Greg's notes from Stuart Townend Workshop

Stuart Townend (co-writer of In Christ Alone) was in Australia recently and came to speak at Moore College on 15 October. Greg was there and took these notes:

Role of songs

When selecting or writing songs, it is helpful to bear in mind the role of songs in church:

• Serving the local church (not about self-expression). Think about what your local church needs. Church songs have a life outside of the writer. Have to be accessible to ordinary church-goers. Whether song works is determined by whether people can sing it easily, and not be confused by the lyrics.

• Teaching. People often remember more theology from songs than from sermons. Songs put words in people’s mouths – a huge responsibility for songwriters and those selecting songs. What sort of a picture of God are we painting through our songs? (eg. Currently we’re not talking much about his justice or his compassion.)

• Bringing together the objective and subjective. Objective songs make statements about God and his character. Subjective songs are our response to God. Some songs do both – eg. ‘Here I Am to Worship’ (verse makes objective statements, chorus is a subjective response). But in the last 20 years we may have erred too far towards the subjective. We need songs that explore who God is.

• Reminding and remembering. Songs are a great way of us taking truth with us into daily life. Not just about our experience on Sundays. Songs need to help us to live during the week.

• Understanding Scripture. Most worship songs are consistent with Scripture, but many of the lyrics can be vaguely biblical (sloppy and don’t really say anything). We need to work hard to explore all aspects of God’s character. Some Scriptural lines are so familiar to us they have lost meaning – we can use our poetic creativity to rephrase these truths (still remaining biblical). Our songs should be helping people to understand the Bible.

• Perspective. Part of us gathering together in church is seeking God’s perspective on the lives we live. If we look at the Psalms (the hymn book of the Old Testament), they have a breadth of perspectives on life. We need greater breadth in our songs – perhaps more ‘angry’ songs (eg ‘God, why aren’t you intervening here? But I know God that you are faithful.’).

• Artistic expression. God is so far beyond our descriptions of him. Sometimes poetry and the arts can speak to us at an extraordinary level, beyond what we can understand. We need to trust God that he is speaking to us on levels that we can’t understand.

The first rant

Our first EP, recorded in 2005 under the name 'Sydney Uni Evangelical Union Annual Conference Band 2004', included this rant about emotion and music. It's interesting (to me at least) to reflect back on how much things have or haven't changed. Here it is, from the liner notes of GH1:

Why are we so afraid of emotion in our worship music? Well produced but unbiblical music can give us a "spiritual experience" without spiritual reality: we feel close to God without the need for the accessories (like God's word and obedience). But given those dangers we good evangelicals seem to have decided, recently I think, to ration out our emotion in conservatively levelled teaspoons rather than risk losing our hold on the word. This makes sense, given that words are immune from abuse, whereas emotion is strange and usually bad.

Except we know the ‘given’ is rubbish. The pulpit can also easily lull us into error, be it idle complacency or even wholesale false belief. Compared to the minefield of oral theology with its tactful qualifications and reassuring retranslations of the NIV, the hazards of emotion seem easily navigable. It's hard to think of a case where a person who has passed from death to life can go wrong with Joy. If we are happy, then we should sing songs of praise (Jas 5:13). Done. We can be serious about the word, and excited beyond verbal expression about it’s consequences at the same time.

Songs are not memory aids. Nor are they declaratory statements of truth put to music. They certainly are meant to edify us, but unlike anthems and war cries they are sung to a true and living God. Likewise thankfulness is not the only reason we sing. In the first place we sing because God is God, and is worthy of our worship and praise even before we get to the specifics. Singing is a very important way we worship God. Hebrews 13:15 exhorts us to “through Jesus… continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name”. Not that praise or sacrifices of any kind can make us right with God, but that being made right with God we can happily fulfil our purpose in creation: to bring glory to God, and to honour Him in everything.

Songs teach us, but they teach us best when they speak to our hearts. It is the language of feelings, yes, but feelings with the depth which only comes from the solid grounding of truth. Very often songs tell us what we have known since Sunday school, but with a freshness and immediacy that cuts straight to our hearts. “Rock of Ages cleft for me" is impossible to sing without someone crying. The melody is pretty. It is poetry, by which I mean it opens up meaning with an elegant few words. But it’s the truth which brings the tears. Good songs should be written as songs. Everyone knows the difference between prose and poetry, song lyrics and deductive reasoning. We often look to the epistles for verbatim musical texts. It's not wrong. But it often makes weird songs (‘therefore’ is not a musical word). Your love Oh Lord almost didn't make the Ancon bus because we worried about lines like "shadow of Your wings". God doesn't have wings, we reasoned, and the symbolism just pushed too many "pentie" buttons for a meaty evangelical conference. Then we realised that line appears in every second psalm, felt a bit silly, and decided our buttons might need repositioning.

Finally, good worship music should be as singable as the best hymns. Who wants to sing at church like a self conscious teeny-bopper might sing to the radio? Musically it is a completely different kettle of worms. Behold the Lamb of God is still alive and rocking EU camps 15 years on because it's not written as a pop song, it's written as a church song. And that means rock solid melody. Love it or hate it, you can’t forget it…

Andy finishing up with Garage Hymnal

Rich and I started Garage Hymnal in January 2005 when we hired a $50 microphone and recorded the arrangements we had worked out for the Sydney Uni Evangelical Union's Annual Conference. On the inside cover was an almost illegible rant, beginning with the question "why are we so afraid of emotion in our worship music?" Seven years later, with our sixth release due to be launched on 9 November, our production values (and arguable our musical taste) has improved substantially, but we are still just as passionate about not having to choose between great music and great words.

It's been an amazing ride. We've played some fantastic venues and worked with some incredible people. Most of all, we've sung with believers in all sorts of places, from Withcott to the Mornington Peninsula and been so encouraged by what we share in Christ. Bands have their ups and downs. We've cried with each other at bad news, and rejoiced with each other in new exciting changes (and yelled at each other occasionally too!) I've learned so much from being in this band. It's been one of the biggest challenges, privileges and joys of my life.

But circumstances and roles change. From next year I'm going to be taking on a new challenge as an assistant minister at St Barnabas Broadway, working primarily with the evening congregation and campus ministries. My wife and I have decided we can't give Garage Hymnal the time and focus it deserves while diving headlong into parish ministry.

My last gig with Garage Hymnal will be the EP launch on 9 November. This will be the last GH gig with this current lineup, so make sure you come along.

I am hugely grateful to so many people for so much. For Rich, Greg, Sass, Trent, Alanna and Steph in the band. For everyone who has ever played or written with us (Cedric, Biscuit, Beth, Murray, Mike, Mark, Lissa, Joe, Lynda, Steve, Pete, Luke, Clare, Chris, Belly, Evan, Dave, Jonny, Dorny, Nic, Jerry, Ludo, Andy, Rach, Dave, Pete, Jeremy, Ty, Damien, Tim, Hans, Dave, Tom, Kenny, Alex, Kester, Mike, Tom, Rosie, and countless others). For the behind the scenes people like Duncan our soundie, David Nicholas our amazing producer, Paul, Willow, Jimmy and Josh our tech partners, Zenon our incredible bookings agent, Dave Parker, Nicky, Rob, Cathlin, Jane, Kristi, Steph and Philip Percival at Emu, Jodie, Katie, Goldy,  Felix, James, Corienne, John, Lisa, Steve, Nath, Dave Mac, James, Tom, and many more who make each and every gig and record possible. For all my bosses for giving me stupid amounts of time off to pursue this ministry. For my family and friends and my incredible wife Steph for making enormous sacrifices to support an unpaid ministry as time and energy consuming as GH.

