How to plan music for a service (Part 1 – The new liturgy)

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I’m yet to work out how many parts this post will have.  Planning music for services is such an important topic for churches today, and my own thinking is constantly evolving.  What I do know is that I need to start with some background.

The thing I want to say today is that music is the new liturgy.  And to show you what I mean, let me briefly tell a bit of historical background.

I’m from the Anglican tradition, which traces its roots back to the English Reformation in the 1500s.  Aside from the fact that prior to the Reformation, your local English parish church had the Catholic mass said entirely in Latin, additionally the services and the ministry had theological problems that the reformers needed to address.  Basically, the people weren’t being taught Biblical truths on a Sunday, and they couldn’t understand it anyway, because it was in a language that the average person didn’t know.

So Archbishop Cranmer’s strategy was to implement the English Prayer Book.  The best known of these was the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which although introduced long after Cranmer’s death, was substantially based on the prayer books instituted by Cranmer in the mid 1500s.  The advantage of implementing a prayer book was that it didn’t matter how bad the preacher was, people would still hear the gospel every Sunday.

The prayer book gave intelligible, memorable, Biblically-rich, personally engaging content to every single church service.  To many people today, prayer book services can seem anything but engaging.  But at the time, this was truly revolutionary.

There were two aspects of Cranmer’s prayer books that made a great impact:

  1. A gospel logic with lots of Bible content
  2. Congregational participation

1. A gospel logic –  The communion services are a great example of what I mean.  The services would begin with prayers and readings reminding the people of their need to repent of sin.  This would then lead to a general confession of sin, followed by words of assurance of salvation, drawn from the Scriptures.  This would lead into words of thanks and praise, and then to the communion itself.  The point is, through using the prayer book regularly, the people would have that logic of God’s holiness requiring people to repent, followed by God’s forgiveness, leading to the people’s thanks and praise.  You would learn these truths if you went to prayer book services frequently.

2. Congregational participation – It helped that the services were in English.  But it also helped that there were large swathes of the service that the people said with their own mouths.  It didn’t matter if they couldn’t read, because you would learn them off by heart by joining in with the congregation around you.  So throughout your daily work and family life, you would have the words of the gospel ringing in your ears because you knew the prayers and verses off by heart.

Perhaps just as significant as saying the creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and numerous other Biblically rich prayers and readings, there were the physical actions that went along with the various sections of the service that would reinforce them.  The people said confessions on their knees, they would often stand for words of praise, and of course they would receive the elements of communion by standing up, walking to the front, reaching out their hands and consuming the bread and wine with their mouths.  People were physically acting out their response to the gospel.

There is much about this historical tradition that was a powerful testimony to the gospel in the lives of the regular gatherings of God’s people.  People came to know God through the prayer books, even if the preacher was dull or theologically suspect.

However, in the modern church, we’ve thrown out the prayer book.

There are a number of reasons why this was a good move: today’s church prefers informality, a post-Christian society needs to build bridges rather than erect barriers for the outsider, etc.

But we have lost a great deal.  And not only should we consider what we’ve lost by removing that regular, Biblically-rich, congregationally-oriented service content, we need to consider what we’ve replaced it with… singing.  Lots of singing.

So my question is simple: Is the singing in your church up to the task of replacing what we once had with the prayer book?

Yes, singing is congregational… yes, it’s memorable and personally engaging.  But is it Biblically rich, capturing the glory of God, the depravity of sin and the wonder of the gospel?  Is it Biblically balanced, not only telling God how much we love him, but also reflecting the breadth of topics in the Bible, ranging from God’s righteous wrath and judgement, his holiness, wisdom and love right through to the bountiful provisions of God to human kind, especially in giving us the revelation of his Son and of his work for us on the cross and in the resurrection?

Plumbing the depth and surveying the breadth of the Bible in our services is one of the great challenges of planning music.  It is a task often given to those in the congregation with musical skills.  But the selection of songs must also have the input of those in the congregation with deep Biblical insight.

Think of the opportunity to minister to the congregation like the prayer book would have ministered in days of old.  Regardless of the preacher or the service leader, the singing can deeply implant the things of God in our hearts and minds, giving people tunes and lyrics to sing for their whole life, and in the gathering itself to lift each other’s spirits continually by singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God.

