Forming the Life of the Congregation Through Music
Truth-telling in songwriting is hard work, badly needed.
Yet it is possible, through patient learning and labor, to offer our people songs that are specific, memorable, edifying, and poetic. Again, at the risk of presumption I will offer some of my own work:
On Creation, wrecked by sin,
Seemingly forsaken;
Streets and fields and human hearts,
By sorrow overtaken:
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!
On your children held as slaves
By sin’s strong addiction;
On your people crushed by debt,
Threatened with eviction:
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!
On your people whom you send
As the hands of healing;
Work in us incarnate deeds,
Jesus’ love revealing:
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!
Christ Messiah on the cross
In that dreadful hour
Crushed, disarmed, and triumph over
Every evil power:
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!
(This song uses the chorus from Steve Merkel’s Lord Have Mercy, with a different tune and text for the verses.)
Songs that invite Christians to give priority yet again to their private emotional experience are pervasive, easy to produce, and superficially attractive. Truth-telling in songwriting is hard work, badly needed.
Innovation: When the Culture is Unhelpful
Our culture offers us many musical gifts and some sonic perils. We should assimilate the gifts whenever they are musically viable and helpful to the work of the gospel. But what can we do when we find the culture either ignorant or hostile in a certain area? In the section Borrowing from Culture two such unfortunate assimilations were mentioned: celebrityism and consumer passivity. I suggest they be subverted with innovations of local creativity and disciple participation.
The passivity of the consumer must be answered with the participation of the disciple.
Local creativity answers the mass-marketed superficiality of celebrityism with songs that are written by members of the community, for the community. Just as a pastoral role does not belong to an outsider, it is not appropriate to give so many of our musical tasks over to an industry. While there is nothing objectionable about a portion of our music coming from people we do not know, encouraging our own people to create some of our songs could be an exciting and life-giving innovation.
Only insiders can know the needs of their communities. They can more fittingly help it to lament and celebrate in its own, home-grown way. Just as identical shopping centers drain away the individual character of towns, so industrially-produced music empties congregations of their local color, humble though it may be. To imagine churches across the land singing nearly identical songs licensed from Nashville is not only a depressing thought, it is almost an affront to the God-ordained diversity of his people.
Pastoral role: teaching a community to respond emotionally rightly at the right time: how to celebrate, contemplate, and grieve.
The passivity of the consumer must be answered with the participation of the disciple. Just as the industry’s music must be intentionally supplanted by our own, so the people’s participation will only happen if the leaders undertake it deliberately. We have already explored some ways that may help in Musical Practices of Christian Inclusion, above. I suggest three more.
A. People in our churches are like musical sheep: they go where they are led. In order to get them to sing with full participation, it is probably necessary to instruct them directly from time to time. This certainly should not come across as a scolding but rather as a kind invitation that all voices are wanted and welcomed, without regard to beauty or intonation. It may even be appropriate to explain briefly that each person’s voice is an encouragement to others; the full sound of the people is a compelling sign of the Spirit in our midst.
Followers
Fans
