What I Learned Listening to New Worship Music For An Entire Year Part 2: (no) clapping!, over-the-top bridges, worshipping in the round, less music please, tricked by slick production, Hillsong is meh, and none of us are missing out

This is part 2 of my reflections on listening to new worship music for an entire year.
You can read part 1 here.
You can read my Best New Worship Music list here.

What I Learned Listening to New Worship Music For An Entire Year Part 1: no melodies, beards, cuss words and Mumford and Sons ripoffs

Let's play spot the differences: One of these images is of Mumford and Sons, one is a worship band, and one
is of Civil War soldiers. Can you tell which is which? It might be harder than you think.

I have intentionally listened to new "praise and worship" music over the course of the last year. Here is my initial listening list: The Great Worship Music Binge of 2015. And here are the songs that made my final list of songs I plan/hope to sing in my church: The Best New Worship Music.

I had hoped my experiment would only take a couple of months, but I felt compelled to keep listening and listening in the hopes of being fair to all the potential "new" music in existence. The process soon became overwhelming and my ears grew weary and tired. I decided to have short but concentrated listening sessions: an evening here and there, a few afternoons right in a row.

Eventually, I came to a consensus of songs I liked, though I still feel like I have done a gross disservice to the numerous songs I have failed to even get to. Oh well...

Throughout this process I began to make a number of observations and reflections on what I was listening to. Here now are my thoughts.

The Best New Worship Music (According to PostConsumer Reports)

Off and on for the past year I have spent concentrated times listening to "new" worship music for my church to sing. I am listening to "new" music even now as I type this, feeling like I am cramming for a final! This process has been intense people!

There is so much worship music and hymnody out there it is impossible to even attempt to get to it all. To illustrate I will tell a parable.

The "Golden Ages" of Worship Music: which one is yours?

Last week I put up an extensive history of what I would call my "Golden Age" of worship music. Actually, it was not extensive at all, but only the tip of the iceberg—oh well! 1994-2004 was my personal "good old days", when worship music was done right and not like the garbage they are putting out today! (said like an old man sitting on his porch with a shotgun across his lap, a scowl on his face, and an old dusty hymnal open to his favorite song).

The fact of the matter is that there are any of a number of "Golden Ages" of worship music, depending on who you talk to. My hope is to briefly document a number of those "ages" here. 

Worship Music's "Good Old Days": Featuring Vineyard Music, Delirious?, Revival Generation & Darrell Evans

This article is part of an ongoing series called Worship in Full Spectrum: to find truths within the paradoxes of the Church's worship and its worship music.

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Here now is a brief history of the Golden Age of Worship Music (according to me). 

Chasing The "Ghosts of Worship Past"—a worship leader's lament

This article is part of the ongoing series Worship in Full Spectrum: finding truths within the paradoxes of the Church's worship and its worship music.

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"I have frequently noticed that Jesus doesn't want me to lay up provisions; He nourishes me at each moment with a totally new food; I find it within me without my knowing how it is there. I believe it is Jesus Himself hidden in the depths of my poor little heart: He is giving me the grace of acting within me, making me think of all He desires me to do at the present moment."

—St Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul

A couple of months ago I was engaged in a great discussion with a good friend of mine where we attempted to figure out what exactly is the state of "contemporary worship music" in our churches. He comes out of the “Reformed” tradition but currently goes to a non-denominational congregation that focuses on exegetical preaching as well as a mixture of “contemporary” and “traditional” music in worship. Myself, I am an Evangelical Anglican music pastor who places a high value on liturgy and sacrament, all while also attempting a similar balance of music in worship. My friend (who plays guitar in his congregation's worship band) has some serious doubts about the musical and lyrical validity of many of the new songs being spit out of the worship music industrial complex and he also is seriously put off by the Big Show we have made our times of worship into. He does not see the lights, the noisiness, and the spectacle as edifying.

