In my last blog post I focused on several ways the music/worship leader in the intergenerational church can help promote or foster community through music. This week I will continue the discussion as I talk about how lyrics or text can help promote (or hinder) community.

We-centric- text that includes plural nouns that suggest more than one person is singing to, or about, God. 

There is not time or space to adequately discuss the evolution of hymnody in this blog post, but hymn texts have shifted from being more community focused to personal focused in the last 150 years or so. By the 19th century with the rise of evangelicalism, emotionalism, while focusing on personal salvation, writers such as Fanny Crosby and Ira Sankey (and many more) wrote intensely personal hymns with greater use of personal pronouns in the texts. Many of those seeds of personal experience from the 19th century live on today in worship/hymn texts.

While texts of personal experience and personal worship are certainly valid in some situations,  in corporate worship we (the church) need to sing more songs with texts that speak of US as a people. Too often we sing songs that use personal pronouns and sung vertically to God. Again, there is nothing wrong with these songs. I love songs like “Lord, I Need You.” But, when worshiping together it’s important that we also include song texts that include pronouns such as we and us. Further, it’s important to sing songs that we essentially sing to one another (horizontal)- admonishing each other and encouraging each other. For instance, who doesn’t have some “love” for “To God Be the Glory?” In this great Fanny Crosby text, we as the people are not singing to God, rather to each other. We remind each other, “great things He hath taught us” and the like, while reminding each other to “Praise the Lord” and to “give Him the glory, great things he hath done.”

In 2009 I did a content study on the top 100 CCLI songs at the time. While the primary focus of the study was theological content, one of the areas I focused on was the use of pronouns and direction of lyric (vertical-to God; horizontal-to each other in community). More than 60 percent of the songs were both vertical and personal in lyrical direction. (See graphs below)

My personal concern was not as much with the larger number of songs with vertical direction, but with the lack of songs that focus on community. These top 100 CCLI songs are comprised of church leaders who report usage of these songs in their worship services over time.

This week, I decided to take a look at the current top 20 CCLI songs and study their pronoun and directionality of lyric use. Much so my disappointment, the trends are not changing in the most popular used songs. Only 35 percent of these texts could be classified as having a community focus (pronoun suggestion we or us) while only 45 percent of the texts are all or mostly horizontal in nature. I believe we need more songs that include “we” and “us” in the texts if we are to be welcoming and community driven. Of the newer songs in the CCLI top list, “Lion and the Lamb” provided the most community focused text. We need more songs like this. Again, hear me, I’m not bashing vertical/personal texts, but there is a severe imbalance of songs used in worship that are community focused. Sometimes a simple change could make all the difference. How hard would it be to have written, “Lord, We Need You?”

It appears that vertical/personal pronoun, emotionally driven texts are here to stay. I’m certainly not opposed to them, but if we are going to promote community in our churches through our music choices, we have to be intentional about selecting a variety of songs, based on theological content, of course, which also include community focused pronouns.

The next time you are selecting a song for worship, check and see if most of the lyrics are not only use personal pronouns, but also are vertical. I bet most of them will be. Keep a running list of great community-focused songs from which to use to help balance out your service. You’ll be glad you did!

An intergenerational church values the whole over the individual–the family atmosphere over the segregated in order to build community. The musical portion of worship should also reflect and embody a welcoming spirit as well.  This week’s blog will focus on general concepts of music that is welcoming and builds community. Next week I will focus on specific concepts of selecting music.

Music that is welcoming in the intergenerational congregation is:

1. Varied and inclusive

People in every congregation don’t like the exact same types of music. Believe it or not, not everyone in your congregation listens to Christian music all day. I’ll bet in any given congregation, people would say they prefer all types of music including: country, rap, jazz, classical, pop, southern gospel, black gospel, reggae, and so on. Many of these types of music are easily found, to some degree, in today’s church music types. Naturally, people gravitate towards the church music types they grew up on or sound like the type of music they listen to for enjoyment. Generally, however, no music type should be off-limits based on stylistic reasons because if you look hard enough, you can find a suitable song for your choir and/or congregation. Because these varied music types exist, music leaders must be intentional about using music that is varied and inclusive of the various types of music found today. In my personal research on music types in churches, I found that certain types of music were more dominant than others based on what the publishers were producing, but I will write about at a later date in more detail. The findings, however, suggest that various music types are essential in the intergenerational church. And not only should there be various types of music, but it should be inclusive of the make-up of the church and the surrounding areas. Basically, don’t sing songs from classical literature if your church is an a very rural area where classical literature would not be appreciated or even understood. It is imperative that you understand the “music culture” of your church and your surrounding area.