But the biggest thanks of all has to be to Jesus, who did something worth singing about 2000 years later, and which I'll still be singing about 10,000 years from now. 

Col 3:16

The Artist and Humility

A friend and I used to joke that when asked in job interviews what our strengths were, we would say ‘My main strength is that I am very humble.’

You can see the irony in this! To say you are very good at being humble seems to prove you are not humble.

But by not wanting to draw attention to humility (fearing that doing so would demonstrate a lack of humility), I wonder if we tend to reflect too little on how we are going at being humble. I wonder if we also miss wonderful opportunities to encourage others who are demonstrating humility.

Crucially, we may also downplay the need to work on being humble. I wonder if instead, we often hope that as we work on other aspects of Christian character – love, kindness, generosity, and so on – humility will just develop in the background.

For the Christian musician, there is considerable work to be done on the spiritual backdrop that sits behind our playing. In fact, this requires more work than the music. We must seek to ensure our hearts and minds are continuing to worship God, and that we are growing in our faith and godliness. Growth in the Christian life requires utter reliance on God but also discipline, focus, and careful attention from us. It’s hard work!

As church musicians – and leaders of our congregations – we are on display. Both our positioning in church services (often on the platform) as well as our task (singing or playing instruments with appropriate expression) can easily lead us to worship ourselves and not God, and to cause others to do the same. The task of pointing others to God through our music is by no means easy. Humility is required – both as a starting point, and as a constant.

We know a humble person when we meet one – but how do we pinpoint exactly what humility is? In his book ‘Humilitas’, John Dickson defines humility as “the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself.” (p 24).

We see the ultimate humility in our Lord Jesus, who despite his status, humbled himself to the point of death on a cross. By contrast, we are often self-focused and proud.

So how do we develop humility? Of course, for the Christian, we must dedicate ourselves to reading God’s Word and prayer for greater humility, and seek accountability and encouragement from trusted friends.

But in addition, Dickson suggests some profoundly simple and practical approaches to developing humility (pp 174-183):

1. Recognise the inherent beauty of humility – We are shaped by what we love. If we love humility, we will be shaped by it.
2. Reflect on the lives of the humble – Find humble people in your life and study them.
3. Conduct thought experiments – Imagine yourself in certain scenarios and consider humble courses of action you could take.
4. Act humbly – “develop the humility muscle by exercising it.” (p 178)
5. Invite criticism – Within a culture of thoughtful critique, humility will be fostered.
6. Forget about being humble – “The very first step in the pursuit of humility is to recognize that I am not humble.” (p 183) Humility requires recognising our pride first, and working to reduce that. Humility will be a by-product of that process.

What a wonderful thing it would be for us to encourage a brother or sister in their humility this week, and to prayerfully consider steps we can take to grow in humility ourselves. 

GC

Is Christian music too predictable?

I'm preparing for a talk on music and theology (not particularly on Christian music, mind you, but on music in general and its place in creation). This very interesting quote from theologian Jeremy Begbie came up:

Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) is an enormous industry, and some would argue that it has succumbed in an alarming way to the co-opting of religion into the commercial interests of consumption, capitalism, and materialism.... It is disappointing, for example, to find an intense musical conservatism in much of the contemporary worship scene. (Resounding Truth, 256)

He admits that simplicity and accessibility is part of the point of church music, but goes on to issue a challenge:

Is the church prepared to give its musicians room to experiment (and fail), to juxtapose different styles, to educate themselves in music history, to resist the tendency to rely on formulas that "work" with minimum effort and can quickly guarantee seats filled in church -- and all this in order that congregational worship can become more theologically responsible, more true to teh God who has given us such abundant potential for developing fresh musical sounds? (Resounding Truth, 256)

Are we too conservative in pushing the boundaries of musical creativity? Or are we simply doing the right thing of serving the church where they're at (not getting stuck up our own guitarsenal developing music which is so complicated and foreign that your average pew-sitter cannot understand what's happening let alone join in)?

From demo to mastered mix

On 9th November we are going to launch a new EP with four songs aimed at private devotion.

The tracks were produced and recorded by David Nicholas, and have just been mixed by Allen Salmon in Nashville and Mastered by Jim DeMain at Yesmaster.

We thought we'd give you a little sneak peak at the process these songs have gone through, by showing you the evolution of one of these tracks (code-named 'Time') from a rough iPhone demo through mixing and mastering. You can hear what each of these processes adds to the quality of the finished product.

Making church boring is emotional manipulation

Chris Green has been giving the Annual Moore College lectures this year. In his talk today on preaching he pointed out that there are two ways of being emotionally manipulative.

The first is to whip people up into a frenzy, which is not motivated by the gospel but by the sheer emotional experience of the event.

But another group of people are guilty of manipulation in a different way. Chris recalls church experiences where a hugely powerful song has concluded and the service leader has failed to even note the emotional response which it has produced, saying "well done...and now the notices". This is deliberately quenching the emotional impact of the gospel, trying to make sure people don't respond as they would otherwise. It is manipulation.

I haven't thought about it this way before, but I think he's right.

I would go so far as to say that to deliberately try to pour cold water on people's whole-person-ed response to the power of God's word is manipulative.

Some examples of this kind of manipulation are
1. Choosing songs which are so bad that they take our attention away (if it were possible) from God's grace to us in Jesus Christ.

2. Planning services with no space for our response, so that no sooner have we surveyed the wondrous cross than some joker gets up and turns our attention to the location for the church picnic.

3. Being so casual that we are tempted to irreverence.

4. Being so focused on mutual edification that we conduct our entire service as if God were absent, and nobody thinks to actually do business with God.

5. Creating rules, or a culture, where common ways of responding to the emotional power of the gospel is discouraged (such as 'no raising hands in church').

Any others you can think of?

Simone on the psychology of song preferences

Our friend Simone Richardson (lyricist behind many great songs sung by churches around the world) has been doing some research on how our psychological profile affects the type of songs we like. Her first post is here. Worth a read. 

Only people who are skillful should serve

Here is a radical proposition for you: only people who are skilful should serve in music ministry.

I know it sounds a bit harsh. But I have a proof-text for it ... 1 Chronicles 15:22 has become my new memory verse:

Kenaniah the head Levite was in charge of the singing; that was his responsibility because he was skillful at it. (NIV)

Seems to make sense to me.

Now it's a little bit of a fudge, I know. For starters I don't believe in proof texting like this (we need to look at a theology of music and a theology of church and the gathering). And the NIV is rendering the Hebrew 'to understand' as 'Skilful at' which is fair enough in the context but other versions bring the point out slightly differently (The NRSV lowers the bar a little: "Chenaniah, leader of the Levites in music, was to direct the music, for he understood it." )

However I think we sometimes are too keen to include everybody in serving in the music team. Should someone who is tone deaf be 'allowed' to lead the singing? Well, no, not necessarily.

