Is Your Church Music Junk Food?

There is a philosophy abroad that says we must keep church music current and up-to-date. I disagree, if what is meant is that we must make the music of God’s house as much like the music of the secular world as possible. Something is wrong if, in order to draw in the unsaved and communicate the gospel to them, we must descend to their level and incorporate the music styles of the world into our worship. God’s call to separation relates to our sacred music too (“sacred” meaning holy, separated). “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean” (II Cor. 6:17).

In The Book of Common Praise of the Anglican Church (1938 edition), author and hymn writer Robert Bridges makes the following comment:

If we consider and ask ourselves what sort of music we should wish to hear on entering a church, we should surely, in describing our ideal, say first of all that it must be something different from what is heard elsewhere; it should be a sacred music, devoted to its purpose, a music whose peace should still passion, whose dignity should strengthen our faith, whose unquestioned beauty should find a home in our hearts, to cheer us in life and death….What power for good such music would have!

It is not that we try to canonize the old hymns and reject outright anything written more recently than a century ago. Rather, we should develop biblical principles that seek the highest and best–of both old and new. The words of James Rowe, in the gospel song Love Lifted Me, come to mind: “Love so mighty and so true merits my soul’s best songs.” In her book A Handbook for the Church Pianist (Lillenas, 1964), Wilda Jackson Auld makes a similar point to Bridges.

The church must have her own music and it should never be a mere aping of the styles of Broadway…and modern music in general….Our best music is constantly endangered by an amalgamation with the bad, or even the pretty-but-weak….Let the church enjoy and exercise her right to exalted, masterful music suited to her high calling….Do let us guard our music from the taint of a cheap, over-rhythmic, weak, petty, cluttered imitation of the current fads….Beware when a majestic hymn, well sung or played, holds no thrill of enjoyment for you. This is analogous to the jaded appetite of the child who prefers a candy bar and a Coke to a well-prepared, well-served hot meal, even with dessert!

Food for thought in view of present trends!

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

The frail old woman sits at a table in her tiny room in Seattle, Washington. Before her is a small plastic organ–one such as a child might have. But, as she fingers the keys and sings, her poor surroundings seem to fade from view, her face shines with the light of heaven, and tears trickle down her time-lined cheeks. Perhaps in her mind she is seated at a majestic pipe organ in some ornate cathedral. The place does not matter. She is intent on worshiping her Saviour.

The woman’s name is Helen. In her nineties at the time described, and with little of this world’s goods, her faith sustained her. When asked, “How are you?” her frequent reply was, “I am fine in the things that count.” (Well said!)

Helen Howarth Lemmel was born in England, the daughter of a Methodist clergyman. As a child, she was brought to America, where she spent the remainder of her life. A gifted soloist, she gave concerts in many churches, and taught voice for a time at Moody Bible Institute. She moved to Seattle in 1904, and for three years was music critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Mrs. Lemmel also authored about 500 hymns.

She wrote a lovely song–both words and music–in 1918. Helen Lemmel was given a tract by a visiting missionary. The leaflet was entitled “Focused,” and in it was this exhortation: “So then, turn your eyes upon Him [Christ]. Look full into His face and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.”

Mrs. Lemmel was riveted by those words. She says, “I stood still. And singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus, with not one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme, or note to note to make melody.” The three stanzas of the song were added later the same week.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s a light for a look at the Saviour,
And life more abundant and free!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

The Definition of Worship

Years ago, I read a definition of worship that to this day rings with clear and magnificent terms.(1) The definition comes from the famed archbishop William Temple:

"Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of the conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose—all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable."

The more I have thought of that definition, the more I am convinced that if worship is practiced with integrity in the community of God's people, potentially, worship may be the most powerful evangel for this postmodern culture of ours. It is imperative in planning the worship services that church leaders give careful attention to every element and make sure that the worship retains both integrity and purpose. People come to church generally "beaten down" by the world of deceit, distraction, and demand. There is an extraction of emotional and spiritual energy that brings them on "empty" into the community. The church's task is to so prepare during the week that it is collectively the instrument of replenishment and fresh energy of soul. Even being in the presence of fellow believers in worship is a restorer of spiritual hope. We so underestimate the power of a people in one mind and with one commitment. Even a prayer can so touch a hungry heart that it can rescue a sliding foot in a treacherous time.

A few years ago, two or three of my colleagues and I were in a country dominated for decades by Marxism. Before we began our meetings, we were invited to a dinner hosted by some common friends, all of whom were skeptics and, for all practical purposes, atheists. The evening was full of questions, posed principally by a notable theoretical physicist in the country. There were also others who represented different elements of power within that society. As the night wore on, we got the feeling that the questions had gone on long enough and that we were possibly going in circles.

At that point, I asked if we could have a word of prayer with them, for them, and for the country before we bade them good-bye. There was a silence of consternation, an obvious hesitancy, and then one said, "Of course." We did just that—we prayed. In this large dining room of historic import to them, with all the memories of secular power plastered within those walls, the prayer brought a sobering silence that we were all in the presence of someone greater than us. When we finished, every eye was moist and nothing was said. They hugged us and thanked us, with emotion written all over their faces. The next day when we met them, one of them said to me, "We did not go back to our rooms last night till it was early morning. In fact, I stayed in my hotel lobby most of the night talking further. Then I went back to my room and gave my life to Jesus Christ."