"I don't care if the church will sing it in 2065": Questions From Jeremiah Gibbs

Ha ha! This comic is SO funny! Even if it is basically an ignorant and unfair stereotype

Last week I published an article calling for a discussion on what it would take to form a "Canon of Contemporary Worship Music." A canon is a measurement, a ruler, of what is best in any given field of knowledge. Within the realm of church music hymnals have traditionally functioned as their "canon". They contain a set amount of songs a committee has thought about, prayed about, sung, and eventually voted on. But it would be very difficult to create a comprehensive and fair modern day hymnal, especially one that would incorporate what is known as "contemporary" worship music. The first difficulty is our music (and even lyrics) tends to be disposable and the second difficulty is there is just too much of it out there to sift through.

My friend, Dr. Jeremiah Gibbs, had some push back for me in my search for the contemporary canon. His questions were thought provoking enough that I thought they deserved worthy answers. Jeremiah is University Chaplain and Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Indianapolis. He blogs at: https://jeremiahgibbs.com/ Next month I will be featuring an interview with him on the PostConsumer Reports Podcast about his book Apologetics After Lindbeck. 

Will it Endure?: The Search for a Canon of Contemporary Worship Music

"Our church won't do any songs over a year old..." Then write better songs. If you're sick of it after a year, it was never good enough. 
A tweet from worship leader Aaron Keyes, 20 September, 2013

Part 1—What If There Were Less New Worship Songs?
Every time I go to select the music my church will sing during worship there is one simple question lurking behind every decision:

I wonder if people will still be singing this song in a hundred years?

Hymnals = Vinyl Records: The case for and against hymnals in worship

For music lovers there has been a resurgence of vinyl sales over the past decade. (Or so they say.) The story goes that once tape cassettes and CD's were introduced into the music industry artists put their music on records at a steeply decreasing rate. Now, through illegal downloading services, itunes, Youtube, and through all the many streaming services even the compact disc has become obsolete. But in the midst of the binary age (some) people realized they love their music in a physical form, loved the "warmer" sound of "analog" recordings, and loved spending lots of money on audio equipment. Records are back baby! From used record stores, to remastered reissues of classic albums, to entirely new albums, people are buying and listening to music on records again.

Worship in Full Spectrum: An Introduction

And so Jesus, in answering the question "Who is the greatest?", said to his disciples "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all," and then another time, referring to those who are worthy of following him, he said "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Mark 9:35 and Matthew 10:39)

Christians have come to see the above contradictory statements as true not merely because their Lord said it to them, but because within the perplexing contradictions there is indeed great truth. This perplexity is the beauty and mystery of paradox, of two contradictory ideas coming together to form a greater truth, to reveal greater mystery.  Some paradoxes consist merely of frustrating mind games which lead nowhere, but paradoxes of any worth lead us to greater heights, despite any initial confusion they may cause.  So in the case of Jesus' latter paradox above, the only way to find our true life while on earth is to lose our lives entirely, only to be found in Christ.  Thus, in giving up everything, we gain true life.

This is the aim of my series Worship in Full Spectrum: to find truths within the paradoxes of the Church's worship and its worship music.  Or perhaps my aim is to create paradoxes about worship and worship music in order to lead us to a greater understanding of it.  My belief is we will arrive at the greatest truths by simultaneously embracing concepts that seem to contradict each other, that in order to be what we want to be we will have to become its (seeming) opposite.

I Am An Irrelevant Worship Pastor

I am the worship and music pastor of a small church community in Peoria, Illinois.  I have been planting this church with another pastor going on 5 years now and thus I am a bi-vocational pastor, taking in very little income from my ministry job.

Every week when I go to select the music we are going to sing at my church the next Sunday a number of immediate tensions rise up within me.  Tensions in the form of questions so high in number that if I let them they would absolutely paralyze my ability to pick the music at all. For example:

Worship Music Should Be Radically Contemporary

Wait...who exactly are we worshipping again?

