William Chong

This article briefly works through the debate in Christian churches on their stance on music during services. However it also highlights a long-running question which I’ll try and allude to more often in the future, once I’ve successfully formulated clearer thoughts about it.

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If you sampled 5 different churches today, sometimes the differences in their songs and musical styles during the service are more apparent than differences in theology and teaching.

One church may employ a full rock band and professional singers to lead the singing, choosing “praise” songs written to express in the simplest of terms how much they love the Lord.

Another congregation may sing with the help of just a choir group, or a guitar. Some may prefer singing through a set hymnal with multiple verses. Some congregations include songs that don’t even reference God. And then some split their morning and evening services, with hymns in the morning and CCM in the evening (perhaps they couldn’t decide.)

Is this a recent phenomenon? No. For a time, hymns by Isaac Watts were the source of church divisions among 19th century worshippers. Four-part hymns were a big issue when first introduced – some even objecting to having musical notation written out! Music is but one of many things that the body of Christ seems to enjoy dividing itself over.

Let’s look at one of the extremes in today’s musical spectrum. One view deems any form of musical accompaniment to a cappella singing to be inappropriate. By selectively quoting Romans 14:23, which says:  

“But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.”

… this writer’s logic is that anything not expressly condemned by the Bible shouldn’t be done anyways. By this same logic, the internet forum the article was presented on should technically be taboo too, not to mention the millions of new things not available 2000 years prior - I’d question the wisdom of a blanket ban of everything without explicit written Biblical approval.

It’s also useful to note the context - chapter 14 was written to Romans who were concerned about which meats were clean and unclean. In 1 Timothy 4:3-5, it’s pretty clear that “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused.” I concede that Romans is most complex and requires lots of think-thinking to delve through – but to conclude that anything in this world today not mentioned in the Bible is pretty much a legalistic, pseudo-Amish view of the Bible.

We could conceivably apply this to the debate on, say, “clean and unclean” types of music in the church setting. The question is not whether the Bible explicitly approves of music or not. David accompanied his psalms with a harp – would you then say that only harps should be used to praise God?

Here is the opposite end of the music worship spectrum – CCM. Applying rock and pop styles of today to praise Jesus Christ is immensely popular among young Christians, and a big pulling factor for many services. It makes it “relevant” to people today, and some of the praise songs speak right into your heart, as if they were directly inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Yet some people will choose to leave a church because they find they “just can’t worship there” – not very far off from, they “just don’t like the music there.” Some will even equate this good endorphins to good worship. I wonder if this is the right attitude to church.

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There are more important considerations in church besides music. Our attitude should be to exalt God in whatever capacity we are able to. When we choose an exclusive, non-negotiable musical preference in worshipping God, we are selfishly saying, “My musical tastes are more important than my taste for God.”

You can sing 5 verses of theologically-rich “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and not even understand the words, or care to. You can scream out “Hosannah in the highest” and not mean it.

Our worship, will always be imperfect and a miniscule offering that’s dwarfed by the enormity of His sacrifice for us. But at the very least, our main focus is on God. I love this quote from John Fischer, who says:

“It’s our life, not a worship service, that will make us worshipers. We don’t go to church to worship; we go to church because we are already worshipers. And if someone is a true worshiper, which means their whole life is an act of worship, then what happens for 30 minutes of music once a week is a small thing indeed.”

It’s all about perspective, it seems.

Worship shouldn’t be just about the music. It should be an attitude-change – a commitment of emotion, intellect and will.

This is a pared-down, guitar and voice number describing how beautiful the Lord’s sacrifice is.

 How Beautiful [3:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

How Beautiful – WILLIAM CHONG

How beautiful the rose, stranded in the earth
with thorns that pin it down
How beautiful the rose, buried yesterday:
it’s gonna rise again tomorrow

Now I know the reason He suffered for
And I know it’s not just a metaphor
What a way to bless us forevermore
Oh Lord I’ll worship you

For I’d have no protection
And no chance for correction
If not for His resurrection,
the most glorious thing there ever was
So this is my reaction
To praise Him for his actions
His undying love for me is still
the most glorious thing there ever was

How beautiful the Lamb seated on His throne
He was a sinless provider
How wonderful his plan, to sanctify our souls
And all we had to do was ask
Yes I know that I’m not worth dying for
Still I know His words now mean so much more
So I’ll sing to Him in praise once more
Oh Lord I’m in love with you

On Saturday afternoon I attended the wedding of one of our ballroom dance tutors, Maugan.  It’s weird because his wife Joan I used to call Ms. Edington, back when she taught Space 4 in Wakaaranga Primary.  It’s the oddest thing to remember, because I’ve even got a certificate from her (they were highly-prized when you were 10) commending me on some amazing bit of homework.

Heres a couple of things I noticed:

•  A Catholic priest holds up the sacrament and wine and it transfigured into real flesh and blood (hmm.)
• CCM is not just an American evangelical thing.  The residing Father did a pretty powerful “Shine, Jesus Shine” (you know the one) – Hillsong numbers like “Shout to the Lord” also present.  You really need to be in a Catholic church to break the preconceptions that their services consist of Medieval plainsong, so I’m glad I was there.
• Maugan and Joan = cool match
• Flowergirls are adorable in any shade of wedding.  Why argue shades of grey (semantics of salvation, true) when you have such moments as these:

Anyways, hope *my* father doesn’t walk me down the aisle – that’d just be strange!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!