It might be a good idea to let them, for a range of political and pastoral reasons. Each church needs to work out what level of skill is required for the task at hand. My church may not need the same skilful musicians as a church of 20,000 people broadcast all over the world.

But I don't think we need to see a theological mandate for participation in the church music team by anyone and everyone who wants to 'use their gift'.

There IS a theological reason why everybody should SING together. But to think this means every singer should have a microphone is a confusion. It treats the band as the church, and puts a false wall between the band and the church (as if you are only participating if you are in the band). They are all participating as the one body of Christ (Gal 3:28) even if they don't have a microphone. We are all one, a body of believers without division, and yet we are also differentiated (1 Cor 12:29). 

So let those who are skilful at music (or at least 'understand' it!) lead the rest of us in singing joyfully to our God.

What does worship 'in Spirit and Truth' mean?

This semester at Moore Theological College in Sydney I have the privilege of sitting in on David Peterson's class on Worship. Dr Peterson is one of our best thinkers on the theology of worship. (I'm not alone in this opinion - Bob Kauflin lists his book "Engaging with God" above the Bible on his list of books to read on worshipmatters blog.)

Today we looked at worship in the New Testament, particularly in the gospel of Matthew and John. There were many highlights, but one thing which struck me was his exposition of the story of the Samaritan Woman and Jesus at the well.

John 4:19       “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,  but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
John 4:21       “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming  when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know;  we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  23 Yet a time is coming and has now come  when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit  and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit,  and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
John 4:25       The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ)  “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
John 4:26       Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” 

People have all sorts of theories on what worship 'in Spirit and Truth' means. But in the context of John's gospel, the Spirit here probably refers to the Holy Spirit (hence the capital letter S in the 2011 NIV). And 'true' in John's gospel is normally used about things which are the ultimate fulfilment of something, as opposed to the provisional shadow of its Old Testament counterpart.

The Samaritan woman is asking Jesus to comment on the dispute between Judaism and the Samaritans over where the right location for worship is (Jerusalem as the Old Testament says, or on Mt Gerizim as the Samaritans decided in about 400BC). Jesus confirms the priority of the Scriptural teaching ('salvation is from the Jews'), but then blows apart the categories. Right worship in the Old Covenant involved a temple, priests, sacrifice... but all these things served only to point towards the True Worship of the New Covenant. Jesus is our priest, and his body is our temple. (This is why Christian Zionism is badly mistaken to look to an earthly Jerusalem for the fulfilment of Christian eschatological hopes ... we look instead to true worship by Jew and Gentile together: through Jesus, anticipating the heavenly Jerusalem).

True worship, and Spiritual worship, is the worship which Jesus alone makes possible. He is the truth (John 14:6). And the Spirit makes this worship possible by showing us who Jesus is, and enabling us to recognise and respond to him as he really is. That it what it means to worship in Spirit, and in truth.

As Dr Peterson observed during class, all the issues that consume our attention when thinking about worship (Having the right liturgy, the right music, the right location and all that stuff) looks so weird and irrelevant next to John's definition of proper worship - worship of Jesus, in Spirit and Truth.

Music brings us closer to God?

There is a fascinating piece in the July edition of Eternity Magazine (an Australian church paper). The question is: 'Can music bring us closer to God'. Two songwriters who I respect immensely, Rob Smith and Ben Fielding answer differently.

On the side of "No and Yes" is the typically measured and balanced Rob Smith, a lecturer at Sydney Missionary and Bible College.  He points out that only Jesus can bring us closer to God: 'if as a resul tof the Holy Spirit's work in us we have come to put our faith in Christ, then we have already come to God and cannot come any closer in this age'. He draws our attention to Rom 5:1-2, 1Pet 3:18, Heb 12:22-24, Eph 2:13 and Eph 3:11-12. The once for all sacrifice made by Jesus when he sacrificed his own body for us is not to be repeated. On the other hand, once we have experienced this incredible grace, we are freed to continually 'draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb 10:21-22). To the extent that our singing involves the word of Christ dwelling in us richly (Col 3:16), we find a means of being filled by the Spirit with the fullness of God. He uses the analogy of a married couple having dinner together - it doesn't make them married, but does bring them closer.

Ben Fielding is a songwriter and worship pastor at Hillsong Church in Sydney. In the past I have had the benefit of Ben's generosity in sharing his insights on songwriting with a group of church music directors, and I was hugely impressed by his concern for good teaching through music. He takes a different angle to Rob. While Rob starts with the atonement and works backwards, Ben starts with creation and works forward through redemption to show how God uses creation, and music in particular, to draw people to himself in repentance and faith: 'God does use music to draw people unto Himself, to tell His story and beckon repentance.' He is talking, first, about music in general not just church music. It's a rich place to begin a theology of music. Yet he is working towards the same point as Rob - the two meet in the middle, at the Cross of Jesus:

Though music can be a wonderful, spiritual and powerful expression of God-given creativity, its importance must be held in the perspective of Jesus. It is Jesus who overcomes sin and makes a way to the Father. Nothing takes the place of Jesus - not the apostles, not the prophets, and not music. However, they are not in competition. Through Jesus we can boldly enter God's presence with worship and singing.

Music, then, can be a means by which the 'character of our faithful God' is declared. 'We should concern ourselves with presenting biblical truth that necessarily points towards Jesus.' The emotional expreiene of music should not, according to Fielding, be confused with the presence of God. It is the work of the Spirit that brings about repentance and change. 'Music enables us to turn to the Lord in agreement with one another as we sing the same words and melodies, powerfully depicting the unity that is taking place.' Music is used 'by God to draw us closer' - closer, he means, in the sense of drawing our gaze to the cross of Christ.

What a fascinating study in two able songwriters from different traditions arriving at the Cross together. 

Small churches: alternatives to drums

At the small church plant I attend we used to have a full drum kit each week. But for smaller weeks when there are only a few people, the echo-y school hall really makes for an overpowering sound.

But no more! Our minister bought one of our youth group drummers (who happens to be the minister's son!) a Cajón - a small box shaped instrument originating from Peru.

It's pronounced car (as in what you drive) + HON (to rhyme with on).

It is played by slapping different parts of its side to produce a cut down drum sound - there is a big bassy sound at the bottom, and a snare like sound at the top.

A seriously portable solution to an age old problem - and it suits acoustic style music perfectly by giving some rhythm without overpowering the space.

Plans for new album

We've just finished a couple of days at the Grove Studios, a beautiful recording studio on the Central Coast. Our friend and longtime producer David Nicholas whipped us into shape, with Ben Whincop assistant engineering, and Andrew Hood keeping everything under control as studio manager. (We were also very grateful for Lisa Massey and Steph Judd's cooking to keep us going through some long days!)

We recorded live to tape as we have the last few albums - this is largely David's philosophy, as he is all about capturing a band performance. This time we allowed time for a few overdubs as well - the nice acoustic grand piano, some extra vocal takes, harmonies, taurus bass synth and piano accordion.

We managed to get four songs recorded, and these will be sent off shortly to be mixed in Nashville.

