Word Weld

These days music is a significant struggle for the church. There’s a deep divide between the forward-thinking younger generations and those who hold fast, defending the time-tested tunes of old. It has led to a lot of questions, and I’d like to look at both schools of thought objectively, and more importantly, through an honest, prayerful study. What’s the purpose of this? Is it to prove one type of worship better than the other? No. Because “better” is a misleading little word, isn’t it? If we’re talking about music in general, then most people would say that music is entirely a matter of personal taste. Some people like jazz. Some people like rock’n’roll. Some people like rhythm and blues. Other people like hip hop. But what I want to ask isn’t, “What music do I think is best?” or “What music do you think is best?” I want to ask, “What does God think of any music at all, and of worship music in particular?”

I’m a child of the Calvary Chapel movement. I grew up in a church where many people wore jeans and sandals to church, or shorts and a short sleeved shirt. Nobody dressed like a hooker, but it was informal, to be sure. We sang worship songs that were popular in the 80’s and my family would sing the same songs out of church around a single guitar. When I grew older, we moved, and I found that we largely ended up in Baptist Churches (independent ones, for the most part, for what that’s worth). Here the music was much different, with hymns and hymnals. The music was less energetic, less emotional, but much more metered and orderly. As an individual who grew up in one circle and then moved to another, I can say with all honesty that I liked both kinds of music. As a child I liked the peppy, albeit repetitive choruses (Our God is an Awesome God; Lord, I Lift your Name on High; etc.) but as I grew older I found that I also liked the slower toned but more meaningful and deliberate nature of the hymns of old (great songs like Holy, Holy, Holy; Amazing Grace; and that masterpiece of musical theology, And Can it Be?). Eventually, we went back to Calvary Chapel, though in a different town, and I found that I reintegrated seamlessly with the old choruses, yet appreciated it when the music director would add in a hymn here or there. When I left home, my wife (who was raised predominately Southern Baptist) and myself searched for churches, and leaned toward traditional churches because some of the more contemporary ones we had both been to had disappointed us in many ways. Having gone through a lot of churches, and having found myself between both worlds, I decided to take a look at this issue honestly, and ask, “If I’m most interested in pleasing God, then what pleases Him?” And then decide that whatever the Holy Spirit revealed to me, I would accept, even if I didn’t like the answer. Here is what I found.

Observation 1: God Wants Worship

Not trying to toot my own horn, but I feel that if anyone is qualified to give an objective, honest, prayerful look at this topic, I could take a decent stab at it considering my upbringing and what I’ve experienced. And it’s important, because it is a matter of worship, and worship is extremely important to God. We are commanded to worship God.

“Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”
– 1 Chronicles 16:29

So, my first observation is that worship is of great importance to God. We are to worship. Next, we ask what worship is? Is it praying? Is it telling God how great He is? Is worship a ritual or religious ordinance? Is it singing certain song, or any song? Can other things be worship than what we think of in regards to church services, be they traditional or contemporary? I believe the answer to all these questions is found in 1 Corinthians 10:31:

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

Paul was talking about food offered to idols, but his statement is a broad brush, intended to cover subsequent questions. Everything we do is to be done in worship of God. And that makes sense, because God cares about everything we do. He cares how we talk to our kids and our friends. He cares what we do on Sunday and what we do on Saturday. He has an opinion about everything that we watch on TV, everything that we read, and every place that we go. So it makes sense that everything we do is to worship God. That being said, there are times that we set aside to worship Him corporately.

“Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints.”
-Psalm 149:1

“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
-Hebrews 10:24-25

Corporate worship involves simply two or more Christians being together and worshiping God together. This can be at a house, in a car, in jail, or in a church. But when we worship corporately, we don’t do things exactly as we would have outside the church, because by our attitude of worship I believe we create a place of some significance. I believe this is backed up by Jesus Himself:

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
-Matthew 18:19-20

There is then a distinction between when we are worshiping God in our daily lives, and when we are gathered for the specific purpose of worship. We need to worship God, so what does God expect from corporate worship?

Observation 2: God Has Rules for Worship

This is the next observation, because if God wants worship, and there is a distinction between doing everything we do for His glory, and setting aside a special time to devote ourselves to worship, then what worship does He want corporately? This is where the problem begins, because all Christians agree that God wants to be worshiped, but they disagree on what is acceptable worship. Many Christians say, “Anything we choose to do for our service is worship! It’s all for God!” This sounds nice on paper or in an emotional setting, but is actually a dangerous statement, because of the story of Cain and Abel.

