Imagine a skeptic visits your church. She is not sure what she thinks about God, Christianity, or organized religion in general, but she came because her friend invited her. She walks in late and the first thing she encounters is the music at your church. As she absorbs the scene–the musicians up front leading, the congregation singing, the ethos of the room–she instantly begins forming impressions about your church and about God. What does she see? What does she hear? Most importantly: what impressions about God does the music at your church communicate to this skeptic?
As a music leader, my initial gut instinct is to say, “I hope she thinks our music (and, by extension, the band making the music) is cool.” And that makes some sense, doesn’t it? It’s better if she thinks we’re cool than if she thinks we’re complete dorks, right? Well…not necessarily. I should be thinking, “I hope she realizes that the God we are worshiping is Good, Beautiful, Loving, and worthy of her worship.”
But how in the world is she going to get that impression? Well, obviously it helps if the lyrics of the songs we sing say that God is worthy of our praise. : ) But it is equally important how those words are sung and who she notices singing them.
Today, I want to argue that the best thing for a skeptic to observe about the music at your church is how loudly and whole-heartedly the people in the pews are singing. Not how good your band is. Why? Because the way in which a congregation sings says something about the God to whom they are singing. And, believe it or not, having a cool band upfront can actually distract from the message we really want skeptics to hear: that God is powerful, good, and worthy of praise.
Let me explain why I believe this.
1) A cool band says more about your budget than it does about God.
It is the 21st century, and the curtain is pulled back on music production. Anyone who has watched TV in the last 20 years knows that money equals polish when it comes to musical productions. We know about Britney Spears lip syncing with pre-recorded vocal tracks. We survived the Backstreet Boys in the early 2000s. We know that with enough money, you can hire the right people, buy the right equipment, and make a band look and sound really good.
When a skeptic walks into a church and sees a cool band up front playing cool music, nothing important is actually communicated about God. A polished musical production communicates that the church cares about having great music, and that it has the money to pull it off. But, anyone who is looking for reasons to dismiss Christianity and explain away your worship service will be quick to connect the dots: “Oh, this is just a well-funded production and all these people come here b/c it’s cool.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe churches should spend money on music and make the arts a priority in their budgets. I am not knocking polished musical productions. I just don’t want anyone to labor under the delusion that if your worship band makes cool music that you are therefore making God more glorious in the eyes of an outsider/onlooker/skeptic.
But what’s the alternative? Should we have bad music? No. We should have…drum roll please…congregational singing!
2) Whole-hearted congregational singing sends a message about God.
If a skeptic walks in and the first thing she sees/hears is a room full of people singing loudly with visible joy and delight, a different message is communicated, a message about God. The message is essentially this: “The God to whom we sing is worthy of our praise.” (On the flip side, half-hearted singing by the congregation communicates that God is boring, a figment of our imaginations, or simply not worthy of praise).
This is yet another reason why churches should make robust, heartfelt corporate singing their highest musical priority: because it says something about God that no worship band, no matter how polished or cool, can communicate.
No matter how good the worship band sounds or how culturally relevant the music is, the band simply cannot send the same message that is conveyed by a whole bunch of ordinary people singing their hearts out.
3) In fact, “cool music,” if it detracts from congregational singing, can actually obscure the message about God.
“1And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” I Cor. 2:1-5
If Paul had spoken with lots of wisdom and cleverness, onlookers might have gotten the impression that people were converting and worshiping Jesus just because Paul was a smooth operator. Likewise, when all that a skeptic sees at your church is a cool band up front, it’s easy for her to explain the phenomenon away as money and charisma from the leaders. But robust corporate singing, (especially at those moments when the music is not so great), declares that the God to whom we sing is good. And it demonstrates His power to call the hearts of ordinary people into worship.
So let me close with this question: what sends a better evangelistic message to a visiting skeptic? a) great musicians performing cool music, or b) a church full of ordinary folks singing their hearts out to God?
If the answer is as clear to you as it seems to me, then the next question should be obvious as well: What should be the primary purpose of music in corporate worship?
… To get the congregation singing their best.
