Continuing in our series on the various elements of our worship, today we consider the music of worship. Our Scripture passages are from Psalm 96:1-3 and Ephesians 5: 19, 20. (Read passages)

I would imagine by now you are about to burst into singing something, so stark has it been to have no music thus far in the service. We’ll get there in a moment, so hang on. However, it’s obvious in its absence how much music is an important part of our worship. Yet, ironically, the most controversial element of worship is music! Using music in worship is not controversial. There are elements of worship that could be absent and it wouldn’t be particularly controversial. Last week, I mentioned worshiping at a church where there was no time for confession. That is not particularly controversial. There may or may not be a Prelude, a Call to Worship, or other elements of worship. But, exclude music and it doesn’t feel like worship. Music helps our spirits soar, enriches our souls and lifts a sweet fragrance of praise to God. Using music is not controversial. It is the type of music used that is controversial.

The phrase "worship wars" has been used to describe this controversy. I’ve never heard that unfortunate term used about any other aspect of worship. "Worship wars" is always used in reference to the music used in worship.

One church fired its own volley in this "war" with these words about the new music entering into worship: "There are several reasons for opposing it: It’s too new. It’s too worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style and because there are so many new songs you can’t learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than on godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances, making people act disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it." Now, before you shout "Amen" to that, note that it was written in 1723 in criticism of the hymns of Isaac Watts! That would be the same Isaac Watts who is the author of twelve hymns in our hymnal, including Joy to the World, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Our God Our Help in Ages Past, I Sing the Mighty Power of God and Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun which we’ll be singing in a moment. If the authors of that criticism had their way, we’d be singing none of those hymns today. No Joy to the World, no When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.

Another church addresses this controversy with a mailing to its first time visitors that is six pages long, small type and makes eight points—all of them addressing the issue of music in their worship. I know this because this is the mailing I received from the church I visited a couple of weeks ago! Six pages! Eight points! None of the points have anything to do about the absence of confession in their worship. It’s all about music. Where there’s controversy about worship, it’s usually—if not always—about music. And it’s been there for a long, long time.

I think there are some reasons for the controversy. They are unfortunate, misdirected reasons, but they are there and we’re going to speak to them today.

First of all, I think the controversy about music exists because we fail to identify our presuppositions and acknowledge them as such…presuppositions. Presuppositions are not bad, everybody has them. They represent our likes and dislikes, our preferences and everybody has them. But, presuppositions become oppressive, contributing to the worship wars when we make them the rule for everybody rather than a personal preference.

A few years ago, I attended an evangelism conference sponsored by the Synod of the Sun. Toward the end of the three-day conference, the organizers asked us to gather in small groups according to our presbyteries and evaluate the conference by discussing and answering questions on an evaluation sheet. So, our presbytery group met—about 20 people in all. The first response asked for was "Evaluate the worship." Every session, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, began with a time of worship. In response to the request to evaluate the worship, one of the pastors in our group said, "Have we worshiped?" Another pastor next to him said, "Yeah, I wish we would’ve sung at least one hymn," then they laughed. Which I found interesting, if not disturbing, because I knew we had sung at least three hymns right out of the Presbyterian Hymnal. Now, we didn’t sing them accompanied by the organ in the sanctuary. We were accompanied by a praise band with piano, guitars, drums and a few brass. But, they were hymns right out of the hymnal, traditional, often-sung hymns. So, I turned to the pastor who had longed for singing at least one hymn and said, "Pete," (not his real name) "I need to ask you what you mean by hymn because we sang…" and then I rattled off the names of the three hymns. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds and then he said, "I guess I don’t know." You see, his presupposition—his bias if you will—was that it could only be a hymn if sung to the organ. And it had become an oppressive rule because if we didn’t sing it with the organ, we not only didn’t sing a "hymn," we hadn’t worshiped. Such thinking is nonsense, but it is prevalent throughout the church. We contribute to the "worship wars" over music when we fail to recognize our presuppositions for what they are and make them rigid, oppressive rules instead.

Then, the controversy over music exists, in part, because we fail to recognize the differences in purpose of the various forms of music and erroneously judge those different forms by the standard of one particular purpose. Yes, it’s all music, but it is not always an apples to apples comparison.

