the sake of fun, prestige, or attention, and that’s discouraging.
At the same time we’ve seen churches where their hearts are right, but they don’t put much effort into doing things well on a musical level or in progressing in any way. They seem all too content with doing things the way they’ve always been done, singing the same songs they’ve always sung, the same way they’ve always sung them. I am usually one of the first to criticize this type of situation, seemingly out of snobbery but actually out of a longing for justice and excellence in the church gathering. I believe that music is a powerful, mysterious, beautiful thing that God gave us, and that we need to be good stewards of it. We should not take it lightly, and that means practicing, developing, and refining our gifts, both on a personal level and a corporate level.
The problem with this, however, is that there is a spectrum that we create in our own minds. We each have on one end the “bad worship music” where we place songs that we don’t believe are appropriate, corporate-friendly enough, or musically excellent enough. We then have on the other end the “self-indulgent worship music” which we deem to be over-produced, musically over-ambitious, and missing the point of worship. And we each believe that only our own spectrum is accurately painted.
I had a very discouraging conversation recently with someone who was bashing Hillsong Church. Some of you may know that Hillsong United and the entire Hillsong music family has played a major role in my development as a worship leader. I am passionate about their ministry and about their music. So when this guy posted on Facebook, “I wish Hillsong never existed. Theres so much better music out there”, I got a little upset.
A Facebook message conversation ensued during which this guy insisted that Hillsong’s lyrics are bland and their music is not creative, at one point referring to their songs as “rewrites of U2 songs”. (Yeah, we get it, everyone wants to be the Edge) He said that he recently led the song “Forever Reign” at church and that a woman stopped him afterwards to tell him how much the song meant to her and how she needed to hear it, and that even after that he still hates the song and thinks the lyrics are meaningless. He continued to insist that there were better lyrics and more creative music to be found from other Christian artists.
My friends, this is the epitome of MISSING. THE. POINT. You will find no better illustration than the scenario in the previous paragraph. Guy plays song. Person hears song, connects to God. Guy deems song worthless because it falls on the wrong end of his personal preferences.
If any part of this guy’s argument is something you resonate with or agree with, I want to encourage you to get over yourself. It’s one thing to lovingly joke about songs like “Lord I Lift Your Name On High”, but it’s another to discredit an entire ministry or entire genre of music. There is nothing bland about proclaiming the truths of our great God. God is using songs we can’t stand to connect with his children.
And guess what? There are entire continents worshiping to music very different from ours! Do you think that Christians in remote areas of Africa are waiting by their iMacs at midnight for the new Hillsong album? They’re playing songs with instruments they made themselves. They’re singing from their hearts to the God of all creation, to the King of Kings who ransomed them from the wages of their sin so that He could be united with His children again.
And here we are in America, using social media to pridefully position ourselves above the work of Spirit-led, Christ-honoring songwriters. With our snobbery we suggest that we personally hold the keys to effective ministry through music.
I’m not holier than thou—I’m guilty of being critical of modern worship music. In private, I’ve criticized Tomlin for writing songs that are too childlike in melody, Crowder for being too weird, and the Hillsong “acoustic” album for not being “acoustic” enough. And to an extent, I think it’s healthy to discuss our preferences. But the fact remains that God is using Tomlin, Crowder, and Hillsong to do amazing things in His kingdom.
Please, my brothers and sisters, do not discount the value of a simple song connecting people to God. Please do not publicly tear down the work of another Christian artist. People are watching, people are listening, and people are being discouraged by our harsh words. And more importantly, it affects our ministry negatively when we waste time critiquing others based on our personal rubric instead of actively edifying the body of Christ according to God’s word.
Music is a gift from God, given to us to connect us with Him. Let’s not pervert it with our earthly ambitions. And if you’re in leadership, please check your heart and make sure that you’re in the right role in ministry, and that you’re doing it for the right reasons.
[In Part 2 we’ll see what can be learned when the sound tech would rather hear Zeppelin than Tomlin]
