Church Worship Music: The Good, Bad, Ugly, Right, and Wrong

Music – it’s just so personal.

Musical Theory Crash Course – What is Music?

Let’s, for a second talk about music on a secular (wordly) level.  It’s composed of melody, harmony and rhythm.  Theoretically, then, a computer can write a song by adding all of these elements in some way and create ‘music’.  And computers can and do this. On a secular level, it’s actually pretty good. So let’s be clear that music can also be 100% impersonal.

Genres are really just a ‘tendency’ of one or more of the three components above to follow similar patterns.  I happen to really like reggae as a genre and the reason is syncopation or ‘off beat’ rhythms.  Instead of a typical rock beat which goes:

one-and-TWO-and-three-and-FOUR-and

reggae goes:

one-AND-two-AND-three-AND-four-AND

So ‘reggae’ would follow a ‘tendency’ to do that or similar rhythm and would therefore be considered a ‘reggae rhythm’.  There are, of course, other elements like the place where the bass comes in which is so different from standard rock as well.

And don’t think that church music is without genres and this is part of the discussion of this blog post.  But if you were to step back there are two major ‘church genres’: the hymn and what Koreans call ‘CCM’ or what English speaking countries tend to call ‘Praise & Worship Music’.  Now, on that topic, let’s start this blog with some FUN!  Because I’m all about fun whenever possible, even if people get upset.

The Ugly

Note before clicking: do *NOT* go to the red URL because it seems to go to some very potentially *bad* places, although I haven’t researched nor will I.

Is it possible to make worse music for God?  It’s music like this that has turned a lot of people away from Jesus I think! What the heaven genre is this?  “Mullet Praise”?  Dear God have mercy…

Let’s stick with this fun theme and watch another one, shall we?

Note before clicking: Based on my own research I cannot support Amazon (who owns Audible) or Facebook, so please do not support what he is selling until you have done your own due diligence.

How to write a perfect “Praise and Worship Song” (CCM):

This same guy made this similarly funny video.

The Problem with Christian Bands

But this topic of music is not actually that ‘funny’ in the church.  I heard a statistic that I have never been willing to research myself but that I believed immediately upon hearing which went like this: “Music is the number one cause of all church splits”.  As soon as I heard it, I believed.

When I became a disciple of Jesus I was coming from a rock and roll garage band kind of background.  I was the typical teen with the guitar and amp and even made a little headway with our little band.  Although music was, before I met Jesus, my god and idol, when I came to the church I realized that music was still important.  Ever since then, and it has been over 20 years now, I have wanted to take a deeper look at what music is, what it should be, and why it’s so impacting.  This blog post is supposed to just whet the whistle on the topic and hopefully spur some comments from people around me and out there so that I can build on the study and leave something useful out there for the body of Christ.

We’ve had some laughs, we’ve drunk some milk, but now let’s get into the meat (even though I’m trying to be a vegetarian).  A Korean sister in the Lord found this video.  I searched both high and low trying to find it in English because a) I want to know who this dude is so I can give him some credit and b) I desperately want to watch part 2 of this series.  Anyway, if you speak either English or Korea, this video should be amazingly beneficial to you on this topic.  If you know who this guy is, please throw some comments below and let me know:

Details about music, genres, right, wrong, harmony, melody, rhythm as it pertains to the church and worship

But for me, it didn’t stop there.  There is more to discuss.  Here is a good video to watch where a hip hop reggae Christian artist dude asks a very important and personal question: Why do some churches reject his music?  Please watch especially the response from Ravi Zacharias at the end.

Why do some churches reject my music genre?

The first speaker answers with a very bold and, in my opinion overly generalized way when he said ‘If you reject a certain kind of music there is something wrong with you.”  I totally disagree.  There may be very good reasons to reject a certain kind or genre of music as we shall hopefully study over the next few months as I find time.

He also mentions the idea that ‘you can reach people with music’ and his implication is therefore ‘so you should use music as a tool to reach people’.  I am now of the opinion that this is a very dangerous position to take because I agree that music is, at the very roots, a tool: a tool of expression of the soul, a motivation tool, a tool of influence, a tool of worship, and many more applications.  But if a tool is powerful, the person using the tool must understand what the tool is, the benefits and dangers of the tool, the right and wrong time to use the tool, and essentially be well grounded in the usage of said tool.  To just throw a ‘Christian band’ in front of your church and ask people to participate in whatever they lead you to do is, in my opinion, opening yourself up to some problems.  Refer to the ‘Problems with Christian Bands’ video above.

I believe that Ravi’s answer was more grounded and has within it the core issues that need to be addressed when discussing music.

Music is the Language of the Soul

Ravi said ‘Music is the language of the soul’ – and how correct he is.  But this brings us to the most fundamental problem in the church today: no one knows what the soul is, let alone that there is a difference between the soul and the spirit!  To get immediately educated on the topic, I recommend that you go and buy Watchman Nee’s “The Spiritual Man”.  I regret so deeply that I had this book on my shelf for nearly 20 years and never opened it until now.  Now and only now things are starting to make sense in the world as this teaching of body, soul, and spirit comes alive.

What is the Soul?

As a quick snap shot, the soul is composed of the mind, the will, and the emotions.  Simple as that. But as it pertains to music, you will note that *unsaved sinners* all have a mind, a will and emotions!  And herein lies the greatest danger – what is the *spirit* behind the music?  Is the person leading you into worship even saved?  Are they born again?  Are you sure?  Or, are they leading you down a pathway to *their soul*?  And who is the master of their soul?  Is it Jesus?  Do you know?  Are you sure?

I’m not going to pretend to scratch the surface of this topic but I hope that up to now I have spurned some ideas and that we will be able to walk down a very deep path towards truth on this topic of music in the church and in worship.