Church music is a big stinking deal

Church music is a big stinking deal.

When I was in church as a participant in the pew last Sunday (a relatively new experience for me), I realized that I was getting FAR more in word count pressed upon me to sing in worship music than I was in word count in the reading of God's Word.

That's bad, to begin with.

A worship service should have a high quantity of Scripture verses.  I get the sense that many old school presbyterian churches see Scripture the same way they see the sacraments: if we give it to them too often, too much, it won't be special.

So we preach on 1-3 verses at the most, and wind up inadvertently emphasizing our words more than God's.  (If you have to explain 20 verses instead of 2, you'll inevitably refer to Scripture MORE, or you'd better.)  The idea they're chasing is that there is so much rich truth in every word of God, so you can squeeze a lot out of 1-3 verses.  And that is true.  But it isn't like the elves' lembas bread in Lord of the Rings, where if you take more than 3 bites, you're over-stuffed and it does more harm than good.

The principle is not true for either the Word or the sacraments: "If we give too much to them, they won't value it as much."  No.  God's Word should pour down like Niagara over us; the Lord's Table should be like a daily evening meal; they are means of grace, and need frequent use.  They shouldn't be doled out sparingly, in a misguided attempt to get us to value them more, by doing so.

But my larger point here is that the lyrics of worship music have a profound effect on the worshiper.  There are a LOT of words given us to sing in any given worship service!  Luther said that he who sings, prays twice.  If this is true, and I think it is, the words our worship leaders give us to sing are hugely important.  And in almost every worship service, there are more of THEM than there are of God's own words spoken to us!

This winds up being the best argument I've heard for only singing Psalms in worship - so you are affected most by God's Word when you worship Him.  But I'm not convinced of that view, and have been exposed to, ahem, "different" music than I've been used to for the last 20 years.  (CCM instead of Psalms and traditional hymns.)  Some lyrics are quite good.  

As we need sermons to riff on the actual Word of God, we need hymns to riff on the Psalms and other Gospel truths.

So I'll be posting worship music lyrics regularly, as a devotional exercise, as I've been quoting Samuel Rutherford.  

• In worship, we should hear God's Word more.  
• In worship, we should meditate on the words we sing more.

Stay tuned.