Yes I think music can fill these shoes.  But I want to encourage both musical and pastoral leaders to rise to the challenge.  Music that is faithful to the Bible doesn’t have to be boring or complex.  After all, there’s nothing boring or complex about the gospel.

 

Why singing in church is nothing like the footy

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Often, in answer to the accusation that Aussies don’t sing, we say that they do sing at the footy.  It’s true… we often throw caution to the wind, not caring about what the people around us think, and belt out our team song.

Well some people do.  Perhaps it’s proof that there is a place in society where Aussies sing, and so therefore we shouldn’t shy away from doing it in church.  But to be honest, I never sing if I go to the footy.  I’m more likely to be annoyed at what a racket the small groups of enthusiasts around me are making than encouraged to join in without regard for what people around me think.

Perhaps this shows us a potential danger with being overenthusiastic about our singing in church too…  maybe there are those like me at the footy who are actually annoyed, and frankly disengaged, by the enthusiasm of others around them who are singing their worship songs lustily.  After all, just because in church we’re all on the same team doesn’t mean there isn’t vast variation amongst us in terms of how we express ourselves.

Well, no, I don’t think there is a danger of being over-enthusiastic in church, because church is nothing like footy.  Here is a quote from Harold Best’s “Unceasing Worship” (p57), which I was reading this morning:

Christ comes to us; Christ redeems us; Christ is in us; we are in each other; God is our sanctuary; Christ is the everlasting Temple; the body of Christ is a living temple; Christ is knit into it as chief cornerstone; each believer is a living stone and yet a temple; each believer indwells all other believers; and Christ is all in all.  It is with this full promise that we are to go to the place called church and to the necessary times of corporate gathering. We take these unshakable verities with us.  They are ours to keep, just as they keep us sheltered within the Almighty’s shadow and equipped with the full armor of God.

It’s the conclusion of a stunning chapter on the extraordinary word “in”, which so powerfully says things about the nature of relationship with God and with each other.  We dwell in Christ, as he dwells in us, as the Father dwells in the Son, and so also in us.

What God has done for us is not simply revealed characteristics about himself or descriptions of things he’s done so that we may know about him.  In fact he has done even more than enable us to know him (which would be extraordinary in itself).  He has done things that enable us to dwell IN him, and enable him to dwell IN us, and we IN each other.

We are in some unbreakable way connected with God, and therefore also connected with each other.  This is so much more than simply connection through a common interest, such as a football team.  This is connection into a new body; almost a new organism in its own right, except that it’s an invisible connection, which we know about because of his promise.  Best calls them the “unshakable verities” (truths).

Our dwelling in each other and in God means that our times together will look very different from a football match:

  1. We don’t go to church: we are the church.  It’s what it is to be Christian.  The church meets physically because of this spiritual dwelling in each other and in God.  Considering yourself part of the church if you don’t meet with other Christians is theoretically possible, but hard to demonstrate in reality.
  2. The things we do when we’re together will outwork the realities that we know from the promise.  That is, we’ll be on the one team, yes.  But more than this: we’ll actually BE ONE with each other.  This shows the tragedy of division amongst Christians, of not carrying each other through life: it’s like a deadly virus in a physical organism, threatening to do serious damage or take away life itself.
  3. When there are group activities like praising or thanking God through singing, the very thing we should expect is oneness.  This is not to say that the body isn’t made up of many parts, each of which has its own distinct characteristics and role.  But it is to say that we all act together, according to the prompting and leading of the Spirit through the word of God.

Some of this sounds quite theoretical.  But I’m basically saying that when we’re at church, we need to be super careful not to look around at others with an individualistic, critical spirit, waiting until I feel personally comfortable before I participate in any way.  When the Scripture urges us to sing and dance and clap and rejoice, it’s an exhortation to the whole body of which each of us desperately needs to be a part.  

We sing because we’re united in this ministry of praise and thanks to God.  Let’s embrace it together as a way of embracing each other.


