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Introducing Our New Blog Team

Thank You

One of the first things we did when launching The Center for Congregational Song in the Fall of 2017 was to put together a team of young bloggers who had a solid education under their belts, lots of new ideas, and energy to crank out lots of great posts. I was constantly amazed at the depth and breadth of the content they created on our behalf and am so grateful for the many years they all put into volunteering their time and expertise. It’s been almost six years since the team began and they’ve written 120 blogs over that time. Many of them have now taken faculty positions, changed to new churches, had children, and…wow life moves quickly! So it is time to say thank you to the authors who made up our team from 2017 through 2022:

Rosa Cándida Ramírez, Adam Perez, Ginny Chilton Maxwell, David Bjorlin, Felicia Patton, Rylan A. Harris, and Emorja Roberson

 

Welcome!

As we move into the post-pandemic world, we get to welcome a new set of writers for our blog. I’m excited to see what new insights they will bring and what ideas they will challenge us with. So, welcome to our new blog team!

 

Yvette Lau

After obtaining her first and second bachelor degrees in Translation and Chinese (HKPU), and Music (CUHK) respectively and worked in music related work in the government and later in the church in Hong Kong, Yvette Lau furthered her study at Calvin Theological Seminary for M. A. in Worship (2008-2010). She served as a worship pastor in Hong Kong for several years after her graduation at Calvin. She also served as one of the executive committee members of the Hong Kong Hymn Society from 2011-2017. She served at the Worship Committee for the CMA Church Union of HK from 2006-2021. In 2017, she founded Anabas Ministry which is an organization for worship renewal and started to work as a freelancer for worship related ministries including consultancy work. Her passion lies in choral conducting, song writing, hymn translation from English to Cantonese (main translator for New Youth Hymns), event organization, translation of books on worship including The Art of Worship, Beyond the Worship Wars, The Worship Architect, and Glory to God, and training and teaching on worship. She has been the guest instructor on Worship for Alliance Bible Seminary, China Graduate School of Theology, Bethel Bible Seminary, and Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary. She is now pursuing Doctor of Pastoral Music at Perkins, SMU under the direction and supervision of Prof. C. Michael Hawn.

 

Shannan Baker

Shannan Baker is a postdoctoral fellow in music and digital humanities at Baylor University, where she recently finished her Ph.D. in Church Music (2022).  Her research interests focus on contemporary worship. She studies the theology and content of the lyrics, the music of the songs, the worship music industry, and how contemporary worship is used in the church.  While her current role focuses on research, she searches for ways to connect that research practically to the church.  Recently, she received the Vital Worship Teacher-Scholar grant from the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship which allowed her to start the contemporary worship training workshops for the Church Music program at Baylor.

While Shannan currently lives in Waco, Texas, she is originally from Michigan. She received her B.A. in Music (Worship Arts) from Cornerstone University (2016), and an M.A. in Worship (2018) and Th.M. with a concentration in worship (2019) from Calvin Theological Seminary.  Also in Grand Rapids, she served as the worship director for Monroe Community Church for three years.  Currently, she volunteers at her local church where she leads worship and plays various instruments including drums, keys, acoustic guitar, and bass.

 

Mykayla Turner

Mykayla Turner is a Master of Sacred Music student attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Under the direction of Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel, her thesis research focuses on the role of music in rural congregations. Mykayla has completed graduate coursework at Conrad Grebel University College and Southern Methodist University in both theological studies and church music. She is an active church musician and liturgist in both Mennonite and ecumenical contexts. In 2023, Mykayla obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance.

 

Puentes Reminder

And don’t forget that we’ve also recently started the bilingual Spanish/English blog “Puentes (Bridges)” under the direction of blog editor Maria Monteiro. You can sign up for that specific newsletter here or just go directly to the website at: https://puentes.congregationalsong.org/

 

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Blogger David Bjorlin is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago), a lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago), and a published hymnwriter.

 

If you’re a worship leader or planner, entering into a new season of the Church Year may find you feeling exhilaration and exhaustion. At least, I know that’s true for me. It’s exciting to enter a familiar story and have a solid frame around which to build the service, but it can also feel like you used up all your creative ideas and favorite songs last year—or maybe those were even leftovers from the year before! It can seem easier to simply trot out the tried and true war horses that you know will get the job done than find new songs. 

There is nothing wrong with using the familiar classics; in fact, I would argue that especially in these times of social and political upheaval, we should be using well-known songs that help ground our congregations when they do not have the support of an embodied congregation around them. Yet, there is also something pastoral about helping people encounter newness even in seasons of change, reminding them that adaptation and adjustment are also part of a healthy spirituality. 

 

Buried Treasures

So, as we enter the season of Lent this year, I want to give you some of my Lenten buried treasures that you might find helpful as we begin our journey to the cross and empty tomb.

 

“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”

I know calling this George Matheson hymn a “buried treasure” might be a stretch, but the more obscure hymn tune has often left this beautiful text unsung. Yet, as we begin this season of repentance and introspection, I believe it is important to be reminded that we do so accompanied by a God whose love will not let us go, whose light will follow us wherever we go, whose joy will seek us even in our pain, and whose cross will lift up our heads. For those like me who find the original tune difficult for a congregation to sing, there are two excellent alternatives written by Indelible Grace’s Chris Miner (video left) and composer Ben Brody (PDF right).

Tune by Ben Brody

 

 

 

“Lay Me Low”

This traditional Shaker hymn’s message may at first appear counterintuitive or even unnecessarily negative:
 Lay me low, where the Lord can find me.
 Lay me low, where the Lord can hold me.
 Lay me low, where the Lord can bless me.
 Lay me low, oh, lay me low.

Rather than seeing this as asking God to do us harm or kick our legs out from under us, singing this song during Lent can be a prayer to slow down, to embrace the rhythms of nature and live closer to the earth where God is always at work when we take the time to notice. When I introduce this song, I often give this disclaimer to help place it into a healthier spiritual context. The tune I like to use was composed by Daniel Schwandt and is taught here by Music That Makes Community’s Executive Director Paul Vasile.

 

“Kyrie Eleison” (Kim/Rethmeier)

During the season of Lent, our community often uses a sung kyrie during our time of confession. After about five years of doing this, I realized I needed to start expanding our kyrie canon. While I did not expect to find too many kyries in more contemporary praise and worship styles, I was pleasantly surprised to find two that our community has embraced. The first, written by the Vineyard’s Ted Kim and Cindy Rethmeier, uses both traditional confessional language (“For the things we’ve done and left undone”) and a more contemporary language (“For the ways we’ve wandered from your heart”) and musical style to sing a corporate confession. Both a recording and chord chart can be found here.



“Kyrie Eleison” (Mejias)

The second, by High Street Hymn’s Alex Mejias, uses a simpler cyclical structure with only the traditional words of the kyrie (Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy) and a potent key change to compose an eminently singable song.