2. Familiar

While varied literature is important, it’s more imperative that the music leadership know the musically DNA of the church. While the scriptural command to learn a “new song” is given, there’s no need to throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water. I’ve found it’s important to find out the choir anthems and congregational favorites from key music folks upon arrival as a new church. Having this bank of songs allows you to observe what types of music the congregation is familiar with. When planning worship each week, it’s important to include familiarity so people can PARTICIPATE. Congregational singing is not a spectator sport, it’s an ALL of us sport. By building trust through familiarity, the music leader can introduce things outside the familiar in manageable doses.

3. Authentic to the culture of the congregation

My church sits squarely in an affluent, suburban portion of a major metro area. Our people come from all backgrounds. That knowledge allows me to be as vast and as varied in literature as I want to be. Being in Georgia, we still sing plenty of southern gospel music and tunes that have a “country” feel to them. However, the very next week, someone could sing an aria and recitative from an oratorio, and our people would respond well. But, that’s not always the case with all of you. Our wide range of talent allows me to use a full orchestra and choir each week—which allows me to be more authentic in how our music sounds, especially our choir anthems. But, what we aren’t is “brand driven.” Our sound is not driven my electric guitars, but horns. And we’re okay with that. It allows us to use lots of people in worship leadership, rather than just a few players. We like that; it lends itself well to intergenerational behavior. I am fully aware most churches are not like ours. It’s not common to use full orchestra, in fact many churches don’t use more than a few instruments. You know what, that’s okay! Be who you are and do music the best you can, but don’t try to sound like a studio band if you can’t. Be who God has made you; don’t force it.

The same concepts work for music sung by your congregation and your choir. When branching out beyond familiar tunes for your people, it’s imperative that you know what types of music would work well in your situation. Basically, know your people and the community in which you live. However, don’t assume that music types are generationally specific. I’m tired (truly tired) of hearing that Millennials or anyone young ONLY like contemporary music. That is fallacious; I know LOTS of young people who’d rather hear a hymn done in a country-music style, over a Crowder tune. The converse is also true. There are some older adults that still are hanging on to Woodstock (that’s right, those young adults growing up in the late 60s and 70s are NOW our older adults) and many still love to jam out to a band.

On a similar note, the medium of music type presentation is often a struggle because we leaders believe the lie that our instrumentalists should be like the type of music we “think” we should be presenting. Can a church utilizing a full choir and orchestra be very cutting edge in their contemporary style? Absolutely, especially if the rhythm section is on point. Can a 5 person band do hymns and present them so even the most stalwart traditionalist “feels” like he or she has been to church? Absolutely. I think the tendency is to assume that one or the other medium of presentation represents a “look” that is assumed will attract either folks not there or those the church leaders want to return. I believe trying to emulate another is wrong, and wrong primarily because it’s inauthentic. Attracting people to church should be because the people in the church desire to build relationships with those not there. That, my friends, is the best way to be inclusive—love people to God.

To you musical leaders, regarding your personal vocal style, voice type and limitations, don’t try to emulate every sound you hear because you think it will sound more authentic. It can damage your voice. I know; I suffered a vocal nodual in 2010 due to unnecessary stress on my voice from trying to oversing. Don’t “show pony” either. Remember, you are leading a congregation of mostly non-singers. Pick singable keys, sing heartily with energy, but don’t get into performance-mode. There is much that has been written on this already, so I’m just reiterating. I will say this, however, a healthy vocal technique should serve you well in both traditional and modern contexts. Surely there are nuances to this blanket statement. We all know that choral singing is different than ensemble singing, which is different than solo singing. Point is, make small adjustments, not huge, inauthentic, adjustments to vocal style when leading services with multiple music types.

