hymns
i am a fan of “progressive,” contemporary worship. i have been around enough churches to realize that hymnals and organs still exist. there has, since i can recall as a child, always existed a tension between the contemporary and hymnal styles of singing. the argument goes something like this:
contemporary: “we are the new wineskin. we like this music. we feel God in it.”
hymnals: “you sing the same lyrics over and over again. our hymns have deep, rich theology.”
contemporary: “your music isn’t reaching this generation of people. why should we allow people to be turned off to Jesus because you want to sing hymn #376?”
hymnals: “our music truly expresses what our faith is all about.”
the argument goes on like that for minutes, hours, weeks, and years until the church eventually divides and hates each other. i’m exaggerating a bit but unfortunately not much.
i grew up with the contemporary, and it is most definitely my preference. however, i have sung enough hymns to fully appreciate many (not all) of them as well. i came across these lines from a song written by charles wesley today and wanted to share them with you all:
“guilty i stand before Thy face;
on me i feel Thy wrath abide.
’tis just the sentence should take place;
’tis just–but o Thy Son hath died!”
beautiful. whether you prefer the “rock” stuff or the hymns, we can all agree that we sing out of gratitude and praise of who God is and what he has done. i hope these words, regardless of how they are sung bless you this day.
Well said.
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OK. on to my comment.
I think the general critique of contemporary Christian music is that it is generally bad music. While its contemporary nature makes it easier to relate to and understand, it sacrifices important things to achieve that. The hymns of our tradition drew deeply from theology, and the hymns were very innovative and cutting edge in their time. But yes, they are old school and they are not the songs for this generation necessarily. BUT, what we call “contemporary Christian music” today is sadly little more than commercially driven imitations of popular music styles with abstracts of pop theology as lyrics.
I’m not saying that we should revert to old hymns. That is ridiculous and lazy. What I am saying is that we should create a “living” hymnal. A hymnal that is theologically sound, rich in tradition, and transforms and reforms over time. We shouldn’t accept CCM because it is more relevant and sacrifice depth. And we shouldn’t have the other way around either. We should have it all in our songs. All of it.
I think people like Keith and Kristyn Getty are really onto something. You should check them out.