 

“Come All You Vagabonds” (Townend)

Those who only know Stuart Townend from his collaboration with the Gettys are perhaps in for a surprise with this lilting Irish-inspired song. Like the Jesus we read about during Lent—the one who gets in trouble for who he eats with and who he identifies with—Townend sings about God’s feast where people “of every station and orientation” are welcome and there is room enough for all. The chord chart can be found on CCLI’s Song Select, and you can also listen to the song here. (Though I usually skip the verse about welcoming abusers, not because I believe they are left outside of God’s call, but because in a context that will include those who have experienced abuse, there is not enough space in a worship song to explain how confession, reparation, and reconciliation are also part of that welcome.)

 

“In Labor All Creation Groans” (Dufner)

Lent is also an appropriate season to corporately lament the many things in our world that should not be. Sister Delores Dufner’s “In Labor All Creation Groans” helps congregations lament these many tragedies—hatred, prejudice, sexual violence, divison—and pray for Christ’s peace. The song can be sung to the traditional hymn tune DETROIT or a more contemporary take on DETROIT with an added refrain by Bifrost Arts.


“When the Lord Redeems the Very Least” (Dunstan)

Very few songs are as fun to sing or as theologically problematic as the Albert Brumley hymn “I’ll Fly Away.” Luckily, hymn writer Sylvia Dunstan took this down-home tune and wrote lyrics that locate the saving work of God not in some disembodied heaven in the sky, but in the coming of God’s reign on earth, when the Lord will feed the hungry, heal the sick, and revive the world. While perhaps more obviously an Advent song, it also reminds us of the Lenten call to take on acts of mercy and justice as part of the life of discipleship. The sheet music can be found here.

Hopefully, this list will help spark your imagination for how we can sing our confessions, laments, and praises to God during Lent. What are the Lenten buried treasures that you’ve found? Please don’t hesitate to share them in the comments!

 

 

Blogger David Bjorlin is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago), a lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago), and a published hymnwriter.

 

It can be a difficult time to be happy in our world. I could run through the list of reasons, but I think most people do not need a reminder that we are living in fraught times. As someone not naturally given over to optimism or cheerfulness, I’ve been trying to cultivate in myself a habit of gratitude and thankfulness as an antidote to the fear and anxiety that is swirling around us.

So, one of my latest practices has been listening to The Happiness Lab, a podcast from Yale Psychologist Laurie Santos about what the latest scientific research says will make us objectively happier human beings. Often, what will make us happier seems at first glance counterintuitive. For example, while many people dread small talk on the subway, research has found that these small social interactions with strangers throughout our day actually make us happier (So take those headphones off in public once in a while!).

In one of the early episodes, Santos explains a concept that many of us have probably never heard of but most have experienced: hedonic adaptation. From the Greek word for pleasure, hedonic adaptation is the idea that humans will quickly adapt to good (or bad) fortune in their lives in order to return to the relative stasis they knew before. So, we mistakenly believe that once we get married, land our dream job, take that vacation, or make our first million, then we will be happy. However, for those of us who have achieved one of these goals, we find that after the initial luster wears off, we basically return to how we felt before our success. We have hedonically adapted. Instead of asking whether we are playing an unwinnable game, most of us set a new and bigger goal and believe the next success will be the one that finally brings happiness. Like a drug fix, we keep needing bigger and bigger doses of success to feel fulfilled for shorter and shorter periods of time. The antidote, Santos suggests, is to get off the “hedonic treadmill” and find gratitude in the present moment.

 

Hedonic Adaptation and Worship

Before jumping into what hedonic adaptation has to do with congregational song, I think it’s helpful to ask how this concept can help us think about worship more generally. Namely, I believe an understanding of hedonic adaptation can help pastors, worship leaders, and planners avoid the trap of needing to make each Sunday, each series, each feast day bigger and better than the one before it. We’ve all experienced this, right? A series or a season goes really well, and immediately the question becomes, “How can we make the next one even better?” So, like the guitar amp in This Is Spinal Tap, we grow accustomed to a 10, so we try to turn the next service up to 11. Hedonic adaptation tells us that this is a losing game. When every Sunday has to be a mountaintop experience, we have to keep elevating the mountain to give worshipers the same emotional experience. From what I have observed, this tends to lead to an insatiable congregation and a burnt out pastoral staff.

To me, this is one of the greatest gifts of the Church Year. Yes, we have our great feasts and fasts, but we also have that long stretch of the calendar known as Ordinary Time. Now, I know that “Ordinary” does not mean mundane—it comes from “ordinal,” simply meaning “counted”— but I believe we in the church need to reclaim Ordinary Time in all of its ordinariness. If we think of the other seasons and feasts as the inhale of our worship, this might be the exhale, where in a culture of frenetic work and consumption, we learn the wisdom of rest and lying fallow and conserving time and energy. And for those churches that do not follow the Church Year, perhaps hedonic adaptation suggests that we need to be intentional about planning seasons of rest into the rhythm of the church. For not only does embracing the mundane and ordinary help us to find God in those places where most of us live the majority of our lives, it also allows the special seasons and feasts to retain their peaks of wonder and awe.

 

Hedonic Adaptation and Congregational Song

Just as we sometimes attempt to scale newer and larger heights in our worship services, so too we often are tempted to create endless mountaintop experiences in our congregational song. This is a subtle temptation because it often starts with giving appropriate attention to the shape and flow and dynamic contrasts of the music that help to give the song that same shape and flow and dynamism. Yet, slowly this care can shift into believing that we manufacture an encounter with God through creating musical mountaintop experiences, and soon we are back on the hedonic treadmill.

And this temptation knows no bounds of style or genre. In styles influenced by contemporary worship music (CWM), this sometimes can be seen in the necessity of every set or every song starting softly and simply and slowly building to a climactic climax or catharsis, with every instrument and voice set to fortissimo and the worship environment pulsing with smoke and lights. In more traditional services, the virtuosity and power of the organ or choir can occasionally drown out the voice of the congregation, as the haze of the smoke machine is replaced by the smoke of the thurible. In both, the song structure is often visualized consciously or unconsciously as an ascent to the mountaintop.

 

Not Height, But Depth

Perhaps one possible remedy to this problem of hedonic adaptation in both worship and congregational song is to use other spatial metaphors for worship. What if we are not always moving to the heights of ecstasy but also to the depths of being, not inhaling to climb higher but exhaling to sink deeper into God’s embrace? In Arthur Green’s Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology, he suggests just such a proposition for a new way of understanding spirituality:

The Torah tells us that our early ancestors were diggers of wells. Suppose we try to reach for the understanding that flowed as water from the depths of Abraham’s well, rather, for the moment, than the one that came down from the top of Moses’ mountain. This journey inward would be one that peels off layer after layer of externals, striving ever for the inward truth, rather than one that consists of climbing rung after rung, reaching ever and ever higher. Spiritual growth, in this metaphor, is a matter of uncovering new depths rather than attaining new heights.[1]

Perhaps leaders and planners of worship and congregational song could also think about worship and song as a movement toward depth rather than height. If I think about this movement in my own worship planning and song leading, I think it might call for: 

  • More cyclical songs. While verse-chorus-bridge songs or stanzic hymns are a staple of many of our traditions, the very structure often suggests the build-up to the mountain. On the other hand, cyclical songs (like songs from the Taizé community) often work to plumb the depths rather than scale the heights.
  • Less Instrumentation. Every song or every service does not call for every instrument to be used. Using less instrumentation and sparer arrangements on occasion can keep us from trying to make every song better than the last. You might also consider using less instrumentation during a particular season, like Lent, to musically remind people of the solemnity of the season.
  • No Instrumentation. Singing a capella recenters the human voice as the center of congregational song and empowers the congregation to claim their voice in worship while enacting and building a listening community. Perhaps consider joining the Center for Congregational Song’s yearly A Capella Sunday!
  • More silence. Every moment of the service does not need words or songs—or even meditative background music to accompany our prayers. Sometimes the silence helps to receive the word God has for us and give new meaning to the words we do sing and speak.