I firmly believe that it was the prayer that gave them a hint of the taste of what worship is all about. Their hearts had never experienced it.

Over the years I have discovered that praying with people can sometimes do more for them than preaching to them. Prayer draws the heart away from one's own dependence to leaning on the sovereign God. The burden is often lifted instantly. Prayer is only one aspect of worship, but one that is greatly neglected in the face of people who would be shocked to hear what prayer sounds like when the one praying knows how to touch the heart of God. To a person in need, pat answers don't change the mind; prayer does.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.(1) Adapted from Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend (Thomas Nelson, 2007), ed. by Ravi Zacharias.

C. S. Lewis on Church Music

Musical Taste

There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a blessing rests. One is where a priest or an organist, himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own (aesthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and coarser fare than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief) that he can thus bring them to God. The other is where the stupid and unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to music which he cannot, or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it somehow glorifies God, and that if it does not edify him this must be his own defect. Neither such a High Brow nor such a Low Brow can be far out of the way. To both, Church Music will have been a means of grace; not the music they have liked, but the music they have disliked. They have both offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense. But where the opposite situation arises, where the musician is filled with the pride of skill or the virus of emulation and looks with contempt on the unappreciative congregation, or where the unmusical, complacently entrenched in their own ignorance and conservatism, look with the restless and resentful hostility of an inferiority complex on all who would try to improve their taste – there, we may be sure, all that both offer is unblessed and the spirit that moves them is not the Holy Ghost.

Musical Intention

It seems to me that we must define rather carefully the way, or ways, in which music can glorify God. There is … a sense in which all natural agents, even inanimate ones, glorify God continually by revealing the powers He has given them. And in that sense we, as natural agents, do the same. On that level our wicked actions, in so far as they exhibit our skill and strength, may be said to glorify Good, as well as our good actions. An excellently performed piece of music, as natural operation which reveals in a very high degree the peculiar powers given to man, will thus always glorify God whatever the intention of the performers may be. But that is a kind of glorifying which we share with the ‘dragons and great deeps’, with the ‘frost and snows’. What is looked for in us, as men, is another kind of glorifying, which depends on intention. How easy or how hard it may be for a whole choir to preserve that intention through all the discussions and decisions, all the corrections and the disappointments, all the temptations to pride, rivalry and ambition, which precede the performance of a great work, I (naturally) do not know. But it is on the intention that all depends. When it succeeds, I think the performers are the most enviable of men; privileged while mortals to honor God like angels and, for a few golden moments, to see spirit and flesh, delight and labour, skill and worship, the natural and the supernatural, all fused into that unity they would have had before the Fall.

This was taken from an essay entitled "On Church Music" by C. S. Lewis. It can be found in a current publication called Christian Reflectionspublished by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; ISBN: 0802808697.

Break Thou the Bread of Life - (click to listen)

1. Break Thou the Bread of Life,
   Dear Lord, to me,
   As Thou didst break the loaves
   Beside the sea;
   Beyond the sacred page
   I seek Thee, Lord;
   My spirit pants for Thee,
   O Living Word.
   
   
2. Thou art the Bread of Life,
   O Lord, to me,
   Thy holy Word the truth
   That saveth me;
   Give me to eat and live
   With Thee above;
   Teach me to love Thy truth,
   For Thou art Love.
   
   
3. Oh, send Thy Spirit, Lord,
   Now unto me,
   That He may touch my eyes,
   And make me see;
   Show me the truth concealed
   Within Thy Word,
   And in Thy Book revealed
   I see the Lord.
   
   
4. Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord,
   To me, to me,
   As Thou didst bless the bread
   By Galilee;
   Then shall all bondage cease,
   All fetters fall,
   And I shall find my peace,
   My All in all.

Soul Music

Awake Early

Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.

Are you a morning person? Do you know others who claim to be night people? Whether a morning person or a night person, each of us must ask ourselves if our heart is fixed upon God.

David wrote in Psalm 108, "O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory" Whether a morning person or a night person, the one who knows and loves the Lord God can have an unperturbed heart when he sees the world reeling around him. Our hearts bow to sing and give praise with all our intellect, our skills, our resources, ourselves. It is the call to obey the command of the unperturbed heart that causes us to rise in the morning with a song on our lips. David, an early riser, not only resolved to sing and give praises to God with his lips, but he resolved to employ the use of musical instruments in that same melody of praise. He implores, "Awake, psaltery and harp." Not content with singing the praises of God alone, he will use the well-tuned strings of the psaltery and harp, and his flying fingers to accompany his vocal chords.