Praise music, for example, has the purpose of freeing the worshiper to offer his or her praise to God. That’s part of the reason for the repetition—to release the worshiper from concern about the words we’re singing to focusing on the One to whom we’re singing. Psalm 136 is an example of a seventh century B.C. praise song! Forget yourself for a moment…don’t worry about what words you’re supposed to sing…just offer it as praise to Almighty God—"His love endures forever!" In addition, the repetition provides for an easily remembered anchor of stability to return to us in moments of crisis—"In spite of what is happening at the moment, I know ‘God’s love endures forever’"—or in moments of great joy—"Thank you, Lord, ‘your love endures forever.’"

A few years ago, I was on a backpacking trip with some men from our church in Amarillo. We had set out early in the morning before sunrise. Shortly into the hike, however, the sun started to come up over the mountains right as we began to take a U-turn in the trail. There before us was a valley and across the way another mountain upon which the sun was shining. Spontaneously, I broke into song—"I will lift my eyes to the hills and their Creator, who made all heaven and earth." The others began to join in, "For He watches me, will not sleep, no never slumber. He’s ever over me." We began to sing with more gusto, lost in this serendipitous moment of worship and praise. "As I come and I go, I am safe for I know, that His grace is sufficient for me. Winter warmth and light, and a shady place in summer, He’s ever over me." And we repeated the song again, now in full voice as all in our party we’re singing. The familiarity with that praise song gave us that unplanned moment of worship and praise on the side of that mountain.

Hymns, on the other hand, tend to be written with the purpose of content. Less repetitious, hymns are less easily memorized, but generally have greater theological depth because they contain many and varied expressions to communicate a theme. John Newton wrote four verses to speak of God’s Amazing Grace…and a fifth was added later. Isaac Watts wrote four verses expressing Joy to the World over the birth of Christ. Psalm 27 uses 14 verses to speak of the shelter and safety found in the Lord, none of those verses repeat. We may know by memory snippets of a hymn or a psalm like Psalm 27 through frequent use, but their main purpose is to provide content to a theological theme.

Different purposes, neither of which is greater or more important than the other. And we error when we judge, or criticize one by the standard of the other.

Presuppositions…purpose. The third issue to consider in the controversy is the most important…people. We error by failing to acknowledge our presuppositions about music. We error in failing to understand the different purposes for which music is written. But our most egregious error in the controversy over music in worship is that we fail to recognize that our words in the controversy can be hurtful to God’s people. Sometimes in the "worship wars," some people—when expressing their presuppositions about hymns—will use such words as "boring," "funeral dirges," "stuffy" and "outdated. Or, neglecting the differences in purpose, some people will put down praise music by calling it "trite," "shallow," or "7-11 music," the last being a particularly hyperbolic sarcasm referring to "7 words sung 11 times." All such language—whether about hymns or praise music—is hurtful to people who are part of the family of Christ and have no place here. I can’t imagine Jesus acting like that, can you? Then neither should we.

I want to commend to us all a way out of the worship wars and it involves another word beginning with the letter "P"—praying. Specifically praying toward what we are calling "negotiated sacrifice," which is a phrase borrowed from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, as you’ll see in a moment. I’ve asked each member of the staff to pick a video to watch from our library of broadcast tapes of church-topic programs via satellite from the Church Communication Network, then discuss it with me in our monthly meetings. Janet selected one on worship called Building the New/Old Paradigm of Christian Worship." When we talked about it, she told me about the concept of "negotiated sacrifice" mentioned in the program. You are about to see that brief portion of the program. The speaker is Doug Lawrence, music minister at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California.

(Show video)

That is my suggestion for each one of us at Shepherd of the Hills. Negotiated sacrifice. When something happens in worship that you don’t enjoy, pray for those who do enjoy it. Then they, in turn, will pray for you during something they don’t enjoy but you do. Become pray-ers, not critics. In your prayer, celebrate and thank God for the unity we have in Christ in the midst of our diversity in presuppositions and preferences, the diversity of our music and the purpose for which it is written and, yes, for the diversity of people in our midst and all our different likes and dislikes. Become a pray-er that we might fulfill the admonition of Paul to "speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs…singing and making music in our hearts to the Lord."

Let’s take a moment of silence to consider these words for us today…and to prepare ourselves to do exactly what Paul is encouraging us to do—sing and make music in our hearts to the Lord!