The purpose of expanding our spatial metaphors for worship is not to rid our communities of mountaintop experiences in worship or song (God forbid!). Rather, it is perhaps one way to avoid hedonic adaptation that ultimately becomes unsatisfied with a God of the plains, the silences, the ordinary moments, and if we cannot find God in those moments, we will miss God in the majority of our lives that are usually lived far from the summit. So, let our worship help congregations find God in both Eastertide and Ordinary Time, in the ecstasy and the stillness, in the heights and the depths.

 

[1] Arthur Green, Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2003), 9.

 

 

This blog is co-authored by David Bjorlin and Adam Perez. David is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago), a lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago), and a published hymnwriter. Adam is a doctoral student in liturgical studies at Duke Divinity School.

 

It didn’t take long for The Porter’s Gate’s first two albums, Work Songs (2017) and Neighbor Songs (2019), to become a mainstay of my (Adam’s) listening and song leading repertoire. Those albums gave voice to themes not often found—or easily captured—in a worship song world dominated by positivity and recycled tropes. For the same reasons, I expect The Porter’s Gate’s two new albums, Justice Songs and Lament Songs to likewise become part of my standby repertoire. 

The Porter’s Gate (TPG) is a collective co-founded by Isaac and Megan Wardell. I (Adam) first encountered them at the Calvin Symposium on Worship after the release of Work Songs in 2017. Across their discography, they’ve featured some new and well-known singers and songwriters among their collaborators: Latifa Alattas (Page CXVI), Audrey Assad, Urban Doxology, Sandra McCracken, Liz Vice, Paul Zach, and others. A quick look at these two new releases shows the majority of songs are co-written with often four and up to seven(!) collaborators. TPG is unlike the big box collaborations (Hillsong, Bethel, etc.) that have a roster of writers within their team that co-author the majority of their songs. Admittedly, there are some TPG pairings that have become familiar, but new names and contributors have been added on each successive album.

The Porter’s Gate was founded to help worship leaders respond theologically to the pressing questions of our times through the writing of new worship songs and the creation of new liturgical resources.” – theportersgate.com

TPG places a strong emphasis on the benefits that come from sharing time and space in the process of producing songs. I (Adam) had the pleasure of being invited to the weekend gathering that resulted in the Neighbor Songs album, alongside other theologians, text writers, pastors, industry leaders, worship musicians, and tunesmiths. I love that TPG is invested in creating a formational space that feeds into the songwriting process that then feeds back into the church’s formation through song. That level of dedication and collaboration is all-but-unheard-of in the worship music scene, and it shows in the depth and quality of the texts coming out of TPG Worship Project. It’s almost a coup d’etat that TPG is now being distributed by Integrity Music, a giant in the worship music industry.

 

Justice Songs and Lament Songs

If the previous two albums were built around particular themes, Justice Songs and Lament Songs are a direct and forceful response to the ongoing injustices on full display in 2020, particularly those perpetrated against people of color. With the Bible in one hand and the heartbreaking headlines in the other (to paraphrase Barth), the songs on these albums use the prophetic tradition of scripture to address the murder of George Floyd (“O sacred neck now wounded, / pressed down by blows and knees”); police brutality (“They’re meant to protect us but kill us instead…/ and they’re meant to defend us, but step on our necks”); mass incarceration (“we will turn away from destructive politicians, overflowing prisons, corruption in our system”); and the case for reparations (“Much I have gained, but I’ll give even more, / half of my wealth it was robbed from the poor. / Oh this injustice, help me restore…”). Even the chants heard at protests around the country—“Say his name!”; “No justice, no peace!”; “What do we want! Justice! When do we want it? Now!”—are deftly woven into the lyrics.

For those who have wondered whether contemporary praise and worship music could directly address weighty themes of injustice and inequality, these albums are an unequivocal and affirmative response.

As the titles suggest, Justice Songs tends toward an explicit response to oppression with songs of protest, anger, and hope, while Lament Songs is often more plaintive in tone, singing both its grief and consolation in a minor key. Yet, both share a common commitment to naming the present injustices in our world and proclaiming the hope of God’s coming reign, which calls us to the work of justice and peace now. 

Indeed, after I (Dave) reviewed the album several times, I looked through my notes and realized how many times I had written some derivation of “Good song for Advent” in the margins. Some songs have obvious connections to Advent, like the lament “How Long?” that closes with the repeated refrain, “Amen, Jesus come!” But more generally, these are Advent songs because they are apocalyptic, uncovering injustices like white supremacy that many, especially those of us in white evangelical churches, have tried to hide. These are Advent songs because they lament how far we now are from the vision of God’s kingdom where swords will be beaten into plowshares and we will study war no more. They are Advent songs because they hope and long and pray and sing for that kingdom where justice and peace will finally reign, and we’ll sing, “Behold! Behold! His kingdom now has come!”

 

 

Biblical Message

Moreover, for any who still believe that justice is an addendum to the “true” message of the gospel, these albums root their call deeply within the biblical narrative. Drawing particularly on the Psalms, the Prophets (particularly Isaiah), and the Gospels, many songs are veritable pastiches of scriptural references and allusions. For example, on the opening track of Justice Songs, the “His Kingdom Now Is Come (Behold! Behold!),” every line is taken almost directly from scripture (not to mention it’s all sung to an infectious groove reminiscent of the Tony Award-winning Hadestown):

 

The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness cannot overcome.  (John 1:5)

 

Refrain:

Behold! behold! His kingdom now is come.  (Matthew 6:10; Luke 17:21)

The valleys will be lifted

and the mountains will be brought down low.  (Isaiah 40:4; Luke 3:5)

Hear the voice cry from the highway,

“Make for the Prince of Peace!”  (Isaiah 40:3; Luke 3:4; Isaiah 9:6)

 

Bridge:

God of justice, righteous judge,  (Isaiah 30:18; Psalm 7:11; Psalm 50:6)

behold, behold, behold!

Our defender, Price of Peace,  (Psalm 18:1-3; Isaiah 9:6)

behold, behold, behold!

Father to the fatherless,  (Psalm 68:5)

our strong deliverer,  (Psalm 140:7)

behold, behold, behold!

He’s troubling the water  (John 5:4)

and we’re marching through.  (Exodus 14:21-22)

behold, behold!

His kingdom now is come!

While the views on justice and lament expressed by The Porter’s Gate might fall outside the norm of theology expressed in the majority of the “mainstream” evangelical praise and worship genre, their use of scripture clearly demonstrates the biblicism that is purportedly at the heart of evangelicalism. 