Still the key to his praise for God is not found in his voice or in the psaltery and harp. The key is found in his call to "awake" himself to the lively pursuit of praise to God. It is only when a thoroughly enraptured soul sings to God that his vocal praise is acceptable to Him. David says, "Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early" (Psalm 108:2). His praise to the Lord God will precede the dawn. The best and brightest hours of the day will find the psalmist heartily aroused to bless God. Not only will he awaken early to praise Him, but he will awaken every fiber of his being to praise God. Some engage in praise to God in a halfhearted manner; these sing in drawling tones, as if they were half asleep. They arise early to praise God but do not awaken their minds, their spirits, and their bodies in praise to God. Early risers who seek to please the Lord must make certain that they have awakened themselves thoroughly before they begin to praise Him, or their practice of predawn praise will be reduced to mere ritualism.

Having a time alone with God early in the morning is a blessed experience. But too often our prayer life early in the morning is burdened down with weariness, sleepiness, and a half-awake attitude toward God. When we have our morning devotions, we must be certain that we are wide awake and ready to meet with God. Then will our meeting with the Almighty be something enjoyable, something vibrant, alive, and awake.

Henry Ward Beecher relates an incident about a laborer on his father's farm in Litchfield, Connecticut. Of this laborer he said: "He had a little room, in one corner of which I had a small cot; and as a boy I used to lie there and wonder at the enthusiasm with which he engaged in his devotions. It was a regular thing. First he would read the New Testament, hardly aware that I was in the room. Then he would alternately pray and sing and laugh. I never saw the Bible enjoyed like that! But I want to bear record that his praying made a profound impression upon me. It never entered my mind whether or not his actions were appropriate. I only thought, 'How that man does enjoy it!' I gained from him more of an idea of the desirableness of rejoicing prayer than I ever did from my mother or father. He led me to see that there should be real overflowing gladness and thanksgiving in it all."

Is it any wonder that when David's heart was fixed upon God, he called himself to awaken early in praise of God. To have our minds ready, the psaltery and harp ready, but not ourselves ready is an affront to our early morning praise to God.

Let us always be alert, awake, and available to praise God early in the morning. Only as we are sufficiently alive to engage in a meaningful and enjoyable prayer life with God, will He hear us when we pray, "Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth."

MORNING HYMN

Oh, the pure delight of a single hour

That before Thy throne I spend,

When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God,

I commune as friend with friend!

Be Still and Know that I Am God -

Full moon on a silver sea, throwing into sharp relief the luminous rocks. I sat in the antique rocking chair by the window, a cup of hot Postum in my hand, fascinated by the undulation of great swaths of foam on the ocean, almost fluorescent in the moonlight.

Stillness. Perfect stillness. It is a very great gift, not always available to those who would most appreciate it and would find joy in it, and often not appreciated by those who have it but are uncomfortable with it. External noise is inescapable in many places--traffic on land and in the air, sirens, horns, chain saws, loud voices and, perhaps worst of all, screaming rock music with thundering amplification which makes the very ground shudder.

I think it is possible to learn stillness--but only if it is seriously sought. God tells us, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10, NIV). "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength" (Isaiah 30:15, KJV).

The stillness in which we find God is not superficial, a mere absence of fidgeting or talking. It is a deliberate and quiet attentiveness--receptive, alert, ready. I think of what Jim Elliot wrote in his Journal: "Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."

This is not so difficult, perhaps, for a sports fan, eyes riveted on the game. For me, however, this quietness in the presence of God, this being "all there" for Him, though I treasure it and long for it, is not easy to maintain, even in the beautiful place where I live. I am easily distracted, more so, it seems, as soon as I try to focus on God Himself and nothing else. Why should this be? I think C.S. Lewis puts his finger right on it in The Screwtape Letters, which purports to be the correspondence between Screwtape, under-secretary to the devil, and his nephew, Wormwood, instructing him in the best ways to tempt the followers of the Enemy, God:

"My dear Wormwood: Music and silence--how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell--though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express, no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise--Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile--Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress."

C.S. Lewis died in 1963. Research in noise-making has made considerable progress since then, don't you think? To learn stillness we must resist our ancient foe, whose craft and power are great, and who is armed with cruel hate. There is One far greater who is on our side. His voice brought stillness to fierce winds and wild waves, and He will surely help us if we put ourselves firmly and determinedly in His presence--"I'm here, Lord. I'm listening." If no word seems to be forthcoming, remember "it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord," and "when He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?" (Lamentations 3:26, NIV; Job 34:29, KJV).

Silence is one form of worship. When the seventh seal was opened (in St. John's Revelation), there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. What would happen in our homes if we should try to prepare ourselves for those heavenly silences by having just one half-hour when there is no door slamming, no TV, no stereo or video, and a minimum of talk, in quiet voices? Wouldn't it also be a calming thing just to practice the stillness which is the absence of motion? My father used to have us try this every now and then. Why not try a Quiet Day or even a Quiet Week without the usual noises? It might open vistas of the spiritual life hitherto closed, a depth of communion with the Lord impossible where there is nothing but noise. Does God seem absent? Yes, for most of us He sometimes does. Even at such a time may we not simply be still before Him, trusting that He reads the perplexity we cannot put into words?

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart
Scripture Reference: Lamentations 3:26 Isaiah 30:15 Job 34:29 Psalm 46:10