Next week I will discuss how current church music lyrics are overly personal and do not reflect a community focus. Additionally, I will discuss how to select music following a rubric that is steeped in the Great Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” (Mark 12:30).

Most churches want to be perceived as a welcoming. Sadly, if you’ve been in a number of churches over a lifetime, you’ve probably encountered churches that have no set plan in place to create a welcoming environment for guests (or members), but by their actions, philosophy, and music, they are adamantly exclusive. An intergenerational church values the whole over the individual–the family atmosphere over the segregated. The musical portion of worship should also reflect and embody a welcoming spirit as well.  Today, I will discuss pitfalls of music in churches that lack a welcoming atmosphere.

Music that is unwelcoming in the intergenerational congregation is…

1. Performance Driven.  In these churches the congregation simply spectates with little to no participation. Many think that band-driven worship leadership is the primary offender of performance driven worship, but I’ve experienced choral driven worship services that did the same thing. The medium of presentation does not indicate whether or not it’s performance driven; rather, the lack of opportunities for the congregation to sing. We are not simply spectators, but participators.
   Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)
2. Physical Space. What does your worship center look like? What does it say about your congregation? If your worship space is Gothic and medieval in appearance and you’re attempting to do band-driven worship with and echo that could ring for minutes, it’s not very welcoming for your congregation. Basically, the look of your worship space should reflect who you are. Remember the authenticity thing. Forcing a musical style or preference in a room never designed to handle that type of music usually ends in someone thinking or saying) these people try too hard. Our room here at Ivy Creek is very well-suited for choral and orchestra-driven music. Our acoustics aren’t very dry and there is a nice ring to the room. If we were band-driven, we’d probably add more acoustical panels to deaden the sound, but we have found what works for us. When you walk into our room, you see a large platform (it’s actually about 35-40% of the room—no lie) and it’s pretty obvious what we’re about. Sound/loudness also can wreak havoc on the welcoming spirit of the church worship space. I have some new friends in my choir, late Gen Xers, who came from a church that was so oblivious to the decibel level in the room, they often had to come in after the music portion of the worship service was over because the volume was so loud. They also mentioned that because it was so loud they couldn’t hear each other sing. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, if no one can hear each other. The converse is also true, make sure your people can hear and understand or they also won’t be edified.
3. Too Personal or Me-Centric. Honestly, until several years ago sitting in hymnology seminary, I had not really given this thought that songs could be useful for personal use or corporate use. Not only that, I realized that there were a lot more songs that were vertical (sung to God) as opposed to horizontal (sung to others about God). One of the assignments during that seminar was to analyze texts of many of our hymns and modern worship songs for these elements.  We even were asked to take months and months of our own corporate songs we as worship leaders selected for worship and analyze them as well. What I discovered was I tended to lean towards songs that lacked the collective “we.” I was not aiding my congregation in the act of worship together, but in subjective/privatized time of music.
4. Loss of Welcoming Community. Congregations seeking to be welcoming, inclusive, while admonishing each other with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs cannot exist primarily on texts driven with personal pronouns. This is not to say that vertical, personal pronoun driven songs are off-limits. There is an argument for the collective “I,” which states that as long as we are individually proclaiming our love for God together then we are essentially doing the same thing as singing we or us. I can accept that argument to some degree, but hear the heart of the point I’m trying to make: the goal of corporate worship music is for the whole body of believers to experience community together. Community is mutual submission to our neighbors. It welcomes all who will come to the table of grace. We are better together, synergized by the people next to us—flesh and bone—harmonious, literally and figuratively!

In my next blog post, I will discuss how the church can overcome these pitfalls in churches that do not value community. As a teaser, I will remind you that people of all ages, especially our Millennial friends, value relationships in the group sense. While this “pack” mentality is certainly not original to the Millennial generation, I’ve noticed that small groups is the key to engaging and keeping young folks. In fact I believe that focusing on getting young people plugged into small groups is more important than catering to perceived musical tastes that many church leaders believe will draw and retain young people and families. Getting them connected to each other, driven more by how they can help (think social justice), and provide solid biblical children’s ministry is the key. Pastors (and yes, the pastors are the ones driving the vision of the church) need to stop putting so much weight on the music and worship service itself as the key to retaining young people. Don’t worry; it’s important, but not the key. More later…