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In
the closing years of the twentieth century many congregations neglected church
music. They spent very little money
on music resources and development. Most
preachers had little to say about church music in their sermons, and most song
leaders spent a minimum amount of effort preparing for the public assembly.
This neglect is beginning to manifest negative effects on the church and
in public worship. Future problems
will hurt the church if this neglect is not resolved.
The goal of this presentation will be to examine the reasons for neglect
and its effects. We also want to
present some encouraging ideas for the future. Reasons
For Neglect Personality About
twenty-five years ago research into the field of neurology revealed some
scientific findings that have helped us understand the human personality.
Three specific types of personality have been identified through this
research. The first type of
personality is seen in people who have a strong interest in rational and logical
ideas and a strong aversion to expressing emotions.
The second type of personality strongly favors the artistic, creative,
emotional aspects of life and reflects an aversion to long essays in rational
logical ideas. The third type of
personality seems to have no bias against either the rational/logical or the
emotional/artistic dimension of life. In
the early decades of the twentieth century a majority of the members of churches
of Christ in the U.S.A. were people who wanted a religion that maximized the
rational and minimize the emotional. Emotionality was seen as being “Pentecostal”, and
Pentecostalism was seen as something that was very bad. This
aversion to emotionality created special problems in the domain of church music.
Music is (by nature) one of the most emotional forms of spiritual
expression in the Christian religion. These
people believed that God required singing, so it was inappropriate to complete
reject music. A compromise was
found in the development of a style of Christian singing that minimized
emotionality. This style came to be
known as the “gospel song”. It
became the only style of song that was acceptable in the church. Because
of this aversion to emotionality gospel singing was treated as a minor priority
in the public assembly, and preaching was maximized as a dominant value in the
assembly. So, the average church spent little time singing and much more time
listening to sermons. Most
churches spent much money to hire a skilled preacher. They demand a high degree of professionalism in the preaching
pulpit. But singing is the
opposite. Many congregations have
no interest in spending money on
church music. They use the old
hymnals until they fall apart. They
do not ask for professionalism among song leaders.
Most churches will tolerate mediocrity in music leadership. Theology The
music theology of the twentieth century was based upon the assumption that Jesus
revealed a legal code on the subject of public worship.
A cappella congregational singing is our duty.
God has forbidden instrumental music and choirs by his silence on these
issues. We
were told that public address systems, hymnals, and pitch pipes were “aids”
in singing. “Aids” were OK.
But instruments of music were not “aids” in our singing.
The use of instrumental music in worship was man’s attempt to re-write
the legal code of worship by “adding” man-made rules demanding instrumental
music. So, instruments were an
“addition” to God’s law. Additions
are bad. But many of our people never did understand this point.
If a pitch pipe was an aid, why couldn’t a piano also be an aid?
If a public address system could enrich public worship, why couldn’t an
organ or a choir also enrich public worship?
Differentiating between pitch pipes and pianos caused an endless circle
of reasoning that was never resolved. Many
people had problems trying to differentiate between king David’s music and
Christian music. David was a man
after God’s own heart. His
singers worshipped God with instrumental music, and they even called their
instruments “God’s instruments”. If
it was virtuous for David to worship in that manner, then why is it evil today?
How could something be virtuous in one era of history and evil in the
next? Some tried to resolve this
confusion by emphasizing that the law of Moses was nailed to the cross of Christ
and is no longer relevant, so David’s music is irrelevant.
However, David’s music did not come from the law of Moses.
So, this observation has not been helpful. Churches
that opposed instruments of music had a hard time handling the psalms in the
Book of Psalms that encourage the use of instruments. The twenty-third psalm was OK, but the thirty-third psalm was
not. This seemed strange. The
book of Revelation predicts that there will be instruments of music in heaven.
This fact seemed to threaten the validity of a cappella music, so
preachers argued that the book of Revelation was symbolic.
Symbolic images are not to be seen as direct realities.
The implication was that the music in heaven will really be a cappella,
but it will just sound like music accompanied by harps.