 

Liturgical Use

One of my (Adam) primary concerns when looking at new songs is the question “Where in a worship service could I use this?” For planning special services of lament or justice, there is naturally much to work with here. Songs from these albums would be at home in loud courthouse protests and at quiet, neighborhood vigils. I appreciate deeply that the songs never stray from a particularly Christian witness as they name and confront the injustices of the world. 

For the week-in, week-out rhythm of worship planning to accompany lectionary or other themes, using these songs in their entirety may be more challenging. Given the thoroughgoing Advent themes of hope and preparation, I found myself slotting many of the songs as “sending” songs. Indeed, both the lyrical content and the diversity of musical styles felt energizing for “doing the work,” especially on tracks like Justice Songs’s “Justicia.”

Times of prayer, too, seem fitting liturgical homes for the songs on both albums: “We Will Make No Peace,” “Illuminate the Shadows,” “All Your Ways are Peace,” “Drive Out the Darkness,” and “Wake Up, Jesus” all immediately jump out. These are ready-made for pastoral and congregational prayers in a variety of moods.

At least one benefit of popular song genres is clear: great refrains and choruses. In fact, many refrains would work well as standalone pieces. If you’re like me and pull bits and pieces from various sources to plan worship, these albums will be a great resource to adapt from. 

On the other hand, songs like “Wake up, Jesus” and “The Zacchaeus Song” are closely tied to the scriptural narratives from which they are drawn and would be best sung in full. Each would make a fitting post-sermon song. Indeed,“The Zacchaeus Song” has the marks of a contemporary, short-form cantata. And though the songs themselves already lend themselves to quick use, the good folks at TPG have also made all the lead sheets publicly available on their website. That fact alone makes me want to sing them.

Yet, when examining these albums through the lens of congregational song, there are a couple issues that might make it difficult to use in particular contexts. First, while the songs are on the whole extremely well crafted, written, and performed, some of them seem better suited for a solo or small group performance than corporate singing. For example, “In Times of Trouble” is hauntingly beautiful, but beyond the refrain, the average congregation would have a hard time joining in (and certainly couldn’t in the current key). Second, for those congregations influenced by postcolonial liturgical theology or Critical Race Theory, the use of gender exclusive language (e.g., kingdom, Father) and light/dark and gender binaries will make it difficult to use a few of the songs where these images and metaphors predominate. 

Yet, with that said, there is no doubt that Justice Songs and Lament Songs are not only a much needed Christian response to the events of 2020, they are a gift to the church—especially those churches who desire to sing about justice in a contemporary praise and worship style. These songs were written “for such a time as this,” and our churches should be brave enough—and faithful enough—to sing them.

 

 

Blogger David Bjorlin is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago), a lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago), and a published hymnwriter.

In my previous blog post, I argued that, for most people in the United States, consumerism is one of the most prevalent forces that drives our national economy and heavily influences the seemingly “free” choices we make as individuals and communities. Indeed, because it is so immersive—because it is the very waters we swim in—it is difficult to step back and see how vast its influence actually is on every facet of our lives. Naturally, congregational song is not immune to these consumer forces. In the last post, I explored the CCLI Top 100 list and how the fact that two companies distribute the vast majority of the songs limits the ethnic and theological diversity of song for those churches that use the list as their main resource for selecting worship songs. In this post, I want to explore the concept of planned obsolescence and how it might influence the life cycle of congregational song and how congregations use these praise songs.

 

What Is Planned Obsolescence?

Planned obsolescence is a strategy where producers purposefully create products (planned) that will become obsolete (obsolescence) after a certain period of time, requiring the consumer to replace the product. While this concept may seem abstract, most of us probably can relate to something like the following story: the latest edition of the iPhone (or fill in your favorite phone brand of choice) comes out. While the price is a little bit of a stretch, you decide to spring for it. For the first few months, you’re thrilled with all the new features, not to mention the sleek design and shiny exterior. But about a year in, the new design comes out. Ten months later, another design comes out. Soon, when you try to purchase accessories for the phone (e.g., headphones), you have a hard time finding new products that will work with your “old” phone without a series of adapters. The year after, when you go to update your phone, you’re told that your version of the iPhone doesn’t support the new software. So, you bite the bullet and begin looking for a new iPhone. This is planned obsolescence.

Perhaps the downsides to planned obsolescence are obvious, but I think they are worth enumerating for the purpose of our discussion. First, the strategy can negatively influence the quality of the product sold. Why bother with the best materials or craftsmanship when the product will only have a shelf life of several years? Second, planned obsolescence can negatively influence the way we consume products. Rather than caring for a product as if we were going to hand it down to the next generation, we treat the product as disposable because it was made to be disposed of after a certain amount of time. The care and repair of goods is no longer seen as a valuable practice or trade, for why would anyone learn to darn socks or repair shoes when you can just toss them and buy cheap new ones? Finally, all of this leads to environmental degradation as obsolete products pile up first in closets and junk drawers and then in landfills around the world. 

 

Planned Obsolescence and Congregational Song

So, how does the economic strategy of planned obsolescence impact congregational song? I would argue in many of the same ways it influences our consumption of goods more generally. First, it changes the way we consume songs. Like disposable goods, congregational song becomes one more product to consume and discard. Again, perhaps many can relate to a process I’ve experienced dozens of times as a worship leader: A new praise and worship song comes to my attention that I think would be perfect for my congregation. So, I decide to introduce it to my congregation. The first week people seem to really enjoy it, struggling with the verses a bit but joining in wholeheartedly on the chorus. The next week I plan to do it again to help reinforce it, and I can tell something has clicked between this song and the congregation. The singing is strong, the flow is natural, and many people comment about how much they enjoyed the song after the service. By the third time we sing it, people unabashedly love it and begin requesting to hear more of it, which is only reinforced when the local Christian radio station begins playing it regularly too. Over the next year or two, I use it about twice a month, and the congregation almost always responds positively. 

But there comes a certain point a year or two down the road where I notice a change. People are still singing, but less enthusiastically. I catch the first moody teenager rolling her eyes when the opening riff starts, and perhaps overhear a snide comment after the service: “That song needs to be put out of its misery.” Just a few months later, the song has officially become persona non grata (cantica non grata?), with people on the worship team loudly protesting about how sick they are of playing it. Luckily, there’s a new song that just came out that seems perfect for the congregation… and the consumptive cycle continues.

I am not the only one to note this trend in praise and worship or its acceleration in the last decade. In his work on the history of contemporary praise, worship leader and songwriter Greg Scheer notes,

Whereas songs from previous eras—“Seek Ye First,” “As the Deer”—remained in the CCLI’s Top 20 songs for decades, new songs tended to rise and fall within a few years. These binge and purge cycles are typical of music that is marketed to the point of saturation and then dropped for the next shiny thing.*

While I might not characterize it as “the next shiny thing,” it seems clear that the way we consume songs continues to shorten the life cycle of the average praise and worship song.  And I can’t help but believe that this at least unconsciously changes the way writers of praise and worship songs approach their craft. If the song cycle of a song is only a couple years at best, why spend the extra time on the smaller details of song structure or rhyme scheme, or think through questions of gender-inclusive language for humanity and God (for example)? Why try to write a song that could stand the test of time across generations when the system is built to consume and discard what you have made? Again, I don’t think songwriters say to themselves, “I’m going to create something shoddy!”, but I believe that these economic forces often work on us whether we are aware of them or not. Being conscious of these forces is the way we can begin combatting them.


