ichael Spencer (whom I quoted last week in my sermon) has brought to my attention an article that’s come out of the Australian Anglican church. See The Slow Death of Congregational Singing and Michael’s riff on that article, Riffs: The Briefing on “The Slow Death of Congregational Singing.”
Here’s a quote from his reflection on internetmonk.com:

[In the place of robust congregational singing,] we have a lot of songs that a lot of people don’t know, a lot of bad and unknown tunes, a lot of watching the worship team perform (especially if they are female of the right type and dress), a lot of forgettable, narcissistic lyrics, a lot of bad and inexperienced worship leaders, a lot of bone-headed thinking about congregational singing in relation to church growth, a lot of imitation of churches and methods that most congregations can’t imitate, a lot of lay people who simply don’t know how to sing at all, a lot of churches that don’t teach singing, a lot of turning congregations into audiences anyway and whatever else goes into the stew that does away with congregational singing.

It’s unfortunate that the discussion turns into old songs vs. new songs so often. Ultimately, when the songs were written, what kind of beat they have, what instrumentation one uses, etc. are secondary (and even tertiary) issues. The fundamental question that those of us who plan and lead music must wrestle with in terms of our role is “What does it mean to lead in song?” Does it mean that people are supposed to be inspired by the devotion and the passion of the person who sings at the front? Does it mean that we’re to model what the congregation should be ideally doing? Or is it different than that?

For me, leading in song involves a lot more behind the scenes work than overt, up-front action. Leading in song means that we pick keys that are the most comfortable for a congregation to sing in, no matter if they’re good keys for a lead vocalist to “shine” in or not.* (That’s why much, if not most, of the worship music coming out of places like Nashville and Atlanta has to be rekeyed before congregations can even attempt it. In CCM worship recordings, men are usually tenors and women are usually altos, while congregations are typically more oriented toward baritones and mezzo-sopranos. If you’ve been singing along with a worship leader until they reach a high note, at which point your voice cracks and you look around sheepishly to see if anyone noticed, you know what I’m talking about.) Leading in song means eliminating confusion from the musical arrangements so that the congregation feels confident of where to come in. Leading in song means picking accompaniments and arrangements that support the congregation’s singing, rather than allowing them to feel naked and left out to dry.

*Ideally, you shouldn’t need to turn up a lead vocalist’s volume so loud that anyone can hear if he or she is in their best key. And what does it say about our sales-oriented approach to worship that we would care if someone is in their best key or not?

ark Galli writes concerning the physicality of liturgical worship:

The liturgy does not point us to “the Christ spirit,” “the ground of all being,” “the Universe,” or any other amorphous, abstract spiritual entity. Instead it points us to the one who did not think Pure Spirit a thing to be grasped. He who created flesh and called it very good, put his money where his divine mouth was, and took on bodily life and lived among the embodied. To put it simply: we worship a material Savior.

Mark Galli, Beyond Smells and Bells, p. 85

ere is the text of the newest song I’ve written, a setting of Isaac Watts’ hymn “Arise, my soul, my joyful powers.”

Arise, my soul, my joyful powers,
And triumph in my God;
Awake, my voice, and loud proclaim
His glorious grace abroad.

He raised me from the deeps of sin,
The gates of gaping hell,
And fixed my standing more secure
Than it was before I fell.

      Arise, my soul; awake, my voice,
      And songs of triumph sing;
      Loud hallelujahs shall address
      My Savior and My King.

The arms of everlasting love
Beneath my soul he placed;
And on the Rock of ages set
My slippery footsteps fast.

I’ve edited one line. In the verse that I’ve used as a chorus, the original second line read “And tunes of pleasure sing”. I thought that “songs of triumph” was both more appropriate and was less liable to be misunderstood in our context today.

Hopefully, I will be able to post a lead sheet soon.

rom C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Christianity stands or falls upon who Jesus is. Out of context the above quote may seem a little harsh; I don’t mean to post it as such. What I intend to say is this: read the gospels. Look at the audacious claims that Jesus makes about himself. He can’t be a good teacher if he was a flat-out liar. If Jesus really is who he said he was then we have to live with the idea that he has the right to make claims upon our life. If he really is the resurrected Lord, he is worthy to be worshiped. If he isn’t, if he’s still a tomb in Palestine, then he was one of the most infamous liars in history and should be laughed at as a fraud and a failure.

his Sunday, one of the major themes of our service is the Christian’s love for God. Psalm 116 immediately came to mind as one of the seminal passages in the Bible regarding loving God. I scoured my psalters for a suitable setting of the text and ended up with Isaac Watts’ version.

I love the Lord; he heard my cries, and pitied every groan:
Long as I live, when troubles rise, I’ll hasten to his throne.

I love the Lord; he bowed his ear, and chased my griefs away;
O let my heart no more despair, while I have breath to pray!

The text is in CM (Common Meter), which means that each verse contains four lines - 8 syllables - six syllables - 8 - 6. I searched the Metrical Index and tried to find a suitable tune. None of the CM tunes seemed to work, but a CMD tune stuck out. (CMD stands for Common Meter Doubled. Instead of 8.6.8.6., the melody is 8.6.8.6.8.6.8.6.) I set the text to Laura Taylor’s tune for “To Christ the Lord”. I find it works rather well. After raising the key a minor third and setting Watts’ lyrics, it looks like this:

I’m pleased with the pairing.

I’ll be continually updating the metrical index on this site as a reference tool. Feel free to use it to use my tunes or others’ tunes. (If you have any suggestions on how to make it more useful, please email me and let me know.)

ll worship is eschatological. All true worship remembers the past, experiences the present and looks toward the future. In that sense, eschatology should shape how we see our gathered worship of God. It is in worship - in hearing the Word preached, in prayer, in exhorting each other, in affirming our faith, in receiving the sacraments - that we, as a community, reject antichrist.

(These are just a few thoughts that I’m putting down for myself in preparation for a sermon in July. The last time I preached, my text was from Revelation 13 - the mark of the beast passage - and on July 6, I’ll be tackling antichrist. I promise that I’m not fixated on the “End Times”, except in the sense that all of our lives are lived in the end times.)

ere is a very quick and dirty arrangement of Chris Miner’s tune for “God Be Merciful to Me”. I’ve done some harmony adjustment that makes the song more of a confessional, in my opinion. I obviously cranked out this arrangement after listening to “Summer Skin” by Death Cab for Cutie one too many times.

There are no dynamics yet and I can’t quite figure out how to correctly work the modulation on the organ but this is a first step, nonetheless, toward creating some new arrangements.

’m currently sitting in my hotel room in Grapevine, Texas after a busy weekend.  After beginning the day on Saturday with the wedding of two good friends, I drove up here to the Metroplex so that I can attend a conference on Monday and Tuesday.  As part of my trip, I visited several churches in the D/FW area to get an idea of what their worship services look like.  Within a span of 24 hours I attended 4 services.  Here are some reflections while they are fresh in my mind. Read more »