Remember Cain and Abel? They both brought an offering to God (an act of worship), and Abel brought a blood sacrifice and Cain brought a grain sacrifice. Perhaps they both knew what God expected them to bring, perhaps not. The point is, when they brought their respective offerings before God, Cain was met with a surprise.

“…Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.”
-Genesis 4:2-5

So, whether or not he knew it ahead of time, Cain found out that God had expectations for worship, and when his own idea of worship fell outside of God’s expectations, God did not honor them as worship. It’s important to note that the Bible never says that God punished Cain or that He did anything to Cain as a result. In fact, we don’t even know how exactly this lack of respect toward Cain’s offering was revealed to Cain. All we know is that Cain brought an offering of what he thought would honor God, but God did not accept it as worship. That’s all. The point of the story is clear: some things do not honor God as worship, and He will not regard them as such.

The point of the story is clear: some things do not honor God as worship, and He will not regard them as such.

This makes sense, doesn’t it?

After all, when someone has a birthday party, they expect the gifts to be something meaningful to them. We can say that “it’s the thought that counts” and be gracious to someone bringing an unwanted gift, but the fact is, if someone is honoring us, or if we are honoring another person, we expect it to be done intelligently. Women typically understand this better than men. I remember one Christmas when we were opening presents, and my mother opened the gift my father bought her, and found a kitchen appliance. I’m here to tell you that to his “offering” she “had not respect.” Why should God be any different? Abel’s offering was a symbol of the future death of Christ for sin, and that was important to God. Cain’s offering had no such symbolism. God wasn’t angry with Cain, but He made it clear that what Cain brought was not worship.

That leads us back to today. Now, God does not ask us for blood sacrifices, and the only examples we have to go on are the early churches, which the Bible tells us worshiped by the teaching from the Scriptures and the Epistles, observing of the Lord’s Supper (or a feast of thanksgiving or other meal), prayer, Baptism, and singing. A lot of Christians these days confuse matters by referring to the singing portions of services or services made up entirely of music as “worship services.” However, all of the things I listed above would Biblically be considered worship based on what we’ve already talked about, and a “worship service” could technically contain all of the above.

Just as in Cain’s day there was a right way and a wrong way to worship God through sacrifice, we can also surmise that there is today a right and wrong way to worship God through our acts of service today. After all God does not change (Malachi 3:6); He is eternal. The worship services begun by the Apostles of the early church can and are done wrong in our day and age. Many of these errors we are already familiar with. For instance, we know that the sprinkling baptisms of the Catholic church are not Biblical baptism, as they were introduced hundreds of years after the early church, and miss the symbolism of Baptism entirely. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11 Paul deals with the Corinthian church performing the worship of the Lord’s Supper incorrectly. So nothing about our corporate worship, be it singing or preaching or anything else, is exempt from the possibility of being corrupted.

Just as in Cain’s day there was a right way and a wrong way to worship God through sacrifice, we can also surmise that there is today a right and wrong way to worship God.

Observation 3: Most Music is Amoral, but not All

Music is a difficult subject, because it has been around presumably as long as mankind, and it has changed considerably. On top of that, music is often associated with certain areas, regions, and even ethnic groups, and so it becomes personal. Most of us would agree that for the most part, music is a matter of personal taste. Some people prefer one group of sounds over another. I know from my own experience that my attitude toward many contemporary songs of the 80’s is influenced strongly by the fact that I feel nostalgic toward them. I remember back to being a kid, sitting on the floor watching my sisters and my dad strum away those choruses. They definitely have an emotional attachment for me. But I realize that just because I feel attached to something personally doesn’t make it right. I have argued on this page in the past with Christian people about Halloween, and their ironclad argument for why Halloween is okay was that they “did it when they were kids” and “it was fun and harmless.” Never mind about the actual implications of a day celebrating death and evil, right? Regardless, I have determined therefore that my own feelings about the music I use to worship God must not control whether or not it is appropriate.

One thing Christians across the spectrum seem to misunderstand is that nothing in this physical world is evil in-and-of-itself. Alcohol is not evil intrinsically, nor are drugs, nor are guns, nor is dancing, nor even mini-skirts or bikinis. It is how people use them that is evil. Alcohol can make you drunk if you overindulge, but it doesn’t make you overindulge. Drugs are merely collections of chemicals, but taking them will cause you harm. Mini-skirts and bikinis are simply cloth sewn together in particular shapes, but the fact that they are immodest and therefore can put men at risk of giving in to their sinful passions makes wearing them wrong. Similarly, music is simply the organization of tones into patterns that cause melodies. But make no mistake, music can have a profound effect upon human beings. Some music makes you feel relaxed, other music makes you feel excited. Some music can make you feel sad or pensive. And music can actually make you feel angry, or even violent.