Filed under: Congregational Participation, Corporate Singing, Evangelism, Leading Worship, Performance, Singing, Worship Leaders | 6 Comments
Tags: attractional worship, christianity, Evangelism, skepticism
Mr. Holland teaches Lou Russ how to keep a rhythm.
In my last post, I argued that making music is a great experience that God intends for everyone, not just musicians. And it’s the musicians’ job at church to lead music in such a way that it invites people into the experience of music making. To underscore this point, I want borrow a sentiment from the 1995 film Mr. Holland’s Opus.
Filed under: Congregational Participation, Leading Worship, Worship Leaders | 2 Comments
Tags: 1995, Mr. Holland's Opus, Richard Dreyfuss, Stevie Wonder
painting by Rodrico Brown age 13, public domain.
Alienation vs Communion: glimmers of hope in music making
Hide it under a bushel? No!
Filed under: Congregational Participation, Corporate Singing, Harmony, Image of God, Leading Worship, Unity and Diversity | 4 Comments
Tags: Corporate Singing, Leading Worship, singing together, Worship Leaders
In my last post, I argued that music is inherently “relational,” for lack of a better term. The actual physics of music are such that music asks us to collaborate, to blend our many voices into one voice. But why did God make music this way?
Today, I will suggest that God made music relational in order to help us be relational. Or, said differently, God gave us music to help us experience something we were fundamentally designed to enjoy as beings who image a Triune God–fellowship and harmony.
Why did God create music the way He did? I’m going to give two answers and expound them in turn. I believe God gave music as a gift to humankind 1) to show us He is beautiful/good, and 2) to help us participate in fellowship similar to that of the Trinity.
1) God made music to show us He is beautiful and good.
Like music, God is unity among diversity. Three persons in one God. This is the Doctrine of the Trinity. (And some theologians have drawn parallels between the Trinity and music; notably, Jeremy Begbie, formerly at Cambridge and now lecturing at Duke Divinity).
In other words, music illuminates and hints at the character of God Himself; He wrote His own nature into it. God is the ultimate beautiful display of unity among diversity, and He modeled the building blocks of music after Himself. Therefore, when we hear musical notes calling one another out, forming beautiful chords, and blending in a harmony so tight that it sounds like one voice, we are hearing God’s own nature reflected. When we hear beautiful harmony and recognize it as beautiful and good, when we marvel at music, we are in some ways, marveling at the beauty of God. And God is glorified because it’s really His own beauty that we are hearing and praising.
That’s one answer to the “why?” question: God made music relational in order to illuminate His own beauty as a Triune, relational being. And yes, we can therefore glorify Him by simply enjoying good music without participating in it. But this is not all that music does. God also made music to draw us into that harmony, to help us participate in the beauty of unity among diversity.
2) God gave us music to help us participate in fellowship similar to that of the Trinity.
This same God who has harmony and fellowship within Himself actually created human beings to participate in the same sort of harmonious fellowship. God created us “in His image,” to be like Him in some important ways. Being made “in the image of God,” certainly has a lot of meanings and implications; so I don’t want to pretend this is the only one. But it is certainly not less than this: God made us to connect and be united with Him and with other persons. As God is intrinsically relational, so are we to be. We are designed for unity among diversity, for fellowship and communion. (This is evidenced when we experience we experience moments of deep unity with other persons and find that it brings delight to our souls.)
But what does this mean with respect to music? It means that we were created to make music together. This is not limited to musicians, not just the few who seem to be specially gifted. God made all human beings in His image. All of us were created to experience the Trinitarian life of God through harmony with other persons. Think about it: what is the one thing the Bible clearly says we will all be doing throughout eternity? Singing. Making music to God. This is a core human activity and a gift for all beings made in His image.
God went to all the trouble to build the physical universe like it is so that music would exist, so that notes would harmonize with each other and please our ears, so that we would be drawn into making music together. God did not have to do all this. But He did, so that we humans might better experience the transcendent joy of being many yet one at the same time, having multiple distinct voices blended into one, harmonious whole.
God gave music as a gift to all human beings to help us experience the beautiful unity among diversity for which we were created. Of course, some people find it easier to do this than others. Some kids are prodigies and start playing the piano at age 4; others struggle to sing along with even the simplest of songs. But God gave music to all of us; and it’s for our enjoyment and edification. It is an echo, a hint of what we were created for ultimately–union, fellowship, connection, with God and with others.