     

 

A new vision for Revelation

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Revelation Music is an initiative of the Trinity Network of Churches based here in Adelaide.  I’m the music minister of Holy Trinity Adelaide, which is the main planting church within our network.

It’s been wonderful to see God’s blessing on our city over the last decade or so (I’ve only been here 8 years), with growth to a network of 6 centres or campuses, with 12 gatherings every Sunday, and about 2000 people gathering to hear the word and respond with faith, joy and obedience.

Over this time of growth, it has become obvious to me that a music conference was essential to enable us to move forward with common goals in music ministry, given that the churches in our network operate largely independently of each other, and yet we desire to maintain a common ethos.

So we started Revelation Music and Ministry Conference in 2011, with my father (David Peterson – author of “Engaging with God”) as the main speaker, and Geoff Bullock and Nicky Chiswell as the guest artists.  The conference was opened up to those outside the Trinity network, and we’ve never looked back.

We then had an enormously successful follow-up conference in 2012 with Peter Adam as the main speaker, and Nathan Tasker and Garage Hymnal as the guest artists.

Well in 2013, Revelation is in an expansion phase.  We want to be more than a conference – we want to be a community of people sharing together in music ministry.  This will be a community based on the sharing of resources and ideas: whether songs or recordings, tips from old hands or from up and coming musicians, training courses, a growing web resource, and of course Revelation conference, which will now run once every two years around September.

In view of this expansion, our team has come up with a vision statement that I think will help people to see what we’re trying to do.

Vision: That as God’s people encounter him together, they praise him in a Biblically derived way with vitality, strengthening one another by singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord (See Eph 5:18-20), and that seeing this, non-Christians come to faith.

There are 4 aspects worth highlighting:

  1. We want to focus on the times when God’s people get together.
  2. We believe in a response of praise that is Biblically based and full of vitality.
  3. Our singing addresses each other and God, the crucial two-sides-of-the-coin approach of key New Testament verses such as Colossian 3:16 and Ephesians 5:18-20.
  4. Our singing has an evangelistic edge: there are always non-believers in our midst, and we want our music to be infectiously engaging for them too.

Well, this is what we think is important for us to aim for in our music.  There’s much more flesh to put on those bones, but it’s a start.  I’d love your thoughts.

Mark

 

 

Diary of a Music Transition: Part 4 (final) – the wash-up

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I realised last Sunday that I’m getting on average one person per week telling me that they think the changes in our AM music have gone well.  I’m really appreciative when I hear from the folk who were previously anxious.

We were especially cautious in the first few weeks about volume and the drums.  The drummers were playing songs that a few months previously would’ve only been played on the organ, but are really written for a contemporary ensemble.  They are drummers experienced in playing contemporary songs in other services, but not to a congregation more comfortable with traditional instrumentation!  But no-one is complaining at this point.  They’re singing with joy and gladness.  I’m so thankful to God for this.

Here are some of my reflections about the transition of our AM services from 2 traditional services and 1 contemporary service to 1 blend of contemporary and traditional and 1 contemporary family oriented service:

1. Blended services allow more people to be involved in serving the congregation in music.  This obviously comes at an organisational cost, but we’ve really needed to do it to help a wide range of people (both the involved and the uninvolved) to continue to feel enfranchised.  But whereas it’s tricky to involve violinists, brass players, choral singers etc in your straight contemporary service, in a blended service, they are able to play and sing alongside drummers, bassists, keyboardists, guitarists and contemporary vocalists.

2. Blended services have shown me the value of what we’re calling “cross-over” songs.  These are songs that can be done in any of our 4 congregations, because they can be played on the organ or with a band, sung by a choir or just a couple of vocalists, and have parts for strings or other instruments as well as chords for guitarists.  These are songs like: In Christ Alone (and pretty much everything that comes from Stuart Townend or Keith Getty’s pens!), O the mercy of God, Beneath the Cross (my version), etc.  The songs on CCLI’s Song Select that give you access to both 4-part charts and a lead sheet are useful because different players can play the same song but with either dots or chords to suit them.  But the main advantage of cross-over songs is that they enable us to express unity with those in different congregations, and whenever we get congregations together for some sort of all-in activity, they have a common repertoire!

