Worship Wars Pt. 3 (Sorry I missed it)

Worship Wars:

Part III

What is Contemporary Worship Music? Is God glorified through it?

Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.

Psalm 96:1-2

What is contemporary/praise/worship music? Is it a style? Is it a time frame? If so, when did the transition from hymns to contemporary music began? Contemporary is defined as being of the present time or modern. So could we say that at one time all worship music was contemporary? I would argue that we could. Could we say that at one time all worship music was contemporary and was controversial? I would argue that we could. Could we say that contemporary music generally is not judged by the text but by the style of the music? I would strongly argue that we could. No one can define when what we refer to as contemporary worship music began. Ask 10 people of different ages and you will have 10 different answers. Some would say the 70’s, some the 80’s with songs, and others the 90’s. Some refer to Gaither music as contemporary, some refer to Gaither music as traditional gospel; there is no clear indication of when contemporary worship music began.

So what is contemporary worship music? That question itself is even hard for me to define. To me as a person who studies worship music day in and day out I have two modern distinctions: contemporary Christian music and worship/praise music. Contemporary Christian Music, or “CCM” is a lot of what you would hear on the radio if you tune to your local “CCM” station. It’s music, written in a style similar to what worldly music is being written in, with only Christian lyrics. I guess you could refer to it as pop music with Christian lyrics. I personally don’t care much for this style of music but I think it is great if people want to listen to this rather then to the top 20 on a worldly station. Then there is the distinction that I have defined as “worship/praise music”; these are songs that are written by a church for the church. These songs are written by Music Ministers around the world for their church to sing. These are the contemporary worship songs that we sing in our church; songs such as “The Power of the Cross”, “Mighty to Save”, “You Never Let Go”, and “How Great is Our God”. However over the last five years a phenomenon has began to occur with worship/praise music that I think is unhealthy, groups that have sung “CCM” music have recognized the fact that they can re-record worship/praise music as “CCM” music and sing it as a trendy type music with the intention of profit. I think this is unhealthy and can take away from a text that was written for the church.

Does contemporary Music glorify God? Yes. Do I have to be careful to always analyze the text to see it is profitable for us as a church? Yes. One of the ways I do that is I will not lead us in any text that is under a year old. I want to make sure that the text is sufficient for us a congregation to sing. Many times I will wait for my professors at the seminary to approve of the text, knowing that they are much wiser then I, before leading that text at our church. You know this by heart now: We sing songs of the old because they show that God was alive and working before we were here, we sing songs of the present (contemporary) because it shows God is still at work, and we will sing songs of the future because God will remain to be alive and at work. God is still at work around the world.

“Is God Glorified in the continual battle of traditional vs. contemporary? No, Satan is. God desires unity in His church.”