This argument was not very convincing to many. Preachers
discovered that sermons against instrumental music caused people to ask complex
questions, and nearly every preacher had his own opinions about how to answer
those questions. Those questions
included the following: 1. If instrumental music in the public assembly is sinful, then
is it also sinful for my family to sing hymns at home around the family piano? 2. If instrumental music in the public assembly is sinful, then
is it also sinful for me to listen to hymns on the radio that are accompanied by
instruments? 3. If instrumental music in the public assembly is sinful, then
is it also sinful for me to play hymns on my piano even when I do not sing along
with the piano? 4.
If instrumental music in the public assembly is sinful, then is it also
wrong to include instrumental music in weddings and funerals? 5.
If instrumental music in the public assembly is sinful, then is it sinful
to sing America’s national hymns at community assemblies if they are
accompanied by instruments? So,
most preachers decided to avoid this awkward subject in their preaching.
Silence followed. This silence did not solve any problems, but it only swept
these problems under the carpet and out of sight. Church
leaders relied mostly on the laws of the elders to enforce a cappella singing in
the church auditorium. Most elders
declared that there would be no instruments in the church auditorium because
they would encourage people to want instruments on Sunday, and they would offend
others. Most were willing to follow
the law of the elders, so most churches maintained a cappella congregational
singing even though many wondered
about the system. The
Effects Of Neglect The Crisis Of
Contemporary Music The
placid world of obeying the rule of the elders began to be shattered in the last
decade of the twentieth century when contemporary praise music burst upon the
scene of history. Contemporary
songs of praise brought a fresh air of beauty and emotionalism into the church. A
strong positive reaction to contemporary music caused church leaders to awaken
to the fact that the church had changed. From
1960 to 1990 the church acquired many new members who had an artistic/expressive
personality style.
These new members were not noticed for a long time, but contemporary
praise music suddenly made these people visible. Those
who were loyal to the rational/logical culture found themselves suffering
culture shock as they saw the dawn of a more emotional approach to worship.
Culture shock caused the two groups of church members to face each other
with stress and tension. Culture
shock split many churches. One
group moved out of the church building and went across town to build a new
congregation. The old church often
remained faithful to old traditions, and the new church adopted a more
“contemporary” (emotional) approach to worship.
Other churches sought to avoid the pending split by agreeing to host two
worship services each Sunday – one would be traditional and the other
contemporary. This compromise
resolved the culture shock by making everybody a winner.
Most congregations that offered dual services on Sunday, the majority
chose to attend the contemporary service and the minority chose to attend the
traditional service. Contemporary
worship dropped the use of hymnals in favor of video projectors that placed the
lyrics of songs on a large screen at the front of the auditorium.
The video images omitted music notations.
The lyrics-only visual images caused a decline in four-part harmony in
favor of a soprano-only monophony. It
is difficult to sing harmonizing voices without music notation.
So, contemporary approach to worship began to lower the quality of
harmony in public singing. Larger
churches tried to add praise teams to restore four-part harmony in
congregational singing. This
experiment did not succeed, however, because a praise team is a poor substitute
for music notations. And the praise
teams themselves caused a host new problems in the fellowship of the church. The Returning Crisis Of
Instrumental Music One
hundred years ago the role of instrumental music deeply divided Restoration
churches. This problem has
returned. The Abilene Christian
University Center For Adolescent Studies conducted a national survey in 1992 -
1993. They surveyed preachers,
youth ministers, elders, college students, high school students, and middle
school students on the subject of public worship.
They found a strong bias among teens and younger adults in favor of
instrumental music in the church. The
first year of the third millennium of the Christian age reveals the “tip of
the iceberg” on the problem of instrumental music among churches of Christ.
A few trendy congregations are already beginning to bring instrumental
music back into the church. The
problem can be seen in only a few cities, but it will most likely spread in
coming years. What
Should We Do? Theology Very
few have ever taken the time to develop a holistic and objective knowledge of
everything the Bible says about music. We
have not taken the time to learn the historical facts about music that connect
with Biblical texts. We have tried
to substitute arguments about music for a general education.