We will be releasing these tracks, God willing, as a special EP which will only be available directly from our website in high quality download, or at gigs in a special limited edition CD.

Stay tuned!

The best worship music I’ve ever heard

This last weekend we had the privilege of being asked to take part in Revelation Conference, in Adelaide. The conference is run by Mark Peterson, who works with the Trinity network of churches.

It was wonderful to catch up with our old friends Nathan Tasker and Nicky Chiswell, to hear talks by Peter Adam, and take part in all sorts of workshops. Every part of the conference was inspiring and helpful.

But the highlight, for me at least, was the final night. The wonderful house band walked off stage, the house lights were raised up slightly, and Mark Peterson walked alone in front of the crowd with an acoustic guitar. We were told before the session that everybody had to bring an acoustic instrument. And they did. Behind me was a piano accordion. In front of me a djembe being played by a ten year old. Nicky Chiswell had the triangle. An army of acoustic guitars stood by. There were obscure Arabic drums, soprano saxophones, and a bunch who, like me, had only their voices to contribute.

Mark began the session in his thoughtful and measured style with a single, simple question - ‘are you glad … that you have been saved?’. We thought about it for a bit. And then he put our first song up on the overhead. There were words, chord symbols and four part harmony parts. We sang through a series of hymns and popular choruses. For ‘Holy, Holy Holy’ Mark asked the percussionists to lay out and we all picked a harmony based on the SATB score on screen. For ‘Lord I Lift Your Name on High’ the percussionists led us most of the way.

It was the most extraordinary singing experience -- perhaps the most moving church experience -- I’ve ever had. God was kind to us and it did not descend into chaos, but a beautifully balanced harmony of diverse instruments and skill and styles of playing. Depending on where you were standing you could hear different sounds, but everywhere people were singing loud. The acoustic instruments perfectly complemented the human voices, and it seemed as though the instrumental sounds were coming up from within the voices.

Afterward, Nicky Chiswell said to me (perhaps with a hint of tears) ‘we’ve been trying too hard!’ All these amazing musicians on stage, workshops full of talk of genres and arrangements and careful planning - and yet when we took a step back and let everyone contribute the result was amazing. A taste of heaven’s music, perhaps?

But when the band went back stage, to my surprise they didn’t drown out the voices – rather, everyone sang with just the same focus and joy and passion. The moment of acoustic singing and playing had passed, but the worship continued with just as much integrity. 

Why we're taking our stuff off Spotify

"Hey Andy! I'm listening to you guys on Spotify!" said my friend at College.

"Really? Cool! I wonder how much money the band gets from that?", I reply, hastily logging into Garage Hymnal's Internet Distribution site to track the royalties.

When our Internet Distributor told us that Spotify was starting up (and unless we opted out, which would be mad because it is the next big thing, they would be taking our music) we had no idea how much money it would bring us - all we were told is that it would be a percentage of advertising revenue.

Turns out that for every person who listens to our music on Spotify we get $0.007. That's not a typo - that's point seven of one cent (on a good day - it can vary).

Given that figure, we worked out how long it would take us to pay back the money on the last album we made: roughly seven million people would have to listen to our song before we could afford to go back into the studio. That's not paying us anything for our time (we work for free) or even contributing to the cost of maintaining our instruments (our day jobs pay for that). That's just the actual outgoings on getting an album recorded and ready to upload.

Needless to say, if this is the model of content delivery the music industry is moving towards, then something has to give. Why have record companies agreed to this underpricing of content? Basically they have no choice. People like you and me expect to get things for free online. And if they're not free (paid for by advertisers hoping we'll spend our money on their site) then we will download them illegally anyway. A seventh of one cent is better than zero cents, and might keep the industry afloat for another month.

But if you'd like for bands to keep recording albums then we need to do something different. Something as simple as buying mp3s directly from our website. Here's a comparison table of how that decision helps us:

• Downloading a full album from our website costs you $16.90 and we get $16.19 of that (after credit card processing), which means if about 3,000 people buy our album we can pay back the cost of the latest album. 
• Buying an album from our website or in a retail shop like Koorong or Word costs you $24.95 and we get roughly $7 of that (after retail margin, packing, pressing, and distribution), which means about 7,000 people need to buy our CD to pay back the last one.
• Downloading an individual album from our website costs you $1.69 per track and we get $1.35 of that (after credit card processing), which means if approx 37,000 people buy our music we can pay back the cost of the latest album.
• Downloading a track from iTunes costs you $1.69 but we get $0.99 of that (after Apple gets their cut), which means about 50,000 people need to buy our music before we can make a new album. 
• Listening to our track on Spotify costs you nothing and we get $0.007 from advertising, which means 7,142,857 people would have to listen to our music before we could pay back the recording costs.

So there you have it! Here ends the rant - and let the discussion begin. Are we just being old fashioned and clinging to an outdated business model, or is something wrong here?

Arts used for Theology

Jeremy Begbie is a very interesting theologian - a serious piano player before the decided to be a theologian, he has thought quite a bit about music and theology from two angles. The first is what Theology can do for the arts (helping us to understand the place of the arts, in his case music, in creation). He calls this 'theology for the arts'. But the other aspect is what the arts can do for theology, helping us to understand theological things through our experience of creativity. He calls this 'arts for theology'.
Here is a wonderful little video where he demonstrates some of the main contributions that music can make in helping us to think about God and life.

Some of his great observations (demonstrated by some quite nice playing):

• The most wonderful music can come out of the most unlikely things. Variations by Rachmaninoff on Paginini's theme. Inverting the theme, making it major not minor. Something beautiful can be made out of something angular and cranky.
• Even the worst can be woven into God's purposes. Once you've made the mistake - there are 88 keys on the piano but no delete key. You can turn it into a passing note, a note that doesn't fit with the underlying harmony but can be made to fit the context. He says: 'God can take your worst mistakes and turn them into his passing notes. I think every leader needs to recognise that.'
• There is a type of non-order which is not destructive. Many of us think that the only two options in our lives are order and disorder', but there is also non-order. The jazz factor.
• The connection between tradition and innovation: Every player has to be apprenticed into a tradition before you can innovate. 'Improvisation is the exploration of occasion' - having in mind these people, on this occasion, and not some other. 
• The role of the Holy Spirit: For Begbie all this links up quite nicely with the doctrine of the holy Spirit. The Spirit's role seems to be bringing the great truths of Christ to bear on these people in this place and this time.

Why spend so much money on producers and studios

In a few weeks Garage Hymnal will be spending a fair chunk of your money (that is, money which was yours if you support our ministry by buying CDs or making tax deductible donations!) recording a couple of tracks towards a new album. We are rehearsing and writing for the next few weeks and God willing will then head up to the central coast to record at the Grove Studios with our longstanding friend and producer David Nicholas.

Are we wasting our money?

A lot of people aren’t using studios or producers any more. I spoke to a friend yesterday about the declining studio and production market – globally, but particularly in Sydney. He reckons it goes in cycles. Ten years ago the record labels were letting all the bands record themselves and self-produce. Then they realised the bands were bringing out sub-standard albums and started employing producers again. The cycle has flipped back to self-produced again.