What Can We Do?

So, what are some possible strategies for worship leaders to help avoid planned obsolescence in congregational song? First, and most obviously, worship leaders can choose songs from across generations. We as the church are heirs to a rich storehouse of musical treasures from every era of the faith, and we honor that living tradition when we sing the songs that have been handed down to us—whether that is plainsong from the 1180s or a Scripture song from the 1980s. In rejecting the idea that new is better in congregational song, we not only honor our tradition, but help check some of our consumptive habits. Second, we can choose not to overuse new congregational songs. Yes, we should teach new songs well, which will include repetition over several months, but we should also resist the urge to completely consume the song. Like a gift of fine whiskey, we can portion the song out over time rather than binge on it so that it can be mindfully savored rather than thoughtlessly consumed. Finally, we can seek out songs that are thoughtfully and skillfully crafted within the paradigms of their particular genre, so they stand a chance of lasting beyond the life cycle of a Top 40 song. In these ways, we can play a small part in taking a countercultural stance against consumerism in the song of the church, and perhaps this will lead us to examine other ways we can choose conservation over consumption for the sake of the Gospel and the good of our world.

 

*Quote is from: Greg Scheer, “Contemporary Praise and Worship,” in Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological  Introductions, vol. 3 (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019), 287.

 

Blogger David Bjorlin is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago), a lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago), and a published hymnwriter.

 

 

 

What Is Water?

In David Foster Wallace’s now famous commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005, he began, after the briefest of introductions, with what he termed a “didactic little parable-ish stor[y]”:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

The moral of the story isn’t anything we don’t already know: many of our most basic realities are so pervasive that it is nearly impossible for us to distance ourselves from them long enough to objectively evaluate them. Like the fish, these realities are the very waters we swim in, and we rarely notice how they fundamentally shape the environments we inhabit, the choices we make, and the lives that we live.

While there are countless realities that influence us, I would argue that perhaps the most all-encompassing and least-recognized force in our lives is consumerism. Here are a few gruesome statistics to illustrate my point: U.S. citizens make up 4% of the world’s population and consumes 25% of the world’s resources, waste almost 40% of the food we buy, and live in houses that are almost twice as large as they were in the 1950s—while 1 in 10 people still rent storage units for all the things they own.

Perhaps at this point you’re checking to see that you are indeed reading a blog dedicated to congregational song, but because these are the waters we swim in, I believe consumerism influences every aspect of our life—-including the church’s song. While there are surely countless ways consumerism impacts congregational song, I would like to explore just a couple of them over my next two blog posts. Today, I will examine the near-monopoly on the CCLI Top 100 list and how this too often leads to a homogenous song. My next post will look at the concept of planned obsolescence and how it relates to the life-cycle and production of the modern praise song.

 

Monopolies and the CCLI Top 100 

As many readers of this blog no doubt know, Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) is the largest copyright licensing company for (mostly) contemporary praise and worship music. This is how it works: churches buy licenses to use songs covered under CCLI and report the songs they have used over a six-month reporting period. Then, CCLI distributes royalties to the songs’ copyright holders based on the reporting percentages. One of the famous features of CCLI is the Top 100 list of the most-reported songs, serving as a gauge for the most popular CCLI songs sung by congregations who use the licensing service. Because it purports to be a repository of the most frequently sung songs at any given moment, the Top 100 list is often used by worship leaders to find new material for their congregation. In addition, many liturgical theologians have used the list as a starting point to study the sung theology of certain segments of the church.

I believe consumerism influences every aspect of our life—-including the church’s song.

Recently, I saw the list in a different light when a colleague told me that a huge percentage of songs on the CCLI Top 100 were administered* by two companies. Thinking that he was perhaps exaggerating, I decided to take a look at the numbers myself this past May. Of the 100 songs on the CCLI list, eighty-one are administered,* at least partially, by just two companies: Capitol Records (71) and/or Bethel (14).[1] Further, only ten songs are not administered by Capitol, Bethel, or Essential Music (a subsidiary of Sony). Obviously, my colleague was not exaggerating; there is something resembling a monopoly in contemporary praise and worship music.

 

Why Does This Matter?

Why does this matter? Surely, bigger companies can produce a high-quality product and streamline distribution in ways that help the average worship leader access and use resources. Yet, I believe there are a few implications on congregational song that should at least give worship leaders and planners pause in using the list uncritically. At the most basic level, monopolies are usually not in the interest of the general public because it eliminates competition and allows a company to set artificially high prices while also reducing the quality of the product. While larger than the scope of a blog post, it is worth asking whether price or quality of congregational song is impacted by this sort of monopoly.

However, to my mind the larger issue with this pseudo-monopoly is the fairly homogenous group of songs—ethnically and theologically—that end up comprising the list. Ethnically, much of the music that falls outside of white evangelical traditions is not covered by CCLI, and therefore not even eligible for the list. For example, besides the rare artist signed to major Christian record labels (e.g., Israel Houghton’s long-time relationship with Integrity), most black Gospel music is not covered by CCLI (which in turn has led to systemic inequities in distributing royalties, as many churches continue to use these gospel songs assuming they are covered by CCLI). This creates a fairly white list that perpetuates songwriting and marketing strategies that will continue to target white audiences, which is further exacerbated by a lack of competition created by a monopoly. Especially for those worship leaders seeking to better represent the diversity of the global church in their local contexts, the CCLI Top 100 is of limited value.

Ethnically, much of the music that falls outside of white evangelical traditions is not covered by CCLI, and therefore not even eligible for the list…This creates a fairly white list that perpetuates songwriting and marketing strategies that will continue to target white audiences.

Further, songs on the CCLI Top 100 are largely written by, and marketed to, (white) charismatic-leaning evangelical traditions with a more conservative theological worldview. Obviously, that isn’t to discount these songs completely. There is a place for many different expressions of style and even theology in our churches. Yet, for those congregations who wish to expand liturgical and theological mindsets beyond charismatic worship expressions, male God-language (e.g., King, Lord, Father) or substitutionary atonement theologies alone, the list again is of limited use. Further, for a monopoly, there is little incentive to widen the theological net, particularly if, like Bethel, you are tied to a specific conservative charismatic expression of faith.

 

Breaking Up The Monopoly

While this may come across as an attack on CCLI, this is not my intent. The church and school where I work are both CCLI copyright holders, and I do use the Top 100 list on occasion. However, as someone who is interested in the diversification of congregational song, I do not believe it is in the best interest of the vast majority of churches for two companies to hold so much sway over a particular segment of congregational song. As someone who does not even pretend to be business savvy, I do not have any advice on how the CCLI Top 100 monopoly can be broken up, but I do have a few suggestions for those who plan and lead congregational song:

  1.     Do not assume CCLI covers all the songs you sing in worship! Know who holds copyright on the songs you sing, and make sure they are being paid fairly for the use of their song.
  2.     Explore other music licensing companies. For example, One License covers larger swaths of Taizé, Iona, and other global musical offerings (in addition to traditional hymnody).
  3.     Analyze the diversity—ethnic, national, theological, style—of your canon of song to see if it represents the diversity you espouse as a church.
  4.     Look for local songwriters in your congregation (and beyond) who you can support and who can write songs contextualized for your community.

