In Part 1 I discussed how dangerous it is for our worship to be uninspired and in Part 2 I talked about how often our worship music can be cheap and its impact on the gospel. For part 3 I’m going to discuss how safe our worship music can be.

3. Safe

The ugly art on my hotel room wall was meant to be as inoffensive, innocuous and unspectacular as possible. It’s vanilla, bland, no rough edges and probably shown to a panel of people making sure they see nothing that could possibly be misconstrued as inappropriate or offense. Hmm this is reminding me of about 90% of the Christian music I’ve heard, despite us writing for and singing about Jesus, the most offensive and divisive person in all of human history.

Music

Many would argue that our worship music should be safe, that the music should be as broadly appealing as possible. I understand the argument and even agree with the intention, but I don’t believe having a band play bland music accomplishes the desired goal. Safe, bland, plastic worship music may not offend your congregation but it certainly won’t captivate them either. I much more appreciate strong reaction to music either positive or negative, as opposed to apathy.

If we’re reaching diverse people in our community you can imagine how much diversity you have in music taste in your congregation. I’ve found trying to have a single band appeal to all those tastes is a lesson in futility. In my church context we hope to present multiple bands that each excel in their music style and don’t play safe. In that collection of bands hopefully we show that Jesus is glorified in through many different styles.

But whatever the style, if the fear of man (congregation’s response) is the motivation in your music rather than the gospel and the passion gifted to you by God, and safety and refuge are found in human approval rather than Jesus, well that’s an incredibly dangerous position to be in.

Lyrics

A quite similar situation is found in our worship lyrics. It’s almost like we want our congregations to be able to zone out and sing without even thinking about what they are singing. Why else would we have such a narrow context in worship and use so much stale language to communicate the glory of Jesus? When I listen to a lot of Christian music it sounds like the words were written during their lunch break at work. I don’t often get a sense of toil, struggle and meditation in worship songs on what should be sung and how best to deliver it lyrically. You can’t read the Psalms and not hear the struggle and toil in those words and stories.

One huge reason for this is the sense that many songwriters have that as long as it’s from the heart it’s good. Spill our guts and God is glorified. Can we engage our minds in the process? Can we worship with all our heart and all our mind? You can’t read the Psalms and not see David’s mind spinning around the majesty of God, the metaphors that bring it to light, the examples found on earth, the implications of it on our lives. God is so rich and when we take the safe, well traveled path lyrically I think we’ve disengaged from the wonder of God in either our hearts or minds, and sometimes both.

Example

Your congregation is really struggling to deal with the recent diagnosis of cancer among members of your congregation and leadership and your pastor asks you to write a song about it. The safe thing is to sing about the goodness of God in heaven, God is the great physician and will heal, that we should cast fear aside and worship in joy. All true, but is there even a greater truth to be sung here?

The dangerous thing to do would be to sing of the goodness of God in cancer, sing of God as our healer and whether we are healed in the flesh or if we die that he’s healed our spirit and Jesus has reconciled us to the Father and that we fear nothing but God himself and worship in joy, but also through our pain, disappointment, sickness, success, failure, through all of it because we are obsessed with his glory.

Conclusion

Worship leaders, remember you serve the church and it’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. Serving them doesn’t mean gaining their approval though. Serve them by glorifying Jesus by singing about all of who God is. Do the music God has gifted you to play, given you the authority to play and given you a passion to play. Push yourself creatively in your music and lyrics to find new ways to tell the story of the gospel and majesty of Christ. Some people may hate your music, does that bother you more than compromising the conviction in your spirit? Some people may love your music, does that give you more joy that the smile of the face of God? Stop fearing man more than God. Stop seeking the applause of man more than the delight of Christ.

Related posts

• 5 ways worship music can be like bad hotel art – Part 2 (2)
• 5 ways worship music can be like bad hotel art – Part 1 (4)
• Top 5 things I dislike about being a worship leader (13)