I think it’s worth us resisting the fashion and spending money on a studio and producer.

While computer setups in our bedrooms have advanced, and reduced the cost of recording hugely for everyone, studios are still worth hiring. They do make for better music. No matter how good your software is, if you’re recording music with real human involvement (vocals, drums, real pianos, etc) at some point that music has to be made in a room, into a microphone, gained up by a mixing console, and converted to digital form. All those processes can be done cheaply, but they will sound less like the real instrument or voice. You can record your band in your bedroom, but few people have the space to record a whole band at the same time, meaning music is more pre-planned and less interactive because you can’t be all in the same room at the same time making the music (like writing out a conversation with someone before you talk to them, you can’t interact you can only guess what they’ll say).

Of course, some forms of music thrive in the bedroom – things with programmed drums and highly processed vocals, for instance. And I like that type of music – sometimes. But it’s not the only type of music.

The other thing we think is worth our while is bringing in a producer. Anyone can call themselves a producer. There is absolutely no reason why a band can’t produce themselves. Our band has several members who have produced records for other bands! But what our band doesn’t have is an experienced, impartial coach to bring the best out of us. Self produced records are all the rage – but it takes maturity to recognise you have things to learn, and to seek out people who can develop your talent. We are hugely grateful for what David has done for us as a band in honing our sound and helping to get the best out of our songs. Most of what he does is actually to do with song structures – helping the listener’s experience to flow through the song so they are always left wanting more. You’ll never know the difference – you can’t hear his work, as such. But we have made better albums because of him!

Can’t wait to get into a nice big studio with our favourite producer!

Now THAT'S a good PA

On Friday night we played a gig for the Bush Church Aid Society at St Barnabas' Anglican Church, which is on Broadway, just down from Sydney's Central Station. A historic church building, it was destroyed by fire six years ago. Our gig was the first official public event to be held in the new building.

Needless to say we were very keen to check out many aspects of the new building. It's an elegant design which draws you in off the busy Broadway. It's an accessible building - lifts, accessible doors, and clear entrances and exits. You're never in any doubt where to go - the building draws you in. And, of course, it's got much better fire safety than the old building!

But the thing we were most nervous to check out was the acoustics, and the installed sound system.

The verdict? Hats off to the good people of St Barnabas for one of the best sounding church sound systems I've ever heard. What you hear in the auditorium is exactly what it is meant to be: evenly distributed to every seat (no bright spots, or black spots), smooth across the frequency ranges, speech was very clear, and music was accurately reinforced coming off stage.

This is all the more impressive given the challenge of the room itself. A big space, with many oddly shaped reflective surfaces, we did fear a difficult environment. Contemporary music quickly becomes unbearably loud and unbalanced in a reverberant space (which is why most churches are better suited to classical, unamplified music). And certainly the space could be described as live - there is a decent reverb time which is noticeable on the snare hits - but it doesn't get out of control. The only challenge is the stage, which without carpets is definitely on the loud end. We brought extra carpets to soak up some of the sound, and wore earplugs on stage. Apparently during services the church musicians play using headphones to try to minimise on stage noise.

The three lessons I think should be learned from the hard working and wise wardens, staff and consultants on the Barney's project are these:

1. The church incorporated thinking about acoustics into the design stage. As a result, I suspect that some comrpomises were made to the architect's design (as a friend of mine puts it, architecture is a deaf science: you can't assume that they will have thought about, much less care about, acoustics. Bringing an acoustics consultant in early is imperative). Acoustics is the kind of thing that you have to get right before the concrete is poured, because it is notoriously hard to fix later.

2. The church was clear on its brief to the acoustics consultants. Many consultants come with strange ideas about what actually happens inside a contemporary church. One guy I spoke to was convinced that our youth group rock band would need nothing more than two choir mics. For a modern service the two priorities must be: (1) speech intelligibility,  and (2) ability to facilitate the type of music you actually have (a rock band is a very different proposition to a choir and needs very specific acoustics and equipment).

3. The church budgeted the sound system installation into the building project. Sound systems are often left off in the final stages of the project to cut costs in the short term - which ends up meaning a cheap and nasty system is installed which never works properly, hampers the ability for speech to be intelligible and music enjoyable, and requires constant bandaid repairs to keep it running. The error is made because it's usually the last thing to go in, and the easiest thing to say "we'll do that at a later stage". Of course, it never happens - once you've raised money for a building it's hard to turn around in 6 months time and ask for more. And this is a silly error, because hearing things is not an optional extra for a church building. I would have thought it's pretty core to our business (more so than carpeting, air conditioning, food preparation areas or aesthetics ... yes, even staff offices).

Good on Barney's for doing these things right! (Oh, and thanks for hosting the concert for Bush Church Aid!) You should be very proud of your new space. May God use it for the proclamation of his word (both spoken and sung) for many many years to come.

You should go to theological college

Musicians and Songwriters: you should go to theological college

A friend of mine just spent a few weeks in Nashville, hanging out with some incredible musicians and songwriters. It's a hub of creativity and musicality - an electric environment to be in, even for only a few weeks. I spoke to him last night and he was totally inspired - full of new ideas, and ready to write a thousand new songs.

I'm in my final year of theological college, hanging out with some incredibly prayerful and Godly theologians, pastors and teachers. I am totally inspired - full of new ideas, and ready to write a thousand new songs (and sermons for church!)

Now, you don't have to go to theological college to write great Christian songs, or for that matter preach great sermons. Nor do you have to travel to Nashville to be inspired and equipped to make great music.

But if someone offered you a trip to Nashville, you'd be mad to turn it down. Right?

Well, here's my pitch, take it or leave it - if you ever have the opportunity to study theology full time, go for it. Find the most Godly, the most intelligent, the most broad thinking group of teachers and students you can find, and enrol yourself in the most academically and spiritually rigorous  course* you can make time for.

For me, my time at theological college (Sydney's Moore College) has been a time of profound spiritual growth, as well as being the most intellectually stimulating environment I've ever experienced.

I would love to see more musicians and music directors and songwriters soaking up a theological education. I stress, you don't need a degree in theology to be a great bible teacher, or a great songwriter, or a great music pastor – but it almost certainly will enrich and inspire your ability to understand God's word and communicate it to others. At least it has for me.


So if you ever get the opportunity - please, go for it!

(*Now, you might wonder why the whole bother of a full on theological education. It seems like a lot of effort (often these go for one, two, three, even four years full time). There are shorter courses which are more practical and less academic - you can learn what Ephesians say, and take a course in songwriting or preaching or planning a good service. All these are good things. But it's like the difference between studying engineering and taking a course in fixing cars... I know from experience that engineers aren't necessarily any good at changing tyres, but if you want to design the next generation of cars you're going to need a deep grasp of engineering. Likewise a short course can teach you how to write songs like Chris Tomlin; a long one will equip you for a lifetime of Godly thinking outside the current paradigm.)

What I love about Darlene Zschech's theology

I’ve never met her, but I have a huge amount of respect for Darlene Zschech. Until 2007 she was a pastor at Hillsong church here in Sydney. She still tours and leads a growing church in Newcastle. Leaving aside the obvious debt we all owe her for bringing worship music to where it has come worldwide, her discipleship and church leadership off stage has benefited some of my dearest friends.