And our arguments have accomplished little. We
need to seek a general education in Biblical teachings about music.
This education should not begin with the a priori attitude that we know
what we are going to find before we look. We
should not begin with predetermined conclusions in mind.
We should not be ego-defensive as we begin to study.
This writer finds that many promoters of a cappella music start to feel
threatened as they search the scriptures, so they start closing their minds to
what they find and trying to rationalize rather than to learn. Some do not want a holistic education because they are afraid
of what they might find. After
we have objectively studied everything in both the Old Testament and the New
Testament, then we need to look for an objective way to apply what we have
learned. There are only four ways
to apply Bible knowledge in the domain of music – (1) legally, (2) morally,
(3) functionally, or (4) culturally. When
all the facts are before us we will find that church music is much more a
functional issue than a legal or moral one.
When we make this discovery it opens new doors of opportunity to
persuasively promote an a cappella emphasis.
The functional view removes embarrassing questions and awkward forms of
reasoning. Dealing With The Human
Personality Even
though church music is a functional activity, it does have many cultural
overtones. We cannot gloss over the
role that the human personality plays in our music. Most
of us have some favorite songs we like to sing. The songs that are the most meaningful to us are those songs
that we associate with some of our most meaningful religious experiences in our
past. Songs that we sang when we
were spiritually maturing will always be favorites. Many
of our older members draw upon their repertory of classic gospel songs.
Many of our middle-age members draw upon their discovery of classic hymns
or their experience with lively Southern convention songs.
Younger people share their fondest memories with the newer generation of
praise songs. There
is a tendency for one group in the church to want to control the church’s
music culture by shaping church policies around their own personal biases.
They want to shut out the culture of others because it makes them
uncomfortable. It is this quest to
gain social power in order to monopolize the church’s music agenda that leads
to conflict in the church. This is
a destructive strategy. The
church needs to be tolerant of diverse cultures. We should allow every generation to sing their favorite
songs. We should allow every
generation to express its deepest feelings in songs.
Some people may seem to be too emotional for us.
Others may seem too unemotional for us.
Both groups are trying to praise the Lord.
Churches that conduct dual services on Sunday to accommodate diverse
cultural tastes represent one method of being tolerant.
In a more idealistic environment the church should not need dual services
in order to sustain an environment of brotherly love, but in the real world dual
services may be the only way to keep peace, at least in the short-run. Church
leaders should also become aware of how young people perceive them.
Many congregations encourage their teen members to attend regional youth
assemblies. Most of those
assemblies are filled with contemporary praise songs, a high level of emotional
expressiveness, and even some clapping. This
same style of worship is commonplace at summer youth camps.
These activities are tolerated in special youth events, but they are
strongly discouraged when teens return to their local church.
This split personality the church projects to teens is very confusing.
It makes no sense at all. It
makes church leaders seem so unreasonable and arbitrary and hostile to young
people. Learning To Manage
Congregational Culture The
Singing School At Abilene Christian University offers a special training program
for church leaders to help them improve the quality of public worship without
causing strife and division in the local church.
This training program is called “Public Worship Development.”
We recommend this training program to church leaders who are concerned
with finding a balance between Bible instruction and practical application. This
training course focuses clearly upon the teachings of the Bible in all areas of
the public assembly. But this
training course also emphasizes the cultural dimensions that are present in
every church as they seek to implement Biblical guidance in worship.
We teach church leaders to work within the framework of a church’s
culture to bring about improvements in worship. We
also offer an advanced class in Music Training For The Local Church.
This class presents a model for building a solid infrastructure for this
kind of work. It offers practical
ideas and options for helping the church to expand its repertory and improve its
singing. The
next session of the A C U Singing School will be July 16 - 21, 2000.
We can provide you a free catalog of the school upon request.
You may speak with the director of the school at any time by phone or
e-mail. Let us hear from you today
if we can be of service to you. |
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