Movie makers know this and design their soundtracks to coincide with the mood of the scene they are writing to. Have you ever watched a favorite film without the music? It loses a lot of its emotion, doesn’t it? Likewise, have you ever listened to the soundtrack of a movie without watching the film? The same emotions are evoked, even without the visualization. It is how the music interacts with your mind and emotions that makes it good or bad. Some examples of music used for evil purpose can be found here (I know it’s Wikipedia, but the sources are documented). The fact is, heavy metal, acid rock, some hip hop, and many others are bad not because certain sounds are inherently evil but because they can cause people to behave a certain way, whipping people into unstable emotional states or frenzies. This is scientifically proven, and bears mention as we talk about kinds of music that God would respect as worshipful.

Observation 4: How We Look Matters

Most people like to quote verses like this one, from the story of David:

“But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”
-1 Samuel 16:7

This is a useful verse for a lot of modern and contemporary Christian churches, bands, worship teams, and groups in general, because on face value it can be interpreted, “Hey! God doesn’t care what you look like, what you dress like, or what your physical characteristics are! As long as you love God inside, He doesn’t care!”

Is that really true? Does God really have no opinion at all about the way that we dress or look? I think it’s plain that He does have an opinion. After all, most Christians are in agreement that immodesty for men or women is sin in God’s eyes. So there are certain things about the way that we look that God cares about. Furthermore, in the Old Testament God goes to great detail talking about how the Jews were not to clip their beards or wear a certain number of tassels on their robes. Why? Obviously none of that matters today, right? Wrong. God specifically put those instructions in the Bible so that the Jews would not associate themselves with the people who did dress that way because of the evil things those people did. We can try to write this off as Old Testament Judaism, but it really isn’t. It’s in the Bible because it’s just as important to us today. The World is still doing evil things, and it still uses symbols and styles to promote its lifestyles and behaviors. Why do the homosexuals need to identify with the rainbow, after all? Because they are using a common, everyday thing that is typically associated with beauty and cleanness to represent something that is ugly and sinful, so that it may gain some sense of the rainbow’s attributes in people’s minds. Symbols and styles have meaning beyond what they are.

I remember when I was a kid, it was going around that you shouldn’t wear a single earring in a certain ear because if you did it meant that you were homosexual. Now, if that was true, and I went around wearing such an earring in the correct ear, some people would naturally interpret from that that I was homosexual. By the same token, if I wore a giant swastika on my t-shirt, I think people would make certain assumptions about me. If I see a girl dressed in a miniskirt, fishnet hose, a low-necked blouse, and bright lipstick, I don’t immediately think she must be on her way home from a PTA meeting. The World uses clothing and other visual cues to help it identify with its values. Christians can (and should) do the same. Dressing modestly and tastefully, whether or not that includes jeans, t-shirts, or suits and ties, is a must, and we must be careful not to display cues that the World uses, or nonbelievers will associate us with our enemy, and we will be betraying our own cause. God does care about how His people look, He just doesn’t judge someone’s worth or worthiness by their outward appearance.

God does care about how His people look, He just doesn’t judge someone’s worth or worthiness by their outward appearance.

It’s here, on this observation, that I begin to lean away from contemporary music. While the music itself may not be bad (it may even be very good) those performing it tend to start looking and acting like the World we are called to be separate from.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” -2 Corinthians 6:14-17

And even with my background I have to be honest, none of this is true of the old hymns or traditional church services. If anything, such services are far removed from the way the World looks and behaves, and that is why I gravitate towards them. Looking like the World because it feels good, or feels familiar, or out of a misplaced sense of the need to modernize in order to obtain results or make potential converts feel at home is a dangerous slippery slope. It has led to many Christian musicians going completely astray, embracing other sins, and abandoning clear Biblical teaching. The average churchgoer is no better than any of them, and neither are we. If you let the World have a foothold in the church, human nature will cause it to spread, and that is why God cares so much about the way that we look and the way that we behave. We need to be in the World, but not of it. I’m not going to tell anyone exactly how to dress, but let me tell you, the World is proudly showing off certain looks, and if we mimic those in church, those searching for what we have will see no difference between us and what they already know. We will have camouflaged the Gospel, and we will lose the power to draw people towards Christ.