A recent article is making its way around the worship music circles, "The Imminent Decline of Contemporary Worship Music: Eight Reasons" by T. David Gordon, and by way of it's title it is causing a decent amount of buzz (I'm prone to writing titles like that myself, most especially in my article "The Moment I Began to Lose Faith in Contemporary Worship Music"). Articles such as this also tend to warrant lots of responses, so I figure I would step in the ring and have a go at a round. Musician and church music leader Fernando Ortega pointed it out to me, who I hear might be writing some "contemporary" worship songs himself at the moment. Let's pray for him! We all hope he gets his new songs "right"! (No pressure!) But seriously, lets pray for him—his art is a blessing to the Church.

There is a lot to be commended in the article. That is, there is a lot I agree with, most especially his concerns with the disposable nature of contemporary worship music. It is novelty music, here today, gone tomorrow, and is not excellent enough art to endure throughout generations. I would also want to resound his points about its (general) lack theological depth and poetic excellence in its lyrics (where that is the case), as well as its unhealthy connections to our overly saturated entertainment culture and industry.

However, there are two points in his article I believe deserve a pushback:
1. That the "old hymns" are by default superior.
and
2. That "contemporary worship" as a term is an oxymoron.

The Moment I Began to Lose Faith in Contemporary Worship Music

It was strange how it happened, the time I began to lose faith in contemporary worship music. 

Record Review: Matt Redman's Unbroken Praise

It must be tough being Matt Redman. Or should I say, it must be tough being an aging worship leader, especially a worship leader who is known for writing and recording your own songs, because the one thought looming in the background every time you write something new certainly must be "Can I replicate what I did before? Can I get the Church to sing again? How do I write another song like that?"

What I am about to say might sound like snark but I assure you it is not. Matt Redman has a serious problem on his hands: he is getting older and on his new album Unbroken Praise it is starting to show.

The Great Worship Music Binge of 2015

2015 will be the year I look back on as the time I consumed more worship music than could ever be deemed healthy or even sane.

You see, I have a lot of catching up to do.

Ever since graduating seminary in 2010 I have hardly listened to any new worship music or even taken the time to learn "new" old hymns. 
(UPDATE: If you are curious what songs made my final list, you can find them here:
The Best New Worship Music (according to PostConsumer Reports) )

The Multiverse of a Worship Song: Matt Redman's "This Beating Heart"

Welcome to the multiverse, where all your worship needs will be fulfilled...

Recently I was listening to the latest Matt Redman record, Your Grace Finds Me (2013), which I pretty much like and am still trying to figure out which songs from it I want to sing at my church (I know, my process of deliberation is slow and tedious). Well, when the song "This Beating Heart" came on it was immediately clear this song, more than others, was the "Mumford-and-Sons-bandwagon-song." You know, because of the kids. 

Assessing the Top 5 Worship Songs List

This week I put up a list of "The Top 5 Worship Songs From the Past 10 Years."  Actually, there were 4 top 5 lists, as I asked some of my church music leader friends to contribute. I had some followup thoughts to this post and wanted to share them, along with an un-scientific assessment of the lists.

The assessment will be first: 

Ask a Worship Pastor #2: The top 5 worship songs from the past 10 years

This is part 2 in the "Ask a Worship Pastor" series. Part 1, which asked "What is the biggest misconception about your job?" can be found here. My followup thought to the Top 5 list can be found here.

Over the past 20 years the worship music industry has grown to be quite expansive.

Ask a Worship Pastor #1: What is the biggest misconception about your job?

A little while ago a friend of mine suggested I do an "Ask a Music Minister" segment on my blog and then she gave me a few questions she would like answered. I thought the idea sounded great, but I didn't want to be the only one to give the answers. I happen to know a decent amount of worship music leaders in the Peoria (Illinois) area and I thought I would get them in on this project. I knew their answers would be different from mine and that is what I hope readers will find interesting.

This week our question, asked by my friend Jayme is:
"What is the biggest misconception about your job?

4 things I learned about worship by being on a podcast

Last week I was on a local podcast, called "The Walrus and the Carpenter". I spoke on worship, liturgy, worship music, and the sacraments. You can listen to it or download it here: 

High Church, Low Church, Some Church, No Church

Of course, I highly recommend you do so.