3. The organ still works a treat, but unless you’re in a cathedral, I reckon you get the greatest benefit from it when it’s not the only instrument being used in a Sunday service.  It still has an amazing way of encouraging congregational singing, just by the tones and sound energy it creates when played skilfully.  But with the exception of those people specifically looking for traditional music, most Aussies are happy for variation in instrumentation, but don’t want the music dominated by the organ.

4. It’s made me wonder if the members of our family services and youth services might actually be helped in their engagement with the beautifully rich hymn tradition if they occasionally sung them on the organ… and yet the number of skilful organists available to do this is definitely diminishing.

5. Choirs and multi-part vocal groups are a great way to involve willing, gifted people in our music and to make traditional stuff sound really good.  I’d rather have a choir singing traditional stuff than individual vocalists because it gives a “congregation-like” lead to the congregation – a gathering of singers leading a bigger gathering in singing.  I also think choirs particularly suit traditional hymns because they are usually arranged with 4 parts in the first place.

6. Before I sign off, making you think that it’s been all sunshine and light, I need to say that I actually have had negative comments.  It hurts me a little to mention this, but there’s no point hiding it… The few negative comments I have received?  They’ve come from the musicians.  These folk are part of my team and I love them to bits and am so appreciative of the ways in which they serve.  I also understand that musicians hold music more dearly than the rest of us.  If they didn’t, then I don’t think we’d get as much out of them as we do… they put so much effort in because they have a deep driving motivation to contribute to music being as good as possible.  So what do I make of this?  Well, I’m not actually unhappy about it at all.  I think I need to hear whatever it is they have to say.  I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t necessarily think that the service configuration we now have is perfect.  So I need to face the fact that any change brings strain, and as music minister, I need to bear some of that strain.  If there are people we’re disenfranchising, then I need to be challenged about that.  If there are problems or complaints about the way we’re doing things, I need to engage with them, and see if there are improvements we can make or things that need to be said so that we can all move forward together.  And don’t get me wrong, we’ve also had lots of very positive comments from the musicians too!

Well, it’s been a long process, but I’m glad we are going through it.  Our changes are not settled down yet, so there may well be more observations as the months unfold!  I’d love to hear your thoughts, particularly if your church has been through a big transition like this too…

 

Diary of a musical transition: Part 3 – why ask people to change?

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I don’t like doing things that make people hurt.  I’m often more likely to back down than go through with things that I know are unpopular.  I hate seeing people in distress, especially when it’s my decisions that have brought this about.

I must admit, I didn’t realise that the prospect of musical change would cause pain.  I think that pain has been partly caused by the implementation of something new that people say they don’t like.  But really, I think the main cause of pain has been the fear of losing something precious.  I think the precious thing is actually not just the music, but the experience of church.  This place in which people have been meeting together in Christ’s name for many decades for some of these people… it’s kind of tied up with organ music for some reason.

I really think our memories and fond recollections are crucial to consider in any changes that we implement to how we do church.  Although these memories are not the gospel themselves, they have often been part of the means by which people have heard the gospel.  Let’s face it, they’ve been joyfully and persistently singing the great old hymns, which are full of the wonderful truths God has revealed to us about Christ and what he has done to give us hope in this life.

Of course singing involves the integration of a whole load of different musical elements to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts – so it is very difficult to change melodies, speed or instrumentation without giving the impression that they whole thing just isn’t the same.

So why ask people to change to contemporary music, when I know it’s likely to cause pain and a sense of loss?