At the same time, I believe it’s often fruitful to compare and contrast our respective theological positions on worship. Our respective traditions may have much to learn from each other. Realising that I don’t have all the answers either, in this brief blog post I also want to provide some friendly critique of her theology of worship as presented in Extravagant Worship.

There is much I love in her theology of worship.

1. Zschech is dead right in pointing out that worship is bigger than merely music. Worship is bigger than music. “Although music is a wonderful expression of worship, it is not in itself the essence of it. The core of worship is when one’s heart and soul, and all that is within, adores and connects with the Spirit of God.”¹
2. She is right to make Christian education a central goal in our music ministry: ‘make the Word memorable and settle the message into our hearts.’²
3. She presents a balanced view of the place of emotional response in music ministry: music is ‘not about stirring ourselves into an emotional frenzy’, but ‘corporate worship’ should help turn the congregation’s ‘eyes to the Lord.’³

Yet, I do want to suggest some possible tensions in her theology of worship which make me reluctant to adopt it wholesale without thinking it over some more. The biggest tension I detect is over the issue of ‘excellence’.

Zschech rightly puts great emphasis on excellence, something which I have often written about and agree on. Yet I’m more cautious about the reasons she gives for seeking excellence: ‘We are to serve God with excellence because we know an excellent God.’⁴ Like the high medievalists, Zschech wants to ‘enter the throne room of God’.⁵

Largely I think this theology is reactive against more mainline traditions (such as Anglicanism), which have been (I’ll freely admit) too afraid of excellence. She thinks this fear has ‘kept almost an entire generation out of the house of God’.⁶

And to her credit, this emphasis on excellence is qualified: we give our finest ‘at whatever stage your finest is.’⁷ We bring our gifts in a context of grace, and Zschech is too experienced a pastor to seek to establish a ‘performance-based Christianity’ on or off the stage.⁸

However I do take issue with some of the arguments she uses to bolster this argument of excellence. “Extravagant worship grabs God’s attention ... Throughout the stories in the Bible, whenever someone demonstrated extravagant worship, God reacted with extravagant blessing. It’s cause and effect. Extravagant worship brings extravagant results.’⁹

My nervousness about this is that I am very unexcellent! I’m not talking about the quality of music, even. The fact is that the excellence of our offerings, as God measures it, is entirely dependent on the heart. As Hebrews 10 points out, God has never been pleased by sacrifices or burnt offerings. Zschech obviously knows this, and so concludes that ‘the only thing God wants from you is your heart.’¹⁰

I don’t think I’m being too nitpicking to say that there is a tension here. Is God impressed by musical excellence, or does he just want us to serve with the right attitude?

What is missing, I think, is a bridge between the Old Testament passages and the New Testament hope. In the Old Testament even our most righteous works are considered as dirty rags (Isaiah 64:6). In the New Testament, we are given the incredible invitation to continually ‘through Jesus … offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name’ (Hebrews 13:15). What is missing from Zschech’s worship theology, therefore, is the very important concept of a priest: not one who wears robes, but Jesus our great high priest. With Jesus standing as our representative before God, the excellence of our worship is guaranteed.

As much as it pains me to say it, therefore, the excellence (in a musical sense) of our worship, and the strength of our good intentions, becomes much less relevant to how acceptable our worship is. Don’t get me wrong, I want excellent music as much as the next music snob. But I’m not sure that we want to tie that excellence to its suitability for worshipping God.

1 Darlene Zschech, Extravagant Worship (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2002)., 27.

2 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 196.

3 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 169.

4 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 127.

5 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 155.

6 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 128.

7 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 127.

8 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 148.

9 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 34-35.

10 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 46.

Why the methodists had all the good music

Have you ever noticed how many of the great hymns in the English language were written by non-conformists like Isaac Watts and the Wesleys? These were people who stood apart (sometimes at great personal cost) from the mainline Anglican church of their day. This was a time where uniformity in worship was highly valued above everything. Edward VI and Elizbeth I had both laid down guidelines for worship, insiting on a ‘plain and modest song’. Nothing to flash. Thomas Sternhold supplied a boring but competent translation of the Psalter into English, and this was the basis of worship inside the mainline official Anglian church.¹

Not so for the non-conformists. John Wesley wrote to a friend criticising this style of worship, insisting that Christians should:

“sing praise to God ... with the spirit, and with the understanding also: not in the miserable, scandalous doggerel of Hopkins and Sternhold [i.e. the English Psalter], but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry.”²

He thought the style should be whatever would ‘best raise the soul to God’, and that meant he was not confined to using simple boring arrangements of the Psalms.³

But the reason why Wesley ended up with such a stress on emotion was not accidental. I think it flowed from his theology. The reason why he wanted music to help people in ‘praising [God] lustily and with a good courage’ was so that their hearts could be changed.⁴ I suspect that John Wesley’s Arminianism – his overemphasis on human responsibility while forgetting that only God can soften or harden hearts – set him on this trajectory.

My hunch is, too, that this set much of methodism (and later Pentecostalism) onto this path of emotional music. If you believe that people turning to Jesus is a wholly human decision, not a miracle, then you’re going to do all you can to make sure they make the right decision.

The challenge, then, for those of us who believe that a decision to turn to Christ is both a human choice and a miracle that only God can bring about is to still write incredible songs which move the heart. A belief in divine sovereignty in conversion doesn’t stop us from engaging in apologetics, clear preaching, or trying to live the gospel in an attractive way. So it shouldn’t stop us from having poignant music either.

1 Evans, Music in the Modern Church, 31.

2 John Wesley, ‘To A Friend, On Public Worship’, in The Works of the Rev John Wesley: Tracts and Letters on Various Subjects (1st ed.; New York: J & J Harper, 1827), 233.

3 John Wesley, ‘To A Friend, On Public Worship’, in The Works of the Rev John Wesley: Tracts and Letters on Various Subjects (1st ed.; New York: J & J Harper, 1827), 233.

4 John Wesley, ‘To A Friend, On Public Worship’, in The Works of the Rev John Wesley: Tracts and Letters on Various Subjects (1st ed.; New York: J & J Harper, 1827), 233.

The ends justify the means

 When it comes to music, I’m with Luther: the ends justify the means.

It is interesting to compare the attitude of Calvin, Zwingli and Luther to using secular music styles in church. Calvin (1509–1564) refused to use either catholic styles of music, or the secular styles of his day (which he said were ‘lascivious, injurious, alluring’¹). He was afraid that ‘venom and corruption’ might reach ‘the depths of the heart’.² In a similar vein, Ulrich Zwingli held that ‘spirit and flesh contradict each other’.³ He was dubious about singing, preferring to sing ‘not with our voices, like the Jewish singers, but with our hearts’.⁴ In the summer of 1524 his followers smashed all the organs they could find, hoping to bring things back to pure worship.⁵

So against his reformation buddies, Martin Luther (1483-46) stands out. He was prepared to use any style of music that would help people engage with God: ‘For their sake [simple laymen] we must read, sing, preach, write and compose, and if it would help the matter along, I would have all the bells pealing, and all the organs playing, and let everything chime that has a clapper’.⁶ Rumour has it he used pub tunes – this is not quite right, but he certainly used folk music to drive the gospel messages home. (Incidentally, it is no accident that J.S. Bach composed his amazing Cantatas while working at Leipzig Luthern church). The key values were education, scriptural words, and communion between the church here and the church in heaven. Whatever would serve these goals would be employed in church.

