The 6 Marks of Progressive Christian Worship Music

By BRYAN J. SIRCHIO

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Bryan J. Sirchio
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-4957-4

Contents

Some Preliminary Words from the Author………………………………………..viiIntroduction: Why I Wrote This Book, and Who I Hope Will Read It…………………xiiiChapter 1: Praise, Justice, and the Fullness of Human Experience…………………3Chapter 2: Inclusive language………………………………………………..8Chapter 3: Progressive Theology………………………………………………23Chapter 4: An Emphasis On Both The Individual And The Community………………….34Chapter 5: Emotional Authenticity…………………………………………….42Chapter 6: Fresh Images, Ideas, and Language…………………………………..51Chapter 7: Worship And The Purpose of Worship Music…………………………….65Chapter 8: Musical Styles And The “Language of the Heart”……………………….80Chapter 9: Worship, Performance, And Ego Work………………………………….92Chapter 10: Some Thoughts About Worship Songs………………………………….102Chapter 11: A Progressive Approach to the Bible………………………………..113Chapter 12: More About Progressive Theology……………………………………129Chapter 13: Some Closing Thoughts and Invitations………………………………157Chapter 14: Sources of Progressive Christian Worship Music………………………160

Chapter One

Mark 1—An Emphasis on Praise, Justice, and the Fullness of Human Experience

Most of us are familiar with what is often referred to as “praise and worship music.” This is the name of the genre of contemporary worship music that you’ll find most often on the web or in Christian bookstores. There’s some great stuff available in and through these stores and websites and the Christian Music industry they represent. Most of it is about giving thanks, praise, and adoration to God. There’s nothing wrong with that, and this book is not going to be a put down or critique of that kind of worship music or the industry from which it emerges (not that some critique might not be warranted!).

But the main point of this first mark is that there’s more to worship than praising God.

Praising God is extremely important. It’s crucial. Proponents of Progressive Christian Worship Music will also release and promote new songs which help us to praise God.

But there are two primary reasons why many more progressive Christians are a bit weary of some of the “praising” that permeates “praise and worship” music.

First, the praising is sometimes full of what many have come to regard as worn-out Christian buzzwords and clichés. More about this will be explored in chapter six which focuses on the need for “Fresh Language, Ideas, and Images.” There are some wonderful worship artists in the praise and worship world these days who are writing fresh and beautiful new praise songs, so I don’t want to be unfair or uncharitable here. And, this book is in no way meant to be a put-down of contemporary praise and worship music. There are plenty of Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman songs for example that I think are great, though I usually find myself wanting to tweak the lyrics a bit so that they line up with one or more of the other five marks that we’ll get to later on in this book.

But the second and probably more important reason why many progressive Christians sometimes grow tired of the emphasis on praise in a lot of “praise and worship music” is that praise is only one aspect of the overall experience of worshipping God. In addition to praising God, there are many other dimensions or modes of Christian experience and living that we would like to be able to sing about when we gather for worship. We don’t have to sing about every area of life and faith in every song or even every service—that would be exhausting. But we want to do more than simply praise God when we sing in the context of worship.

There are some worship leaders and theologians who would probably argue that the only legitimate purpose of worship is to praise, thank, adore, and “magnify” God. Such persons often suggest that songs of exhortation and challenge are not appropriate for worship. But most progressive Christian worship musicians would disagree with this. Yes, we believe that praise and gratitude are key components of worship. But we contend that worship also involves listening for and responding to God’s Word and God’s presence, getting more deeply in touch with our own hearts and lives in relationship to God, responding to the calls to justice and service, and being in community with the others who are gathered for worship.

The Psalms of course are the primary “book of songs” in the Bible. They were often used by the people of Israel in the context of worship, and they encompass many topics in addition to praising God. There are other emotional and experiential tones in the Psalms—there is disappointment and anger and frustration (“How long O Lord!”)—there are laments and words of grief and expressions of guilt and confession. There are calls to do justice, to treat workers fairly, and to offer compassion to the poor. There are reflections on the beauty of the earth and the magnificence of the universe. In other words, the full range of human experience in relationship to God and others is present in this book of “worship songs.”

So, Progressive Christian Worship Music will include plenty of what are sometimes referred to as “vertical songs”—songs that help individuals and groups of people lift up their voices in heart-felt praise and gratitude to God.

But Progressive Christian Worship Music will also include “horizontal songs”—songs that encourage us to live out our faith with integrity and passion. Songs that help us to express our sadness, pain, joy, and longing. Songs that call us to be in loving relationships with others, and to do the work of justice and peace, and to find strength to be faithful even when responding to God’s call is costly and painful.