  1. I don’t think it’s actually going to be as painful as people are fearing it will be.  The transitional weeks we’ve had with a band playing in the lead up to the service restructure has brought 95% positive comments.  It simply hasn’t been the wholesale stripping away that people have been worried about.  And the negative comments I have received have been mostly just saying “the jury’s still out”.
  2. I don’t plan to remove organ music altogether, since my goal is not to get rid of anything, just to rebalance.  So whilst I think there is a sense of loss that 2 out of the 4 songs will no longer be done on the organ, I think there is much to gain at the same time.
  3. Change is actually good.  It has shown us the things that we care about, and a number of people have made comments around the fact that being challenged in what they hold dearly has helpfully reminded them of what’s important.
  4. I think a blend of contemporary and traditional is actually more invitationally relevant.  We’re not talking hard core or death metal music.  We’re talking middle-of-the-road broadly accessible, contemporary songs that just happen to sound better with a band than an organ.  And let’s face it: in the wider community today, a contemporary band is a lot less alienating than a pipe organ.
  5. Doing things that aren’t our preference encourage us to love each other.  It is so important that everyone has a generous spirit in relation to music.  Music can be so divisive, but it should not be.  I want to love your music even if it’s not my preference, because I know how much it means to you.  But I’d love it if you can try to engage in my favourite music too, because you know how I connect with it.
  6. The Bible says absolutely nothing about style.  We won’t be having this conversation when the Lord returns.  We’ll be rather more preoccupied with the object of our singing than with the accompaniment.  Perhaps that should be our guide to singing this side of heaven too… let your singing be praise of Jesus.  Let your worship of him be both encouraging and uplifting to others, remembering that a focus on Christ is much more helpful to people than a focus on musical issues, no matter how important we think they might be.

 

Diary of a musical transition: Part 2 – the first week

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We arrived an hour before the service was due to commence.  This in itself was a little unusual, because the various traditional ensembles we’ve had previously at our 10:30 service have not needed as much time to set up and run through songs.  Our normal pattern has been to have a 7 part strings group some Sundays, a 12 part choir on other Sundays, or other single instruments such as trumpet.  These groups have accompanied the organ in what has been mostly a traditional service.

But aside from the fact that we are transitioning to a blend of BOTH traditional and contemporary, meaning that we have to run through organ songs and band songs, the reality is that band songs usually take us longer to rehearse anyway.  Perhaps because the music isn’t fully written out for us and we have to arrange it on the fly; perhaps because every member of the band has an instrument that needs to be amplified differently, and this takes our sound team a while to set up.  Whatever the case, an hour was what we needed.

Our setup began, and I could sense trouble immediately.  One of the ushers setting up the church building was an elderly woman.  And she was nervous.  I could tell because she kept fidgeting and looking up at us.  And then looking around.

This is a service that has had a band before, but only ever occasionally.  And lately, people have been nervous about the impending changes, especially to musical style.

As the rehearsal progressed, the woman on ushering was getting more agitated.  The early-birds were starting to arrive, and she was greeting them with what looked like an introduction to what was likely to be a noisy and unsettling service ahead.

I needed to grab something from the back of the church, so I walked down to say hello to the usher woman.  But she spoke to me first.  “This is terribly loud, you know”, she said.  “It will be very painful for people,” was the gist of her message to me.  I assured her that we would be monitoring the volume, and that we’d make sure it’d be alright.  I then saw her speaking in firm terms with the sound operator, who happens to be the leader of our sound ministry.

Well, we sang 2 songs on the organ, and 2 songs with the band.  The songs were (in order):

  1. Name of all majesty (organ)
  2. In Christ alone (band)
  3. O the mercy of God (band)
  4. Oh Christ the same – to the tune of Danny Boy (organ)

And the music went really well.  We’d rehearsed them on the previous Thursday night, plus run through the songs during our setup period.  We had 4 experienced musicians playing in the band.  The drummer used ‘hot rods’ instead of drumsticks – they are a small bunch of bamboo rods strapped together to give a gentler sound.  We made sure they were songs that the congregation knew from being previously played on the organ.  We made sure they were songs that didn’t have lots of syncopation or unpredictability.

And the congregation?  Well they enjoyed it.  We had at least a dozen people come up to us afterwards and say how good they thought it was, and that it was a good preparation for the changes ahead on 21st October.  I’ve always believed that good quality music well suited to the group is more important than a particular style.

One of the realities of contemporary band music, is that it can get loud, especially with a decent PA system.  Getting the balance right should really be the subject of another post some time.  But we decided to measure the sound levels of all the songs – organ and band.  And the results were very interesting.