1 Charles Garside, The Origins of Calvin's Theology of Music: 1536–1543 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1979), 28.

2 Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 156.

3 Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 151.

4 Ulrich Zwingli, ‘Conclusion 45’ in Charles Garside, Zwingli and the Arts (New Haven: Yale, 1966), 45.

5 Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 150.

6 Flynn, ‘Liturgical Music’, 780

Praise Pit Worship?

Maybe I'm just getting too old and out of touch with youth culture, but I'm not sure what to make of a new trend in evangelical youth ministry: the 'praise pit'.

In case you haven't been to a youth event recently, I can paint the scene for you. The band gets up on stage, some thumping up tempo beat stars, and the lead singer coaches all the young people to swarm down the front and start jumping for the next bracket of songs.

Here's what I like about it: it's obviously a lot of fun, it's pushing the boundary of youth ministry and redeeming a harmless secular cultural practice (mosh pits) in an under 18s friendly environment, and it's letting young people express something with their whole bodies. In principle, I should be in favour of it. I'm happy for all sorts of things to be expressions of our worship: interpretive dance, acrobatics, heck even changing nappies can be done for the glory of God.

But still something feels weird about it becoming the prime form of our 'worship' time, particularly if it eats up time otherwise devoted to singing. I don't have a position, I just have some questions:

• is it a true substitute for singing? Sometimes I'm sure people keep singing during the moshing. But I suspect it becomes less about the singing and more about the experience. My experience of mosh pits is that it's about the vibe of the moment, the letting go of inhibitions in an electric group atmosphere. It might have a place in a well rounded youth program, but I'm not sure it can take the place entirely of singing.
• is it an inclusive activity? For instance, I know more boys than girls who enjoy moshpits (admittedly, this may be because in the secular venues I'm thinking of boys like to use the moshpits to touch girls inappropriately - I hope this is not the case in a Christian environment). 
• is it giving young people enough credit? The young people I work with, whether believing or searching for meaning, come to church mostly because they want spiritual answers. They see through attempts to make church resemble something it's not. 'If I wanted to mosh I'd go to the city. I'm here to find out what the meaning of life is'. What do you learn from moshing?
• does it give space for the whole gamut of emotions in the Christian life? The thing I love about music is that it gives voice to a bunch of different ways of feeling: ecstatic, thankful, angry, relieved, devoted ... whereas moshing for me is an expression of primal energy. I like it. But I wonder whether it's the only thing that we want to say together when we meet?

My suspicion is that it may well have a space in our corporate worship, but this space is relatively small compared to the much greater benefit of singing (which has the advantage of appealing across ages, across cultures, allowing greater variety of teaching, expressing more emotions, etc).

Maybe I'm out of touch, maybe this is one thing where it's better to be like the world than uniquely Christian (congregational singing is much more unique to the church). So tell me, am I just being a grumpy old man? What is your experience?

Unprofessional and proud of it

One of my friends was a (semi)professional comedian. I love his jokes. I saw him on TV once and he had the whole concert hall in stitches. But he could be terrible company sometimes. If, hanging out with friends, you tried to make a joke which didn’t go so well he would respond in mock condescension: ‘oh please Andy, leave it to the professionals’.

In some contexts professionalism is out of place. And my church is one of them.

The push to professionalism in our music has a long history. The middle ages had competing styles of music. On the one hand there was Gregorian chant, which was simple simple simple. This came from (I think) a suspicion of emotion and a desire to strip everything back so that the rational propositions of the Scriptures would be more clear to us.

On the other hand, other styles of music became way complex. Things got so out of control that people often couldn’t tell what language was being sung, and Pope John XXII got concerned that we had lost sight of the purpose of church music.¹

Originally, music had been a communal activity. While Tertullian hints that some songs were performed by good singers,² Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom and Basil the Great all give the impression that the focus was communal singing.³ Just prior to the reformation, this priority to the communal was in danger of being obscured. In the style of music called ‘Lector chant’ the crowd would merely sing the occasional ‘alelluia’. In the style called ‘Schola chant’ trained clergy would do it all. The average punters could not pull off the quality of music that was desired, and so they left it to the professionals.

I don’t dispute that the quality of music is important in church. I am not even against paying professional musicians to be involved in services, where the size and strategy of the church demands it. But whatever we do, I think the purpose of singing should remain firmly in our view. Employing professional musicians may help people to sing better in a large auditorium, because the pressures of performing in such a large space require a level of skill or commitment which is beyond most volunteers. It is no different, in my mind, to employing a full time minister to prepare sermons. But if the pursuit of professionalism actually disenfranchises the average people the pews so they don’t sing any more, then I think we have a problem. We don’t want to leave it to the professionals.

1 Evans, Music in the Modern Church, 27.

2 Flynn, ‘Liturgical Music’, 770.

3 John Chrysostom, ‘On Psalm 145’ at para 1469; Ambrose of Milan ‘Commentaries on the Twelve Psalms of David’ at para 1158; Basil the Great, ‘Homily on Psalm 1’ at para 1346, in Johnson, Worship in the Early Church: Anthology of Historical Sources.

The song matters more than the words

Words don't just mean things, they do things!

Hypothetical scenario: you're leading singing at church and you need one more song than expected. You have two choices. One song has only a few basic lines about God's love, but it's sure to get people singing passionately. Another has five verses of theological firepower, but the melody is so daggy nobody can sing it with a straight face.

Gut reaction - which do you choose?

To help you decide, I want to suggest here that the propositional content of songs (what the words mean when you add them all together) is not the be-all-and-end-all of a song (because it is not the be-all-and-end-all of Scripture, or indeed any act of communication).

Of course, my title is deliberately provocative. (Made you look!) I’m not for a moment suggesting that the lyrical content is unimportant. I’m not asking for heretical songs, I’m not asking for vacuous songs. This is my tenth year of training and blogging and trying to get people to pay more attention to music ministry as a Word ministry.

But in doing so I also want us to avoid a reductive approach to words, and avoid divorcing words from music in a song. Here are my two points:

1. Words don’t just mean things, they also do things. They can do lots of different things. And I’m disturbed when I hear people assume that song lyrics can be reduced merely to true statements with a melody attached.
2. A song is not just words put to music, it is a new creation which is more than the sum of its parts.

Words do stuff

A youth group leader complains about a line which says ‘I will say blessed be the name of the Lord’ because she’s not sure whether that is a true statement about a future action he will in fact undertake.

A songleader changes the words of a popular song because it says ‘I’m dancing on this mountain top’ and he’s not sure that everyone in the church is, actually, dancing and even if they were the church is in a valley so mountain top dancing is probably inaccurate.

The problem with these examples is they treat words as if they can do only one thing. They either report a true fact, or a false one. But words can do other things, like encourage people to a future act, or bring a picture to mind which inspires a certain response.