From Praise to Transformation

When every contemporary worship song is a happy song of praise to God, the music and the worship often start to feel a bit mono-faceted and sometimes like a bit “too much sugar.” And, constantly telling God how great God is—no matter how sincere we might be—can also start to feel a bit too “flat.”

To be blunt, God is not a Divine Ego-Maniac who needs to be told how wonderful He or She is all the time.

Yes, God is great, awesome, magnificent, worthy, etc. But according to Scripture, God is sometimes “still and small,” vulnerable, apparently weak, and a friend of moral failures. God also tells us in Amos 5:23 that the songs we sing in worship are nothing more than “noise” in God’s ears if they do not somehow lead us to build a more just world. So again, Progressive Christian Worship Music will do more than proclaim how “high and lifted up!” God is.

Please don’t misunderstand what’s being said here. Praising God is both powerful and necessary. When we praise God we are helped to take our eyes off ourselves and to find our own rightful place in the order and balance of the universe. Praise helps lead us into a place of gratitude and love, and that is always a holy and life-giving place. It reminds us that not everything is about human initiative, and that we are much more contingent and dependent and interdependent than we often want to acknowledge. Praise helps us to be humble and grateful. Praise also somehow puts us in a frame of heart, mind, and spirit in which we are more able to cooperate and co-create with God. Psalm 22:3 tells us that “God inhabits the praises of God’s people.” In other words, God “shows up” in some uniquely powerful ways when people give thanks and praise, and we want to encourage and experience God’s presence in every way we can. So let’s sing praise and gratitude to God with our whole beings in musical styles that touch our hearts.

But let’s also sing about the rest of life in relation to God’s desires and intention, and about our own broken and beautiful experiences of life in all its fullness. And, let’s sing songs that move us (as individuals and as groups of people) to boldly respond to God’s invitations to be agents of healing, love, peace, justice, and transformation.

Chapter One: Questions For Discussion

1. Think about a time of group worship in which you experienced “praising God” in a particularly powerful way. What was powerful about this experience?

2. Do you have any thoughts to share or to add to what this chapter says about why praising God is important?

3. Think about something you’ve experienced in worship that was particularly meaningful but that did not have anything to do with praising God directly. What are some of the other things we do in worship in addition to giving God praise? Which are most meaningful to you?

4. Can you think of times when a song (with or without words) has helped you to do something other than praise God in the context of worship? Describe what this song was like and how it touched you.

5. Share with each other some of the songs you’ve either heard or that you actually use in worship that help you to praise God with passion and joy.

Chapter Two

Mark 2—Inclusive language

If inclusive language is a completely new topic to you, this chapter may blow your mind a bit. This is a topic that tends to evoke strong reactions in people. For some folks, inclusive language seems “overly nitpicky,” especially at first. For others, this whole area of concern is one in which progressive Christians sometimes come across as being rigid and just a bit too “politically correct.”

But, as I’ve written earlier, language matters. It matters a lot.

Being intentional about inclusive language is ultimately a matter of doing our best to make sure that our language is expressive of what we truly do and don’t believe and stand for as Christians. It’s about practicing and living out the extravagant welcome and love and respect that is at the heart of the Gospel.

Inclusivity is more than just about gender issues. But when it comes to gender, inclusive language is about making sure that both “maleness” and “femaleness” are fully welcome and respected and therefore included in the language we use to talk about God, the Christian faith, and life in general.

The Need for Respect and Mercy

As strongly as I feel about the importance of using inclusive language, I also think it’s vital to approach this subject with great respect for the deep feelings connected to just about every side of this conversation. Folks tend to have strong opinions when it comes to gender related issues, especially in connection with the Church and the history of Christianity.

People also tend to have strong feelings attached to the hymns and songs they grew up singing in church. There have been many attempts in recent years to rework the language of some of the beloved old traditional hymns in order to make the words more inclusive, and these attempts have been controversial to say the least. Any conversation about changing the words of familiar and much loved songs is likely to cause some powerful sentiments to surface.

The importance of being sensitive regarding the issue of inclusive language was underscored powerfully to me by Christian educator Tex Sample in an address I heard him give in 2000. Evidently Rev. Sample learned the hard way how crucial it is to honor the feelings and experiences people have in connection with traditional hymns, even when we may not like either the language or the theology of certain songs.

In the address I heard Tex Sample give, he recounted a church gathering during which he had strongly critiqued the theology and language of the well know hymn, “In The Garden.” He talked about things like the “privatistic individualism” of “coming to the garden alone” (we’ll get into that more in another chapter). He picked apart the use of exclusively male pronouns for God (we’ll get to that in a minute). Suffice it to say that Dr. Sample pretty much tore this old hymn apart, and at times made fun of its message and imagery as being overly sentimental and too “sugary.”