In this way, we can help assure that the songs we sing are not what a company or market forces make us sing, but are chosen to best represent the community we are and would like to be.

 

[1] Several songs were co-administered by Capitol and Bethel.

*The original post used the word “owned” instead of “administered,” which has since been corrected for accuracy.

 

Blogger David Bjorlin is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago), a lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago), and a published hymnwriter.

 

[In my previous post, I explored how The Sound of Music’s “Edelweiss” helped me understand that a congregational song’s theological content can only be interpreted correctly if we understand the context in which it is sung. Today’s post can be read as a continuation of that discussion.]

Pronouns

If you went into the worship supply closet at Resurrection Covenant Church (the congregation where I have served as the worship pastor for the last eight years) —well, first you should watch your step, because it’s a mess in there and you might hurt yourself. But if you managed to avoid the protruding bass amp and the rogue music stand, you’d see a battered filing cabinet. If you pulled out the first two drawers, you’d find folders full of chord charts or lead sheets for almost every song we’ve sung over the last ten years. If you started flipping through the folders, you’d notice that many of the songs’ official versions have been amended in one way or another. On some, a word or two are changed to make the song’s lyrics gender inclusive. Others have an alternative chord scrawled in to replace one that just didn’t sound right (or sounded boring). Yet, the most frequent change you would notice would be the songs’ pronouns: scores of “I’s,” “me’s,” and “my’s” are hastily cross out with corresponding “we’s,” “us’s,” and “ours’” scrawled above.

In my first few years of ministry, I was something of a pronoun zealot. Armed with a firm belief in the harmful effects of individualism and consumerism on congregational life and a v5 Precise pen, it was my personal mission to banish I/me/my from vast swaths of congregational song. Whatever the season or context, we were going to sing “we” if it killed me (us?).

While I still believe the “we” is essential in congregational song, voices from other social locations have helped me understand that even the “I” we sing—perhaps especially the “I” we sing—is contextual. Before we as worship planners and leaders can know what “I” means in a hymn or praise song, we need to explore more basic questions: Who is singing? Where? Why?

 

Who Is Singing?

One of the first lessons I needed to learn as a worship leader and planner—especially as a straight, white, male worship leader—was that my experiences and social location weren’t normative (an obvious lesson perhaps, but one that needs to be stated again and again because it is still sorely missing from many theological and liturgical discussions). The way I understand “I” is conditioned by my race, gender, class, and sexual orientation, to name but a few.

Whatever the season or context, we were going to sing “we” if it killed me (us?).

My first lesson on this journey came in seminary from the pages of James Cone’s Spirituals and the Blues. In the midst of his brilliant exploration on the central place of the spirituals and blues in the black religious experience, Cone briefly explains how the “I” functions differently in these songs. Rather than an affirmation of the solitary individual disconnected from community, he argues that “[t]he ‘I’… who cries out in the spirituals is a particular black self-affirming both his or her being and being in community, for the two are inseparable” (61). Thus for Cone, the black “I” is always (1) an affirmation of the self in the midst of the malevolent forces of racism and dehumanization; and (2) understood as an “I” in relationship to the broader community. The “I” necessarily includes the “we.”

Around the same time I read Cone, a Korean classmate of mine decided to teach our seminary community a similar lesson through a chapel service he and a few fellow classmates planned to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The songs he included in the service were replete with I/me/my language, and at the bottom of the bulletin he included an explanatory note. While I no longer have the exact verbiage, he explained that because his cultural context was so focused on the communal and familial, the “I” became a necessary assertion of one’s own commitment to Christ. For him, the Korean “I” is a countercultural statement of faith.

The “I” necessarily includes the “we.”

While these two examples focus on race and ethnicity, there are obviously many other cultural contexts that will determine the meaning of “I.” For example, how does “I” function differently—how is it interpreted differently—among women? the upper class? refugees and immigrants? people in the LGBTQ community? Obviously, this work only becomes more complex once we take into account the many ways these different cultural contexts intersect in individuals and communities, but the basic message remains the same: what “I” means depends on the “I” who sings.

 

Where?

Connected to cultural and social location (class, race, status, etc.), a person’s geographical location may also change how people understand the sung “I.” The “I” sung in a gated suburb is different than the “I” sung in a densely-populated urban region, which are both different from the “I” sung from a relatively isolated farming community. For example, in Kathleen Norris’s memoir Dakota, she describes how her rural community still loves to sing the gospel hymns where “I” language predominates, like “I Need Thee Every Hour,” “I Love to Tell the Story,” and “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Often these hymns are criticized for their sentimental focus on the individual’s relationship with God, but as one of Norris’s colleagues noted, “Church intellectuals always want to root out the petistic hymns, but in a rural area like this those hymns of intimacy are necessary for the spiritual welfare of people who are living at such a distance from each other” (166). And as many rural farming, mining, and manufacturing communities experience economic uncertainty and shrinking populations, their “I” is a reminder of the God who is always near.

Connected to cultural and social location (class, race, status, etc.), a person’s geographical location may also change how people understand the sung “I.”

Why?

Lastly, to understand what “I” means, it is necessary to understand why the “I” is being sung. That is, what is the liturgical and/or pastoral purpose of the pronoun? In my evangelical context, this is what first led me to change so many of the “I’s” in prayers of confession or songs of thanksgiving to “we’s.” My congregations were often well versed in the concepts of personal sin and individual faith, but had little concept of social sins or corporate faith. I believe this is still too often the case in many contexts, but I also understand now that broadening the scope of faith is just one of the many pastoral needs of congregations. Even in the most individualistic of contexts, there will be people there who have been worn down by personal tragedies, poor theologies, or abusive relationships that need to hear not only that God loves humanity generally (“Jesus loves us”) but that God loves them specifically (“Jesus loves me!”). They need more than a benign and aloof God who doles out provisions from a distant heaven, but the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to seek after the lost one, the Woman who overturns her house to find the missing coin, the Father who runs to meet his wayward son. For those teetering on despair, the “I” is a reminder of God’s pursuant, unrelenting love for you, for me.

 

Conclusion

To be clear, our churches will always need the “we” in worship. Indeed, I continue to wonder if late-stage capitalism will make the “we” all the more important across contexts as these economic forces attempt to homogenize all humanity into the one primary identity of consumer. Yet, we can no longer live under the false assumption that “I” (or any words we sing or pray) means the same thing to all people in all places in all situations. Context matters.

Though expressed differently in every context, our worship must affirm the community and the individual, the corporate and the personal. Perhaps this is one of the lesson of our two most basic Christian creeds—the continual movement between the “I believe” of the Apostles’ Creed and the “We believe” of the Nicene Creed. We need “I.” I need “we.” May our songs reflect our faith.