This is a theological observation, not just something that applies to songs. It applies to the Bible. Kevin Vanhoozer is a brilliant evangelical writing on the issue of how to interpret the bible. His best observation is that communication is an action. God is speaking. He does thing with words. And he does different things with different words.

‘Because God does many things with words, our responses too will be varied: we must affirm the doctrine, obey the law, hold fast in hope to the promises, rejoice in the gospel.’ (Kevin J. Vanhoozer, First Theology: God, Scriptures and Hermeneutics (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2002), 39)

‘Do not steal’ is not true or false, it’s a command to be obeyed or disobeyed. ‘Do not take your Holy Spirit from me’ is not a comment on the perseverance of the Saints, it’s a prayer to be prayed. ‘Sing unto the Lord a New Song’ is not a command, it’s an invitation to sing with our eyes set on him.

Songs are more than the sum of their parts

 A  songwriter feels that there are not enough songs on the seriousness of judgment (which is true), so puts the phrase “everyone one of us deserves to die” (which is also true) to a boppy tune with large major chords and exciting off beat rhythm.

A youth minister rewrites the words to a well known song about sexual healing to make it teach profound truths about ‘spiritual healing’

The problem is with both examples that what the words might mean in a different context is totally being undermined by a mismatch with what the music means.

The lyricist of the classic song ‘Over the Rainbow’ (picture Judy Garland singing in the opening scenes of Wizard of Oz!)‘ puts it like this:

“Words make you think. Music makes you feel. A song makes you feel a thought.” (E. Yip Harburg)

Here I go... out on a limb

Our songs are meant to do something. They are not simply meant to be true words.

So what was my gut reaction to our big decision - simple truths joyfully sung, or theological firepower which nobody can standing singing?

Of course if songwriters are doing their jobs then you'll never have to choose between great lyrics and a great song. But hypothetically, I’d go for (I think I’m happy to say this … I know it’s going to irritate some people!) a song which joyfully inspires a congregation to sing a few simple truths about God together (‘Jesus loves me this I know...’) than a song which puts four volumes of the Church Dogmatics to to the tune of ‘Yankee Doodle’. There, I said it. Am I wrong? (Or am I just trying to make you think).

The artist and their life's work

As artists, we love art. We love going to concerts, exhibitions, reading books, listening to music. Having created our own art, we are aware of the thought processes and techniques that often lie behind art created by others - so we are equipped with analytical tools that allow us to carefully critique and experience art in great depth. We love immersing ourselves in the creative realm of life.

Then there is the art we create. When you are in the middle of creating, the energy is flowing, the momentum is building, and you know something great is lying just over the horizon, the feeling is amazing. It is truly enjoyable. It's exciting. It brings a thrill and a natural high like nothing else. And it often brings those who are creating together in a truly unique way. Seeing the piece of art finally completed is the ultimate reward - and seeing it being appreciated by others is an added bonus. Over the course of our lives, we long to create a body of work - our 'life's work' - that will say something about us, and capture the imagination of others.

Of course, art and creating can be all-consuming. Art often engages our senses in a way that other things in life don't. It can seem like our whole being is being channelled into experiencing or creating that piece of art. It's often that very focus and attention to the smallest of details that makes experiencing art so enjoyable, and creating art so rewarding.

But the thing is, art can take over. The pursuit of excellence in creating can fill every little gap in our minds so that there is no room left for other things. Even the pursuit of experiencing art can do the same - we go to so many concerts, read so many books, listen to so many albums, that we have no headspace left for other things. Relationships slip down the list of priorities. Bible reading and prayer time suffers.

Without realising it, by sheer virtue of the amount of time and headspace we dedicate to art, we find ourselves worshipping creation, and not the Creator. We would not go so far as to deny God - we still deeply desire to follow him and serve him. It's just that by filling our minds with so much other stuff, we have, in reality, neglected him.

In 'Art and the Bible', Francis Schaeffer challenges us to think differently. He writes: "... there is a very real sense in which the Christian life itself should be our greatest work of art. Even for the great artist, the most crucial work of art is his life." (p49).

And of course our lives are to be viewed not just as a work of art, but as an act of worship. As the Apostle Paul writes - we are to offer our bodies as "living sacrifices" to God as our "spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12:1).

Certainly, art and creating are wonderful gifts from God, the one true Creator. Seeking to create a body of artwork throughout our life is a great thing. But what will we prioritise each day? Will we prioritise creating our 'life's work' in art? Or will we humbly acknowledge that as we seek to follow Jesus, our 'life's work' should quite literally be a lifetime of work on our life itself? Will our life's work - work that says something about who we worship, who we are, and captures the imagination of others -  actually be our life itself?

GC

Please manipulate my emotions

There is a great deal of suspicion of emotional manipulation. Sometimes I think that suspicion is justified. A friend told me a story about a church where the keyboard was hooked up to an electric shock machine, and just at the right moment the keyboard player would hit the button and people in the front row would be brought to their knees by the ‘electrifying’ power of the sermon.

But sometimes I wonder whether we are oversensitive to the power of music on our emotions, as if being moved emotionally by a song is less ‘worthy’ of us than to be moved intellectually by a sermon.

Consider the tension felt by the great father of the faith, Augustine. His conversion story was marked by an emotional musical encounter:

“I wept at your [God’s] hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of your sweetly singing church. Those voices flowed into my ears, and the truth was poured out in my heart, whence a feeling of piety surged up and my tears ran down. And these things were good for me.”¹

Yet at the same time, the Platonism which Augustine’s culture had subscribed to made him suspicious of such animal attraction merely based on music:

“the gratification of my flesh – to which I ought not to surrender my mind to be enervated – frequently leads my astray ... when it happens to me that the song moves me more than the thing which is sung, I confess that I have sinned blamefully and then prefer not to hear the singer.²

For similar reasons, another thinker, Athanasius, decided that it would be better not to sing at all. For him it was important that the Psalms were recited not ‘from a desire for pleasing sound’, but as a more spiritual ‘manifestation of harmony among the thoughts of the soul’.³ Augustine, to his credit, didn’t go that far. But he did look down on the role of music, saying it merely enabled a ‘weaker soul’ to ‘be elevated to an attitude of devotion’.⁴

But I don’t think it is an admission of weakness in our soul to recognise that we are embodied: our thoughts and actions are influenced by what we eat, whether we have slept enough recently, and whether our brain chemicals are balanced. To recognise that music can have a non-rational effect on our souls is simply to recognise that we are human. Rather than be afraid of any emotional effect, we should seek out music which draws us closer to God and honours Jesus. Provided there is no deception, and the emotional power of the music is anchored in the truth, and we aren’t trying to substitute for the Spirit’s work in changing hearts, I can’t see the danger. If ‘manipulation’ means simply helping me to feel the weight of Jesus’ glory then please, go ahead: some days I could do with a bit of musical manipulation.

1 Augustine, Confessiones IX, vi, 14 in James McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 154.

2 Augustine, Confessiones X, xxxiii, 49-50 in McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 154.

3 Athanasius, Epistula ad Marcellinum 29, PG XXVII, 40-1 in McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 53.

4 Augustine, Confessiones X, xxxiii, 49-50 in McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 154.