I recently had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Spiritual Growth Workshop in Orlando. It was an enriching time. Besides the plethora of talented speakers, what I enjoyed most was the a cappella singing.
Overall, the singing was much better when the group was singing a well-written, musically punctuated piece and the song leader was not engaged in monkeyshines. I lead singing at my home congregation once a month and, not to brag – just elucidate, I am often complimented on my skills as a song leader. I choose solid songs.
One of the major contrasts I witnessed between the teen set and the adult gatherings was the split between singing fluff songs and hymns with sound, theological meat in the music. I heard someone describe these “devotional songs” as 7/11 songs- seven words, sung eleven times.
I remember when I was a teen asking why “Thank you Lord for Loving Me” was ok in the gym but forbidden in the auditorium. I’m now forty and that dichotomy of style still doesn’t make much sense.
The difference between a hymn and a PowerPoint, devo, new age fluff song is the difference between the New York Times and Joe’s Blog: vetting. The hymnal “Praise for the Lord” was edited by four individuals who were adults. They had years of experience of studying the matter of worship, focusing on its ideals and meaning. Because of this sincere treatment this particular hymnal opens up with a call to action. “Each day I’ll do a golden deed, by helping those who are in need;” is a pledge annunciated before your fellow workers that Christian living is, naturally, a daily activity.
Most of the “teen songs” do not survive into adulthood and for good reason. When you have a mortgage to pay you want to hear “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.” When a loved one is in the hospital your mind recalls the prayer “Be with me Lord, I cannot live without Thee.” When there is a rest from woes surely the unencumbered heart can sing “There is sunshine in my soul today, more glorious and bright than glows in any earthly sky for Jesus is my light.” (Note: Go to cyberhymnal.org and read the story behind Eliza E. Hewitt’s experience which lead her to write such a magnificent anthem of joy.)
Those solid song, those hymns forged at the hearth, those perennial psalms were penned by men and women who struggled to add their voice to the joyful noise. Many of them were from our own faith. And though they faced opposition from the weak who urged them to conform to the pattern of this world they stood their ground and said “We’re A Cappella, deal with it.” They faced ridicule, rejection and the scourging din of vain men to simply whisper that the bounds of fellowship outlast today’s fads: “May we all in truth and spirit worship Thee.” They reminded us that in spite of theological folly and the failings of personality “Our God, He Is Alive.”
A common factor to note in all of the hymns I just mentioned is the life entry era of each author. They all came to God before the advent of television. Because they matured in an era of reading instead of watching they wrote their declarations in a spirit of holiness. Since the age of television, there has been little written of musical merit. BHD- Before Howdy Doody, most folks lived their lives with a reasonable expectation of hard work, family support and the common recognition of the supreme governance of the Golden Rule. Ask your grandparents, chances are they never locked the front door. AHD- After Howdy Doody, the carnal powers that be in Manhattan and Hollywood decided to erase the sepia tone, conservative framework and smear it red and green. In a few short years, we went from Norman Rockwell to graffiti. We are now enduring the second generation of Americans who’ve grown up without a sense of neighborhood. Clearly, the information superhighway is no replacement for the backyard fence. Added to this organized, multi-pronged assault was easily accessible narcotics, historical revisionism, religious indifference and political correctness. Can a great hymn be written post-Woodstock? Maybe, but not very likely. It is a challenge to find anything great from the last 60 years. This is the Golden Age of Mediocrity. This is a generation which landed on the moon six times but has not been back since the Nixon administration. There are a handful of great leaders, one or two great films, a couple of great inventions. Why then should it be a surprise if we find but a handful of great hymns?
It is no wonder then that in such a flash/bang, shame neutral, hyper-saturation media environment that those suffering through the most, adolescents, are themselves captured by the desires of this age, commercialism and harsh task master of nihilism. More than ever, these children need these hymns. They need to hear one man, not three or four, not a muddled “praise team,” they need a humble, sturdy, father figure to stand before the great unwashed, admonish them to turn off their instant communications and lead them in meditation to the Garden of Prayer wherein lies naught but beautiful flowers and a simple stone bench where one might lean upon the Shepherd of Tender Youth. They desperately need to hear God addressed as Thee and Thou, two steps higher than the clumsy domain of megrim mortals. They need to be shielded from the chaos of charms and reminded that “While we do His good will, He abides with us still.”
They do not need pithy jingles mimicking the impetuousness of continual childhood, they need to be told that their boat is sailing on to the imperturbable harbor of adulthood. They need victory gardens, not Wal-mart. They need the marriage supper of the Lamb, not hooking up with the feelings du jour. They need cognitive proof that beyond trends and positive thinking there stands a Rock of Ages and a Balm in Gilead.
They need leaders who will command their attention above rather than to center stage. They don’t need spontaneous prayers, solos, cart wheels or unnecessary choral tricks to crack a whip and say “Look at me.” They need good singing, period not three exclamation points. They need to know that corporate worship of God is always exciting no matter if its done in a convention center with four-thousand voices or by a creek with four. Corporate worship is exciting always, beyond circumstances because it is, by its very nature, beyond the human experience. By raising your voice to God, unaccompanied by the clangs of cymbals or the warbling of a soloist, you are presenting God with the only sacrifice He demands: yourself.
During those blessed minutes, during those rests from the cacophony of cares, the individual son or daughter of the King of KIngs receives a tremendous opportunity: the chance to leave yourself and participate in the shadow of God’s glory. It is a marvelous time wherein we are not bound by the fetters of time and space. When we sing we join an invisible choir harmonized in English and Urdu and Hakka and Madurese. We don’t perform tenor, soprano, alto or bass in a church building in Florida in 2008, we sing on a dome on Mars in 2108, in a basement in 1008, and, yes, even in a jail in Philippi in AD 48. For a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we wear robes of white and dip our feet in a Crystal Sea.
Friends, that is not the rambling fancies of my fertile imagination, that is the reality of worship. That is God’s glory. If you find yourself less than enthusiastic about that experience then it is not the fault of our your song leader it is your fault. Worship isn’t boring, you are boring. In those sacred seconds, I am reminded that I am not apart of the rat race because I am not a rat. And I lead with all diligence because I know that God promises a bounty of blessings for those who diligently seek to do His will. And those blessings are unbelievably, unfathomably wondrous. As Benjamin Beddome said “He fills my heart with joy, my lips attunes for praise, and to His glory I’ll devote the remnant of my days.”
It is my sincere hope that if you ever happen to be at the Central Church of Christ in Haines City, Florida on a Sunday when I am leading singing that you will completely forget my name, my skills or the occasionally out of tune vocalization of those near you and instead you will remember how you were moved because you beamed a smile when you realized that “we serve a risen Savior” and you will have trembled “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.” And you will rush to take that spark and light a blaze in your neighborhood to tell others about the perfect peace in this dark world of sin and the wonderful love of my Blessed Redeemer way down in the depths of my heart.
