photo: Martha Brady
This is a song we sang this past Sunday. I’m in the process of learning it and am enjoying it very much.
Change, particularly when it comes to music in church is not always easy to navigate. It is much easier to sing all the favorites from the past.
Music is neutral. It isn’t intrinsically evil or good in style. We all do have personal preferences.
But music is very personal. Everyone has their favorite styles that are the language of their souls. Ideally, in a church, we can have a mix of some old and some new songs and hymns.
Normally, that doesn’t often happen. If your church has only one end of the spectrum, find a way to add in another aspect of music styles.
In the process, you may attract some different ages to your church to give it the diversity it needs. No, that won’t be the primary reason you do it. The primary reason to do it is to bring glory to GOD in worship. Variety in music helps all of us be able to express our hearts in worshp to GOD.
Instead of having worship wars that are centered on music, those of us who are older must learn to love younger people. The final decision doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing decision.
Those of us who have been believers for longer need to show our maturity by bending and being flexible. Why? Because we have way more years of experience with change than younger people do. We know that change is an integral part of life!
Worship is much bigger than the style of music we use in our worship service. Each person is touched by some styles more than others. No doubt about it! So let’s allow each of us to have something they find helpful and something with which they can give grace. . .as part of worship.
We also know that worship is much bigger than the style of music we use in our worship service. The GOD of creation showed that creativity and diversity in every part of creation was His signature. So the fact that He would only want one style of music in worship just doesn’t make sense!
But if there is one style, it would include trumpets, cymbals, harps, tamborines, drums and stringed instruments to name a few! (Did I leave any out from those mentioned in Scripture? Oh, I think I left out dulcimers didn’t I?) That certainly allows for quite a variety of styles, none of which would be drab or dirgy at all!
Well, that was certainly a ramble…but I’ll leave it in because it could be appropos to your situation.
My soul, thou art immerged in sin,
So deep that none can trace;
Look to the ransom GOD decreed
To clear the guilty race.The atonement once made on the tree,
Can balance many more
Than all the sins of Adam’s race,
If number’d o’er and o’er.He paid the mighty sum and died
For sinners yet unborn;
From men, the works of his own hands,
He suffered shame and scorn.Had I the guilt of all the world,
He’s able to forgive:
Why should I fear? The debt is paid.
If only I believe.text: William Williams
music: Benj Pocta and Brian T. Murphy 2006
I want to talk a little about Red Mountain Music. Often I talk about authors of the words of the chosen song, but this is an interesting place! They love to put newer music to old, often unknown hymns. If you haven’t heard of them or their music, take a look at the website. Today’s song is of course, one of theirs.
It is a loosely organized group of musicians from Red Mountain Church, a PCA church in Birmingham, AL. Brian T. Murphy used to be part of that group but is now in New York City…since 2010. (That was new to me! I didn’t realize this until I was working on this post.) I wasn’t able to find a lot more than this.
