‘I will sing of your love and justice; to you, LORD, I will sing praise’. Psalm 101:1

Can I be controversial? Loud silence… ok, let me begin by saying that I have a vested interest in this because it is the field in which I use my spiritual gifts; church music. For a while now I have wanted to blog on this subject but recently I can across a blog by Jonathan Aigner, which while I do not agree with it in its entirety, I do believe that not only are the underlying principles correct but the reason it was written was to alert, not just criticise church musicians. Here are two paragraphs;

Entertainment worship substitutes commercial music for worship. Music is the sacrament of the performance worship culture. Instead of gathering to tell the Christian story – our story – we gather to “worship” (sing along with a musical performance) and hear a sermon. We talk about “worship bands” and “worship leaders” and “worship time” before the speaker comes to deliver the message, we have lost sight of what constitutes an act of worship. Corporate prayer, creeds, confessions, have no place. No more gathering, proclaiming, thanksgiving, and sending out. Just music, sermon, more music.

Entertainment worship diminishes the congregation’s role. The congregation’s only job is to sing along, but performance worship doesn’t really require that, either. They use music crafted in the style of commercial performance genres, which doesn’t lend itself well to congregational singing. The band is amplified, and the worship leader and team sings into their mics as if they were giving a performance. The congregation’s voice is ancillary at best, and irrelevant at worst. Performance worship sends the message that their participation doesn’t matter, only their feelings of enjoyment matter.

Ouch maybe? Bold statements indeed, but I think that if we look past the bits that probably caused us (as musicians) to wince, is there an element of truth in them? I am not commenting on the styles of worship or song choice; I am trying to look beyond that. I mean God loves music, especially singing; “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

Maybe we need to think about how we use music in our churches. Maybe?

Shelley Nirider sings ‘Jesus lover of my soul, it’s all about you’. Click on the picture to listen.