Bones to Pick?

Well, not exactly bones to pick, but a few observations and opinions. Kinda off the top of my head, stream of consciousness semi-rant/opinions/observations. . .

Churches often shortchange their congregations in corporate worship in several different ways. Both contemporary “praise and worship”-oriented and traditional-format churches are guilty, IMO. Of the two essential areas areas of worship—gospel proclamation and corporate expression of worship, I’ll leave aside the neglect of gospel proclamation for now and focus on corporate expression of worship.

The first thing to dispense with is the execrable phrase “praise and worship,” because the shallowness of contemporary “praise and worship” services impeach themselves with that very phrase. Praise is one of many elements of worship. Other elements include expressions of confession, repentance and reconciliation, adoration, gratitude, giving and, of course, praise, to touch on some main elements of worship. But on top of the shallow representation of worship, the shallow expressions offered in congregational participation deny church-goers opportunity for deeper corporate expressions of worship.

And then there is the reprehensible trend in many contemporary churches to turn what should be a communal expression into a performance experience, turning the congregation into a passive audience. *smh* There is a place, IMO, for choirs, etc., but not to the extent that they dominate what should be the BIG CHOIR: those who are in the pews.

But are traditional worship services really better? Often, not. The most traditional are churches that follow a strict liturgy, even to the point of congregational worship expressions being solely from a psalter—singing the psalms (though often altered for meter). But what, I ask of Colossians 3:16 (echoed in Ephesians 5:19)?

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

There is more to express in corporate worship than can be expressed solely through a Psalter. How do hymns differ from Psalms? Are some Psalms effectively hymns? What are “spiritual songs” and how do they differ from Psalms and hymns? Clergy or lay folk who lead corporate worship should think deeply about that, and about how to lead their congregation in sharing a wider, deeper, fuller expression of worship. What does a spiritual or Gospel (no, not the popular genre that is usually NOT an expression of the Gospel) song offer that might not be as easily expressed in a hymn or a Psalm?

Of course, there are other considerations, but those, IMO, are more “inside baseball” topics for church musicians, though, sadly, from my experience they are topics not often seriously considered by church musicians. *profound sigh*

OK, a bones to pick with liturgical churches where congregational singing is “led” from the organ. Every single church I have known over my lifetime where this was the case—and every example of such I can find on the Internet nowadays—has demonstrated absolutely execrable congregational singing. The “Big Choir” is both poorly-led and almost completely overshadowed by excessive volume from the organ. I would much rather hear a cappella congregational singing from any Church of Christ congregation (despite their shameful twisting of scripture making a cappella singing de riguer) than listen to a misled congregation being drowned out by an organist who doesn’t bother to listen to the “Big Choir.”

But maybe that’s just me.