 

 

Blogger David Bjorlin is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago), a lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago), and a published hymnwriter.

 

 

 

A Deeply Disturbing Fact

On a recent trip to Ecuador to visit my dear friends Chris and Jenny, I discovered a deeply disturbing fact about their family that shook me to my core: Chris and his two children had never seen The Sound of Music! I’m imagining many of you at your computers gasping and clutching your pearls. I understand; it is shocking! Obviously, as any good friend would, I obtained a digital copy via Amazon and planned for a movie night at their earliest possible convenience.

As you might have experienced, there is both great joy and trepidation involved when introducing people to a classic movie (or really anything) that you love. You revel in sharing something so personally formative with someone else because it helps them know a little more of who you are, but there is also the risk that they will not like it at all—and that can feel oddly personal, like they are also rejecting an important part of you. I also wondered whether this sprawling, sometimes slow, three-hour movie could still interest kids in this faster-paced digital age. Thankfully (and, as usual), my worries were baseless, as the magic of The Sound of Music continues to delight and enthrall.

 

A Lightbulb

When it became clear that the kids were enjoying the movie, I turned my full attention back to the beloved and familiar plot. I tried not to sing along too loudly as the story moved from the first “Do-Re-Mi” of the children to Captain Von Trapp’s musical and emotional breakthrough in “Sound of Music” to the gripping apex on the stage of the Salzburg Festival. It was only as the Captain beckoned for the crowd to join him in singing “Edelweiss” (a fictional Austrian national anthem) that a lightbulb went on for me. “Edelweiss” was a perfect example of how context is everything in congregational song. Let me explain.

To refresh your memory, “Edelweiss” is sung twice in the movie version of The Sound of Music. The first time occurs shortly after Captain Von Trapp has reconciled with his family and is in the process of rebuilding his relationship with his children (not to mention stoking a little flame for Fraulein Maria!). After the children’s puppet show, they all decide that the Captain should now sing for them. After a few half-hearted protests, the Captain takes his guitar and sings the folk song with the help of a counter-melody from the oldest daughter Liesl (who clearly has the hots for Christopher Plummer). In this context, the song serves as another sign of the Captain’s conversion, a song of continued healing that works to bring the family closer together.

The next time it is sung, the landscape has shifted dramatically. The Nazis have annexed Austria, and the Captain has been ordered to report for duty to a Nazi naval base. Appalled at the prospect of joining the German regime, the Captain realizes the family’s only hope is to escape to Switzerland. Caught trying to sneak out of their home, the family is forced to improvise a new escape plan that will include slipping out of the city right after their performance at the Salzburg festival. It is as the children leave the stage that the Captain sings one last song: Edelweiss. (apologies for the poor video quality)

 

Completely Different

Here the song means something completely different than it did only a few scenes earlier. In the context of the festival at this particular time and place, it is a song proclaiming the Captain’s true national identity; it is a song of farewell to the people of his homeland; it is a sorrow song for an occupied country; and, when the Captain motions for the audience to join him, it becomes a song of protest against the Nazis. The same song is sung, but the context in which it is sung fundamentally changes it meaning.

Songs are never abstract.

What implications does this have for congregational song? I think it requires worship leaders and worship professors to take context seriously not only when discussing worship style, but also when discussing theological criteria for song selection. Too many times, I have seen classes given the assignment of theologically evaluating a song’s lyrics without taking into account where the song is being sung and who is singing it (confession: as a professor, I have been guilty of this assignment). Sure, there are some songs whose theology will be found wanting across contexts because its lyrics contradict basic Christian teaching, but there are many whose appropriateness will depend largely on context.

 

An Historic Example

To take an historic example, let’s look at the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” In the 80s and 90s, rivers of ink were spilled arguing for the hymn’s inclusion or exclusion from denominational hymnals because of its militaristic symbolism and language. Those opposed to the hymn argued that comparing God and God’s church to the horrors of war—especially after Somme, Hiroshima, and Vietnam—was an affront to the God of peace and justice. Those who defended the hymn pointed out that battle metaphors were both biblical and apt, since we do war against powers and principalities. What was so rarely discussed was where the song would be sung.

One of the problems about this debate was that it so often assumed normative context: a white, middle-class, suburban mainline church. But this has never been the only context of this song. I was reminded of this at a hymn festival planned by hymnwriter Mel Bringle and tune composer Sally Morris at The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada’s annual conference in Redlands, California a few years ago. As I sat waiting for the festival to begin, I flipped through the program for the night and was both surprised and intrigued to see we would be singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Knowing something about the perspectives of the festival planners, I anticipated that we wouldn’t simply sing the song without some introduction or context setting. And indeed, right before the hymn was to be sung, they showed a clip from the wonderful Civil Rights documentary Eye On the Prize. The excerpt was from a section of the film documenting the Montgomery bus boycotts, and it focused on the nightly services where the people would gather to strengthen their resolve through songs and sermons. As Coretta Scott King explained these services in an interview, the camera panned over the congregation singing—you guessed it—”Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

Now think of that particular group of people at that particular time and place singing this hymn:

Onward, Christian soldiers,

marching as to war,

with the cross of Jesus

going on before.

Christ, the royal Master,

leads against the foe;

forward into battle,

see his banner go!

 

It Changes Everything

Doesn’t it change everything about how the song is interpreted? The war that these Christian soldiers are engaged in, the foe they are up against, is the powers and principalities of systemic racism and oppression. Further, these soldiers were committed to the nonviolent resistance and pacifistic witness of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ensuring that the metaphor of war never became interpreted literally—even when it could have easily been justified by the violence of their opponents. Even the marching takes on new meaning when we think of the thousands of miles these protestors walked to get to work and church and appointments in lieu of riding the segregated buses.

One of the problems about this debate was that it so often assumed normative context: a white, middle-class, suburban mainline church.

My point is not to reintroduce “Onward, Christian Soldiers” into hymnals, but to help us think with more depth and nuance about the theological criteria we use to evaluate song. With all of the other questions we ask about what the song says about God and humanity, we need to ask additional questions: Who will be singing this song? What is their lived experience, and how does this change the way the song is understood? Where is this song being sung? On what occasion? What is the song doing in the liturgy? Would this song be appropriate in some contexts and inappropriate for others? For those within the dominant culture, it might mean that a song could be inappropriate for your context to sing, but that doesn’t mean it’s inappropriate for all contexts.

This seems to be particularly important (and tricky) in services that will include people from many different ethnicities, classes, traditions, and life experiences. This will require the worship planners to include a diversity of voices in the process to ensure that songs are not only deemed appropriate when they fit the dominant culture’s theological criteria. Perhaps there will need to be more introductions to some of our songs—like Bringle and Morris did so deftly at their festival—to help contextualize them in a particular narrative so that they can be sung together from this new (for some) vantage point.

Songs are never abstract. They are always sung by particular people in particular places for particular purposes. Thankfully, The Sound of Music reminded me why this matters for congregational song. It really is the gift that keeps on giving. So with that: so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.

 

As we worked toward the launch of The Center over a year ago, we developed a set of guiding stances for the work of The Center for Congregational Song. I’d like to highlight a few of those guiding stances that I think speak to what we hope to accomplish in 2019.

