Worship Music
As most (if not all of us), understand the importance of music in our Christian worship. But why? Why is it such an integral part of our worship? What does the Bible tell us about it? Is it unique to the Bible and Christianity? Also, why some Christian music seems less Christian lately? Finally, how is worship music selected at Red Door Church? ~ Zeyad
Dear Zeyad, I’m very thankful that Jono has given me the opportunity to respond to such a valuable question. It can be so tempting to approach our worship services seeking only to engage with the parts in which we naturally resonate and then in turn happily dismiss other parts as though they were designed for the ‘other people’ when the truth of the call to follow Christ is to die to ourselves, even our preferences, and follow Him with all of our hearts and all of our lives.
This topic, though quite dear to me, can often lead me to respond with a tone of cynicism as I too am often discouraged by something you’ve picked up on in the question here. So with this in mind, I’m going to respond first to the point you’ve made about Christian music being less ‘Christian’ lately and build from there.
I’ve always been somebody who enjoys patterns. I feel like they have much to teach us both in our own personal lives and also in the life of us as the body of Christ, the church.
To give an example of both cases –
When we find ourselves falling into places of habitual sin a helpful thing for us to do might be to consider whether there is a pattern that emerges that can help us understand what might the igniting factor in our pursuit of our flesh, so that we may be more likely to run to God at the first sign of concern rather than to expect ourselves to put the lid back on the bottle once we’ve already put some ice in the cup.
Regarding the importance of recognising patterns in the context of the church, all we need to do is read the book of judges and see that so often the nation of Israel ‘forgot the Lord their God’ which time and time again would cause them to fall into the hands of their enemies, then God would raise a judge to deliver them and point them back to Him only for them to ‘forget the Lord their God’ all over again and this pattern kept repeating itself throughout the entire book – all they needed to do was observe this patten to know why they kept falling into persecution as a nation.
You may be wondering what I’m getting at with this but one particular pattern that I’ve observed in the church over recent decades has been the way in which we have dealt with the ever-changing pressures and trends of society, i.e., life outside of the church. Some of the more recognisable trends or changes have come from decisions from governments, for example – How churches managed their ‘gatherings’ in light of COVID19 restrictions some years back. But I would say that some of the more significant but less recognised changes in recent decades have come from the sudden rise of the entertainment industry.
It's actually out of a good place that many beautiful things are distorted – like how our desire to share a beautiful painting by taking a photo of it significantly reduces it’s magnitude, in the same way I would say that our desire to ‘keep church attractive’ in an era where music itself has changed significantly, has lead us to allow our songs to not only become more and more shallow, in some cases even being completely void of any theological value.
In our attempts to ‘draw people in’ we have repurposed something that was designed to be a set apart for the glory of God to be instead something that focusses more on our flesh. For example, some people might be lead to say “I only feel God in certain songs” where in many cases this might be evidence of another statement “I feel happier when I hear or sing to something I prefer or personally enjoy”. This is probably why we often hear people describe their previous churches by the style of music that they played or sung and not by their theological positions – this in itself being an incredibly recent idea.
If we stand back and observe this from further out, we actually see that this is not something limited to ‘Christian songs’ (a phrase that I am not a huge fan of) but is something happening to music in general. Somehow, over the last 30 years we have gone from a masterpiece like Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which is quite complex and lyrically ‘rich’, to supposed anthems like Beyonce’s ‘Single ladies’ where the sentiment is ‘if you’re single and you’re a lady raise your hand’.
So maybe rather than being like me in allowing myself to get frustrated at the ‘Christian music industry’ let me offer you a different thought. This might actually be another example of sin and the fall – people who live in the flesh, taking what God has made beautiful and using it like paper or a chewed up piece of gum, causing it to fall into decay so far that it becomes almost unrecognisable from its former glory.
In a world where you need to keep coming up with things that are new, I believe the church should be pioneering the exercise of holding fast to things that are timeless. After all, what is the gospel but exactly that?
Music has always been a natural response to something true – not only in Christianity, but in all of creation itself. Like a bird singing out a song when it’s time to mate or a child singing ‘happy birthday to me!’ the moment they wake up on their birthday. In my view, it’s impossible to make a case that music wasn’t created by God for both His and our pleasure, and so I believe you’ve asked the right question – what position does God’s beautiful creation of music hold in our worship?
To stop myself from rambling on I’ll give you three ideas from scripture that I’ve found helpful. Exodus 15 gives us a song that Moses and the Israelites sang after they were delivered from slavery – it’s quite a long song and so I’d encourage you to read it, but here are a few lines to give you an understanding of it’s contents –
“I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted; he has thrown the horse and its rider into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.”
Idea 1 – We sing to express our joy to God in what He has done.
Another passage I’d like to point out is Psalm 6, where David doesn’t seem so joyful:
“I am weary from my groaning; with my tears I dampen my bed and drench my couch every night.
My eyes are swollen from grief; they grow old because of all my enemies.”
Idea 2 – We sing to express to God our sorrow.
And finally, although I believe there are many more reasons we should sing than just these three ideas, two final passages I’d like to share are:
“And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.”
“My soul, bless the Lord, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. My soul, bless the Lord, and do not forget all his benefits.”
Idea 3 – We sing to remind ourselves and one another of who our God is.
These three ideas are ones I hold to which help me to understand not only the beauty of singing for the sake of my expression to God, but they are a reminder that my singing is also for the sake of my brothers and sisters who sing with me – reminding one another of the hope that we have in Christ.
It seems clear from these passages that music was designed to connect with people on an emotional level. I believe that when we engage with it according to God’s intended purpose, we experience greater emotional heights and deeper depths—feelings uniquely created to be encountered through the medium of song.
Although it’s easy to be discouraged at times, the beautiful truth is that we serve a God who loves to restore all things He has made. We may find ourselves at times being discouraged at the direction we see music heading in the broader church, but our response ought to be to prayerfully ask God to restore our songs to the beautiful fragrance that He intended them to be.
Finally, to answer your question regarding music at Red Door:
We do have a database that has been assembled with great care and pay close attention to lyrics. I like to break the music part of our worship service down to 3 parts – not strictly, but as a way of guiding the song selection.
To encourage one another to focus our minds on God and position ourselves to worship Him.
To reflect on the passage we have heard read and the sermon that was preached.
To send us out in the beautiful truth the gospel.
Thanks so much for your question, I pray that you find this to be encouraging. ~ Josh