Filed under: Congregational Participation, Corporate Singing, Harmony, Image of God, The Trinity | 3 Comments
Tags: Jeremy Begbie
I have been arguing that corporate singing is the primary purpose of music in worship and should be the highest priority of every church music leader. But why? Why should corporate singing be so important? In the last post, I gave an answer based on the way God made our brains, but that was just an echo of the argument I am beginning today.
My discussion today is a long one–it will extend over at least 2 posts–but it is by far the most important thing I want to say on this blog. This is the core of my beliefs about the role of music in the Church. I do not have it all worked out and neatly packed into clear language. But I want to share it with you and ask for your feedback, because I think this conversation is tremendously important–too important for me to squirrel my thoughts away and self-critique to the point of supposed perfection.
The argument goes basically like this: God designed music in such a way that it draws us into harmony with other people. When we make music together, we experience a taste of the beautiful interplay of unity and diversity that we were created to enjoy as beings who mirror the image of a Triune God. Since music-making is a fundamentally Trinitarian activity, it is intended for everyone to participate in, not just “the musically gifted,” or “professional” musicians. And corporate singing at church is the best way for most people to enjoy this transcendent joy of music making. Thus, the Church should make participation in music (through singing) its top priority.
Today we’ll just cover the first part: the nature of music.
The Nature of Music: Unity Among Diversity
First, a few words about how music works: Simply put, God created matter such that when it vibrates it makes waves of sound that our ears hear as distinguishable tones. This is why we have music: matter vibrates, we hear it. It’s basic, yes, but kind of remarkable if you think about it.
Even more remarkable is the next, more surprising building block of music. Amazingly, musical tones actually call forth other tones; that is, the vibrations that produce one note actually cause others notes to sound, as well. Don’t believe me? Go find a piano, press the sustain pedal (to un-mute all the strings), and hit middle C, not only will the middle C string vibrate, but also all the other C strings, as well as the G and E strings across the entire keyboard! Amazing! The vibration of the C string actually causes the other strings that are in harmony with it to resonate, even though no one touched the G or E keys.
The result is a physical property of sound that forms the foundation of music, what we call harmonic frequencies. (The diagram at top visually demonstrates these notes on a guitar.)
In other words, it’s as if musical notes themselves actually beg for accompaniment; they want to be unified with other notes and exist in ensemble. Musical notes do not like to be alone. And this plays out both on a micro level of individual notes and on a macro level of multiple instruments and voices in a musical ensemble. In the very essence of music is a demand that we, the agents of music, combine our voices (or instruments). And it’s a demand with built-in rewards: when done well, the sounds we can produce as ensembles are more grand and more beautiful than the sounds we can make alone. If you want to hear an example, go listen to any well-rehearsed choir or ensemble of musicians perform together, or just click here and listen. The example is of classical choral music, but it doesn’t have to be that. Heck, go listen to Pet Sounds or any music by a great ensemble at the height of their musical collaboration. The phenomenon of multiple voices (by voices I don’t mean just human voices, but also instruments) blending into one voice is simply stunning. Musical notes were designed to be played with other musical notes, and voices were designed to be combined.
Thus, at the core of music’s existence is a call for unity among diversity. And this basic core truth about the physical properties of music leads to a social demand: that we, as distinct individual persons, get together to make unified ensembles. We do so because the music essentially asks us to.
Perhaps most remarkable of all is the fact that humans did not invent this. We merely discovered it. This call for unity among diversity is built into the fabric of the universe and the way that vibrating matter produces notes. It is not “Western harmony” as we typically call it. The West did not make it up. God did. God built this interplay of harmonious tones into the world He created. We humans have simply been discovering how it works and developing ways to make it happen more effectively.
But why did God do that? And what does it have to do with corporate singing in church? Stay tuned until next week, and I’ll continue to develop the argument. Thank you for reading!