Song 1, on the organ, was the same volume as songs 2 and 3 on the band.  But song 4, on the organ, peaked at more than 10 decibels louder than anything else sung on the day.  Now 10 decibels is a very significant amount when you’re talking about the difference between 90 and 100.  Normally in our youth service, if we’re up around 100db, we’re trying to batten down the hatches.  It’s too loud for any sustained period of time.  But here at our 10:30 service, a song played on the organ, and it was just as loud.

Ok, so it was just a peak in the last verse, and perhaps various members of the congregation were trying to show just how much they love the traditional style!  But clearly volume is something that varies regardless of whether it’s old or new, organ or band.  By using hot rods on the drums, we were able to control (or even minimise) the volume of the drums, which are so important for keeping us in time and creating energy in the music, but are so often the instrument that older folk dislike the most.

But what about the elderly woman on ushering… what happened?  Well, the service was finished, I was on the platform chatting to our sound operator, and I saw her approaching.  I guess I braced myself.  Her words?  “It wasn’t too bad, actually”, which I took to be a compliment.  She reminded us that the drums wouldn’t want to go any louder, but as it was it was ok.  A big relief for us who had been praying for this.  I believe our sovereign Lord wants us united.

So why are we imposing contemporary music upon the congregations who have always sung hymns?  Next post.

Diary of a musical transition: Part 1 – the background

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So yesterday was the first Sunday of our transitional period.  Here at Holy Trinity Adelaide, we’re currently undergoing major changes to our AM gatherings.  And one of the areas that attracted the most comment and opinion was… music.  Our big date for change is October 21st 2012.  But I don’t want to wait until then to turn people’s church music worlds upside down…

We’re going to start straight away!  Not because of a mean streak on my part.  And this isn’t spontaneous either… there’s been lots of planning.  But we have a bunch of changes that will all happen simultaneously on the 21st of October, including the service venue, the number of gatherings, the time of gatherings, the number of people in gatherings, the regularity of communion, the people we’ll be sitting next to on a Sunday, the amount of available car parking… there’s going to be a lot of adjusting to do.

So I want people to do their adjusting to music changes now, in September.  The main reason I want to do this is that I actually think the changes will be for the better for the group of 600 people that we have in our morning gatherings, and I want them to see music positively, not let it be a part of a big build-up of anxious waiting, thinking that the extent of changes is too much to handle, and that the music might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

It is really important for any church to care deeply about how it’s congregations sing.  Vibrant singing is a sign of the health, unity, and gospel-centredness of a church.  When people open their mouths and participate, they are saying “We are one”, and they are also saying, “Christ is glorious!”  If people are more interested in whether it’s a drumkit or a pipe organ driving the music, they have completely missed the point.  I do wonder what our approach will be to the music in heaven!?  Will we be complaining about the genre?  Giving stern looks to organists, drummers and sound operators?

So, yes, I’ve mentioned what I think have been the 3 most contentious issues: drums, organ and sound.

In the lead-up to this transition, some older folk have expressed a genuine dislike of the drum kit, saying that it simply cannot be used for worship.  Apart from this being a misunderstanding of both worship and music, it is an example of where individual preferences creep into our approach to church music, often trumping the more important element of serving and bearing with one another in love.

In the lead-up to this transition, some younger folk have expressed disdain for the pipe organ, thinking it stodgy, uninspiring, and capable of producing nothing more than dreary tunes and tones.  Again, people’s preferences, perhaps mixed with some bad experiences, are driving their approach to the gathering together of God’s people in response to the extraordinary gospel.

In the lead up to this transition, it has also been evident that the sound operators have a big job ahead of them.  After all, they need to take responsibility for the volume levels, even though the organist or drummer tend to dictate the baseline volume with which they must work.  That is, if you have a loud drummer, the sound person will basically be forced to mix everything else to balance with that, giving an overall loud sound.  The same can be true of the organ and any accompanying vocals, but usually the organ is built to fit the church building, and so perhaps there is less issue here.  But spare a thought for the sound people who often cop people’s passionate calls for peace and quiet!