[Related note: I had a hard time finding a picture for the top of this article, despite searching for all kinds of key words. It wasn’t that there were a lack of pictures of worship bands, but the fact that I had a hard time finding one that was obviously a Christian worship team. Most just looked like rock/pop concerts, and checking on them revealed that some of them indeed were secular concerts. Looking at them at face value, I literally could not tell if they were Christian at all. My fellow believers, this is shameful. If the world can’t tell any difference between ourselves and them, then they will not see us having anything to offer that they don’t already have. And frankly, if God’s church is trying to out-World the World, it will fail miserably. The World is always going to be better at accepting everybody’s sin. It’s always going to be better at being cool, and being hip, and being popular. It’s going to be better at drawing people in because it’s working downhill. We’re working uphill. Christianity works against human nature, but the World works with it. If we try to “adapt” and “modernize” and “get with the times,” all of which mean “look like the World,” then we will not only compromise our own principles and disobey God, we will also fail at our own objective. The World always wins at its own game. It loses when we follow God’s rules.]

Observation 5: Showmanship Changes Everything

This is a significant point, because even if you don’t look like the World… even if you’re singing The Old Rugged Cross to a plain old organ, while suit-and-tie and long dress-clad church-folk stand in respectful rows of pews, how you worship can change everything. It comes down to a matter of motive, and that is something that can be very difficult for an observer to determine adequately. After all, David’s wife thought that David’s dance through the street was inappropriate and flashy, but David himself was truly oblivious, and focused entirely upon God. Most of the song leaders of our churches cannot say the same, but ultimately that is between them and God. Even so, how we come across still matters, so we should be careful. I have been in churches where the showmanship was so obvious you could hardly deny it, and let me tell you: it was distracting. And then, as if to mitigate what is obvious, the song leader would make special mention of how our worship is “only to God” and “this is about Jesus, not about us” while performing like a head-banging rock star before the cheering, frenetic masses.

It goes without saying, I think, that our music and how we perform it should not displace the One about which it speaks. Our music is an offering to God, just as our prayer and our study of the Word of God, and in the congregation of believers should be respectful of Him as the true audience of our singing or playing. Anything that distracts from that needs to go. Can drums be done tastefully and respectfully? Yes. But will they be? I have been a member of a church where drums were well done and did not distract from worship of God, but only one, and I have been to many, many churches over the years. Christians who lead singing or music need to pray each time they lead that God will reveal to them if they are truly being honest about their worship, and if it really is about God, or about themselves.

Conclusion: Our Music is Being Actively Corrupted

Just as the Secular World has sought to corrupt the exposition of the Word through false teachers like Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, and so many others that don’t even become famous, it has also sought to influence and ultimately corrupt other ways that Christians worship. Corporately, we can see the influence of false teaching and the misinterpretation (or even blatant ignorance of) Scripture.We can see attacks on the institution of marriage. We see departures from every Biblical act of worship, and music is no different. The World is actively worming its way into the church, feeding people half-truths that appeal to their feelings and their own definition of love. We are told that God looks at what’s inside, which is true, but we are not told that He cares what is outside. We are told that God loves us no matter what, but not that He is disappointed at our sin in spite of His love. We are told that God will accept anyone, but not expect them to change at all from their sinful past.

Oh, Christians, I know that we love our music. I know that it makes us feel warm inside. I know that the light shows are flashy and attractive and just seem to work for drawing in the crowds. But let me tell you, those crowds aren’t going to stick around. They’re in your church buying into a false sense of spirituality, and some day when the chips are down they’re going to run as far away from Christianity as they can, because none of it was real.

I believe firmly that songs like Come, Now is the Time to Worship, You are My All in All, and others like them, new or older, are acceptable worship, but not the way they are being performed, and not how many of them were meant to be performed. The words themselves may be sung in honesty to worship God, even if I think they lack the meat of more carefully created songs such as The Solid Rock, or Sweet Hour of Prayer. But make no mistake, there is a wrong way to do any music, and when we look like the World, we are but a breath away from acting like the World. And the World doesn’t need that. It needs Christians who dare to be different. It needs Christians who come out from the World and live a separate way. It isn’t easy, and it may not make us feel as good as going along with the crowd, but we can trust our future and our feelings to God, and I promise you He will guide them.

Pray and consider what you’ve read from a place of honest humility, as I have striven to do, because we want to bring to God a worship that will please Him, and not just ourselves.