But after he had finished his address, a woman from the audience approached him. She was obviously deeply upset. Through tears, she explained that she had been through some terribly painful things in her life, and that the words and meaning of “In The Garden” had literally kept her from committing suicide. She talked about how being able to “walk and talk alone in the garden with her Father God” had helped her hang on to life itself when she was tempted to completely give up hope and do something tragically self-destructive. She concluded by saying firmly to Rev. Sample,

“Don’t ever talk about `my hymn’ like that again.”

I share the above anecdote to underscore the importance of framing this conversation about inclusive language with deep respect for how emotionally powerful this subject can be. I feel very strongly about the importance of inclusive language. I also want to meet and honor you readers wherever you may happen to be at this point in your life and your spiritual journey. We don’t have to ultimately agree when it comes to the importance of inclusive language, but the purpose of this chapter is to at least help you to understand what it is and why it’s such an important element of Progressive Christian Worship Music.

Inclusive Language Regarding Humankind

Did you notice that I wrote “humankind” in the title of this section instead of “mankind?” That’s an example of inclusive language.

Proponents of inclusive language feel strongly that it is important to include and honor both genders in the language we use, and not to simply use male dominated pronouns when we are referring to both men and women.

We do this based on the conviction that God honors and loves men and women equally, and we go out of our way to use this kind of language deliberately because of our awareness that women have historically been devalued in many cultures, including the culture of the Church. The Church has been particularly “male dominated” over the years in the language it has used publically in the context of worship. The Church has also historically been overtly patriarchal and at times “sexist” in the way that it has structured itself organizationally.

Our overall reading of scripture, together with our own human experience, leads progressive Christians to conclude that any form of exclusion, devaluation, or oppression of women, especially in the name of Christianity, is a tragic misreading of Scripture and of God’s original design and intention.

It is beyond the scope of this book to try to get into all the controversies connected to gender and gender roles in particular in the Bible. There are scores of wonderful books and articles written about this for those of you who want to explore this further (Google “inclusive language and the Bible” or “feminist theology” and you’ll be well on your way). Suffice it to say for our purposes here though that Progressive Christian Worship Music will always show a deliberate attempt to include and honor the value and dignity of women and men equally.

We do not embrace this priority because we are trying to be progressive or “politically correct.” We embrace this priority because we are led by the example of Jesus and the overall message of Scripture to do so.

Jesus Was Radically Inclusive

We sometimes miss how radically inclusive and “pro woman” Jesus was. This is primarily because we often do not know much about the historical context in which Jesus lived.

In first century Palestine, it was considered culturally inappropriate and religiously taboo for a man to have conversation in public with a woman who was not his wife. It was taboo for a man to publically touch a woman who was not his wife. It was considered “ritually unclean” for a man to touch a menstruating woman. And yet, in the healing stories of Jesus, we find him affirming the value and dignity of women in all of these ways.

Jesus constantly crossed the lines that a “good respectable Jewish man” was forbidden to cross in his culture in order to validate the worth and dignity of women—the “daughters of Abraham.” Luke 8 makes it very clear also that Jesus was the kind of rare rabbi who welcomed female disciples. These women traveled around openly with Jesus and the twelve. It is probably not fair in some ways to superimpose the term “feminist” upon Jesus, but he was undeniably and radically “pro woman” in every conceivable way.

Moving Beyond Our Own Cultural Conditioning

Many of us grew up just assuming that male-dominated terms such as “mankind” really mean “men and women.” This is a very common response I hear when I give workshops that cover the topic of inclusive language. I hear this from men and women, and often most strongly from more conservative women. They say things like, “I know that women are included when someone says, `mankind.’ Why do we have to make such a big deal over such a small thing?”

To this I can only respond by saying that once a person truly “wakes up” to all the tragic and sometimes subtle ways in which women have been (and often still are) historically devalued, then the inclusive, welcoming, all embracing love of Christ within us does not give us the option of not noticing or caring when we sense women are being excluded from our language—or from anything else for that matter.

That was a long sentence, but I think it might be worth reading again …

In other words, once you “get it” regarding the oppression and subjugation of women throughout history and how this is reflected in our language, you can’t “not get it.” You start to see and notice it everywhere, and you begin to realize just how much language really does matter.

(Continues…)

Excerpted from The 6 Marks of Progressive Christian Worship Musicby BRYAN J. SIRCHIO Copyright © 2012 by Bryan J. Sirchio. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.