So, what did we do yesterday, on the first Sunday of the transition?  Look out for part 2… I’ll outline the way in which we blended traditional and contemporary, and just what people thought.  Needless to say, there were some surprises…

Mark

Contemporary v Traditional: 8 reasons it’s hard to choose

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Having just returned from 2 refreshing weeks of holiday, I found a message from a friend asking me about the pros and cons of traditional versus contemporary music in church.  I couldn’t resist putting a few ideas down, and thought I’d share them with you.

I’ll be upfront: I write contemporary music, I listen to mostly contemporary music, my church does mostly contemporary music (although we have a couple of congregations that do traditional, or a blend of traditional and contemporary).  But here’s the funny thing for me:  As I think back to my favourite musical moments in church, there are as many traditional moments as contemporary… perhaps even slightly more.

What about you?  I don’t think there should be a war between history and the present day.  I think the challenge for us is to connect.  But think carefully about that.  We need to be connected to our history, otherwise we have nothing.  We also need to be connected to our congregations today, as well as to those who might join our congregations tomorrow.

Call be boring, but I’m not going to come down on one side or the other.  Here are my conciliatory, complementary, and perhaps not particularly concise 8 points:

  1. There is good contemporary music and good traditional music for us to sing, but there’s also bad contemporary music and bad traditional music – I don’t think the issue is how old the music is.
  2. One of the benefits of traditional music is that you remind the listeners that we are connected historically. One of the benefits of contemporary music is that you are using sounds that connect with contemporary ears, so there’s an evangelistic benefit.
  3. One of the difficulties of doing traditional stuff is that it can sound irrelevant and archaic because it’s from a bygone era. I have a few thoughts about making it sound more relevant (see link). One of the difficulties of doing contemporary is that it can feed a desire to be fashionable, which is irrelevant to being followers of Christ.
  4. Different churches have different repertoires, with a different ratio of traditional to contemporary, which is their choice – this choice is probably something that should be discussed from time to time with a range of people from the ministers through to the parishioners.
  5. You can’t please everyone ever, and you can’t please anyone all the time. In fact, singing a style of music that we don’t like but we know that others in our congregation do like is good, because it requires love, and that’s a good thing for the church. It’s something we should all be willing to do.
  6. There’s a difference between the origin of the song and the style in which it is performed: eg contemporary songs are sometimes played on the organ or with a small classical ensemble; traditional songs can be performed by a contemporary band. We need to take account of the musical preferences and also the musical gifting of the congregation. If the musos would pull it off better in a manner in which they are skilled, it may work better to let them do this.
  7. Although the musical elements are important, lyrics are more important, because the cost of getting them wrong is greater than the cost of getting the music wrong.  Though I still think the cost of getting the music wrong is high, in particular, a massive lost opportunity to connect with people.
  8. Hymn lyrics are often more poetic and colourful (though not always); But contemporary lyrics are often more concise and simple (and not always!). People need a balance in this, because clear communication and rich expression are both essential to maintain. Try to find songs that do both.

 

What do you think?  Are there other things we can say?  Is anyone willing to say that one is better than the other?

 

 

 

 


New Release: The Name of Love

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***AVAILABLE NOW ***

Order here: www.emumusic.com.au

The Name of Love is my 4th solo album, pulling together a bunch of songs I’ve been singing in my own church Holy Trinity Adelaide over the last 2 years, some my own writing and some contemporary band arrangements of a few of my favourite ancient hymns.

It was a great pleasure working with Adelaide-based producer Michael Sinclair of Blackhaus Studios.  His creativity, energy and hard work have made an album that I’m really loving listening to.

The album is in 2 halves. The first 6 songs are full studio productions. The last 6 were recorded live at Men’s Katoomba Convention in February and March 2011.

Most of the songs on the album express in some way the forgiveness and cleansing that God achieves for humanity through Jesus Christ, expressed from the perspective of the needy sinner. The title track, “In the name of love” is an exposition of Psalm 32, where the Psalmist rejoices in his own forgiveness.

Track Listing

Studio Tracks
1. In the name of love
2. Our glorious King
3. Where are the words
4. Glory in the heavens
5. Psalm 103
6. Have you believed

Live Tracks
7. Stand up, stand up for Jesus
8. Holy holy holy
9. Beneath the cross of Jesus
10. It is well
11. Be thou my vision
12. In the name of love