Filed under: Corporate Singing, Harmony, Image of God, The Trinity, Unity and Diversity | 6 Comments
Tags: harmonic frequencies, harmonics, Trinity, unity among diversity
I have argued that the primary purpose of music in corporate worship is to facilitate congregational singing. And I plan to get into what this means for worship leaders in a later post. But before I do, I want to take one or two posts to gather some ideas about why corporate singing is such an important experience in the life of the Christian and why I think all churches should strive to make corporate singing their highest musical priority.
I want to try to answer the question from a few different angles, beginning empirically and moving to the theological. My basic claim is this: God designed us such that corporate singing resonates with our emotions on a deep level. Singing together instills in us, in a way that spoken theology and other forms of communication cannot, that we are not alone, that we are living members of the glorious Communion of Saints.
A Curious Feeling of Transcendence
Corporate singing, as I mentioned in my post about U2, can create a transcendent feeling of hyper-connectedness. I’ve never known exactly what to call this feeling, but whatever it is, it’s the opposite of loneliness. This is why people, even those who have no particular religious persuasions, leave a great rock concert gushing with enthusiasm, ebullient with a feeling of joy and connectedness. Singing loudly together with lots of people (especially thousands, like at U2 concerts) speaks to us on an emotional level.
Neuroscience, Oxytocin, and Singing
Where does this feeling come from and why do we have it when we sing together? An entire branch of the neuroscience community studies the effects of music on the brain, trying to answer questions like this one. (See, for instance, the Library of Congress’s series of interviews on the topic.) If you research a bit, one of the first answers you’ll find for our question is oxytocin. Oxytocin, (not to be confused with Oxycontin, the pain-killing drug) is a hormone produced by the human brain that contributes to feelings of trust for the people around you. It is most well known for its role in sexual behavior–oxytocin levels are high after orgasm, leading people to feel tremendously bonded together with their partner. It’s a bit like neurochemical soul glue.
According to Daniel Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music, sex isn’t the only thing that leads to high levels of oxytocin. What’s the other? Singing, particularly singing with other people, causes the brain to produce unusually high levels of oxytocin. Just to double check, I found a study at the National Center for Biotechnology Information that lends credibility to this claim: when people sing together, their brains make oxytocin, and that makes them feel trust, solidarity, and connectedness with the people around them.
Some readers may find this a bit anticlimactic. “Oh, it’s just a chemical in the brain.” Or if you’re skeptical of religious experience in general, you may say, “Ah ha, see, it’s just a hormone, not any of that holy spirit nonsense.” I won’t really take the time in this post to respond to the latter charge (although I’ll include a brief comment/footnote at the bottom).
But I do hope that the rest of this discussion addresses the former concern. Simply because a mental event has a corresponding neurological reality does not make it spiritually or personally insignificant. God designed our brains as surely as he designed anything else, and he made our brains such that corporate singing causes a profound feeling of solidarity and trust with those around around us.
The Gift of Corporate Music
So why does God tell us to so frequently (in the Psalms) to sing together? Well, an initial, empirical answer, is that he knows us, and He wants us to not only know cognitively but also feel emotionally what is true. He designed us such that corporate singing would draw us out of our self-oriented little worlds and declare to us loudly that we are not alone. You are not just a lone ranger in your walk with the LORD, you are, to borrow the language of the Book of Common Prayer, a living member of the mystical Body of Christ, the blessed company of all faithful people, and an heir of God’s eternal kingdom.
Music is a gift God has given to the church to help declare loudly to us this fundamental theological truth, which is sometimes otherwise difficult for us to believe. We often feel alone. I think it’s a product of the Fall that we are so prone to loneliness and disconnection. Music is one of the primary gifts God has given to help us unlearn the lie that we are alone. And it’s not just listening to music, it’s corporate singing, that makes the point.
In conclusion: at least one reason why God tells us to sing together in church is b/c he knows that this will help bind us together as a Body, his Bride, and he wants us to know that we are not alone. Therefore, churches should make corporate singing their highest musical priority because it produces in us a God-given response that helps us feel and know that we really are part of the Communion of Saints.
Filed under: Congregational Participation, Corporate Singing, Music & the Brain | 4 Comments
Tags: loneliness, music and the brain, neuroscience, Oxytocin
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