 

 

HOPES

We celebrate the width and depth of variety in the church’s song throughout history, recognizing that each genre, like each culture or each person, brings unique gifts and challenges to the church.

My hope is that in 2019 The Center for Congregational Song will be a cheerleader for the church’s song and all those who work to lead God’s people in song. There is so much to celebrate, but during this time of overwhelming pain and hate it is easy to forget God’s love for us. Our events, while tackling difficult subjects and not shying away from controversy, will be places of celebration of God’s good gift of song and singing together. Likewise, our blogs, podcasts, and other content will be in the spirit of celebrating the goodness that comes from viewpoint diversity and deep listening.

 

DREAMS

Collaboration and teamwork honors each other’s different gifts and therefore makes everyone stronger by building up partnerships, strengthening relationships, and amplifying each other’s ministries.

My dream for 2019 is that the relationships and partnerships we’ve been building over the last 15 months will bear unexpected and wonderfully creative fruit. As a part of our ecumenical work to build bridges, we have been working hard to learn who is also working to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational song in every denomination, piety, and genre. This year we’re ready to begin building those bridges and already have a couple programs planned that will bring diverse groups of people together to meet, collaborate, and create.

 

INTRODUCTIONS

At its best, singing together enables unity when perhaps spoken conversation is difficult or impossible.

Our original blog team [introductions here], made up of Rosa Ramirez, Adam Perez, Ginny Chilton, and myself conceptualized the content for the blog as a place where folk would be sure to find joy, optimism, humility, grace, and contextualization. The posts, like the blog team members, would represent a variety of viewpoints and skill-sets so that throughout the year you might encounter posts that speak directly to your own ministry challenges as well as open your eyes to the challenges and thoughts of others. With that in mind, we’ve expanded our blog team for 2019 to include three more voices. Each person brings a unique perspective that will continue to challenge and inspire us. We’re excited to welcome each of these new members to our team!

 

The Center for Congregational Song, Centered in Song, Blog, Church Music, Song

Felicia Patton is a lifelong Chicago native. Felicia received an undergraduate degree from North Park University followed by two graduate degrees from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. She was very active while at North Park, having served on worship teams, gospel choir, jazz choir, jazz band, and guitar ensemble. In her previous position, she was the director of traditional worship, where she directed three choirs. Felicia has continued to sing within the Chicago and surrounding areas as a solo artist and with her band, Chicago Soul Revue.

 

Center for Congregational Song, Centered in Song, Blog, Hampton, Atlanta, Church Music

Min. Rylan Harris is a graduate of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. While still active with the Hampton Minister’s Conference, he has recently moved to Atlanta, Georgia to pursue a Master of Religious Leadership with a concentration in Music and Worship at Candler School of Theology. He now serves as Minister of Worship & Arts at Ray of Hope Christian Church with Senior Pastor Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale. Along with his passion for music ministry, he is a keyboardist, singer, and composer.

 

Center for Congregational Song, David Bjorlin, Centered in Song, Blog, Singing, Church

David Bjorlin is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) and currently serves as the worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church in Chicago. In addition to his role as worship leader, David is a lecturer in worship at North Park University and a published hymnwriter. He holds a PhD in History and Hermeneutics (liturgical studies) from Boston University School of Theology. His academic interests include the history and practice of hymnody/congregational song, the connection between worship and ethics, and the incorporation of children in worship.

 

 

 

We hope you’ll join us in celebrating and collaborating. Here’s to a great 2019!

 

 

We’d like to welcome our latest guest blogger, David Bjorlin. David is a worship pastor at Resurrection Covenant Church in Chicago, seminary faculty member at North Park Theological Seminary, and a published hymn writer. David has found a wide range of outlets for his passion for worship and the church. His interests include hymnody, connections between liturgy and ethics, and children in worship. He loves being able to plan worship so that a congregation may enact and indwell the redemptive story of God in worship week after week. – Brian Hehn, Director of The Center for Congregational Song

A Key Question

Over the past few decades, one of the key questions that liturgists have been asking is how what we say and do in worship shapes our theology and ethics. Because we are liturgists and need to show just how out of touch we are with contemporary trends, we even use Latin shorthand to describe this connection—lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. Literally this saying means that “the law of prayer [is] the law of belief [is] the law of living.” That is, prayer/worship shapes theology shapes ethics. While debates rage over how the three are connected, most would agree that worship helps form our understanding of God and the way we live in God’s world with one another. If this is the case, it means the words we say and sing in worship are vital to Christian formation.

Atonement Theology

Because this is true, I have grown more and more concerned about how our songs, particularly contemporary worship songs, sing about the atonement—the way we are reconciled to God through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. In the vast majority of contemporary praise songs, Jesus’ death is almost always portrayed as substitutionary: we should have been punished for our sins, but God took our place and the punishment that was rightly ours and saved us. In its most extreme forms, Christ’s death satisfies the wrath of God that we incurred through our sin (penal substitutionary atonement). While examples abound, here are just a few of the most well-known from CCLI’s Top 100 list:

 

“This is unfailing love / that you would take my place, / that you would bear my cross” (“This Is Amazing Grace”); “Behold the man upon the cross, / my sin upon his shoulders… / It was my sin that held him there / until it was accomplished” (“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”); and the granddaddy of them all, “till on the cross has Jesus died, / the wrath of God was satisfied” (“In Christ Alone”). Lest we think this trend is only found in contemporary praise songs, many classic hymns rely heavily on the substitutionary trope as well. Take the second stanza of Philip Bliss’s “Man of Sorrows!”: “Bearing shame and scoffing rude, / in my place condemned he stood; / sealed my pardon with his blood: / Hallelujah, what a Savior!”

That is, if our central atonement theology claims that God needs retribution for his (male pronoun used purposefully) wrath or justice to be satisfied, it’s no wonder that our justice system would also be built on the idea of retribution rather than restoration.

To be clear, there are differences between substitutionary atonement and penal substitution. In my estimation, there is some biblical warrant for the former (much of the book of Hebrews, for example), while I find the latter to be less biblical and more pagan in origin. However, in both modes, the clear message of the atonement is the need for retribution for the sins of humanity. I have long understood how this myopic focus on substitutionary atonement has led to theological distortions. God the Father becomes an angry God of justice who must be won over by the merciful Jesus (God the Son saves us from God the Father); wrath often becomes the motivating force of the cross rather than God’s unrelenting love; and Christ’s life and resurrection seem to become unimportant additions to Christ’s death. I believe this overemphasis on substitutionary atonement theories is part of the reason why many Christians find it so much easier to believe in an angry God just waiting to punish them than a loving God seeking to reconcile all things through Christ.

Ethics

However, I was struck anew by how this singular view of the atonement can warp our ethical lives in reading Dominique DuBois Gilliard’s excellent new book Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores.

The entire book is a must-read for those who wish to understand and challenge the racism endemic to our justice system that continues to disproportionately target and incarcerate people of color. However, what struck me was the connection Gilliard drew between penal substitutionary atonement and the punitive way we treat those who are arrested and incarcerated in our society. That is, if our central atonement theology claims that God needs retribution for his (male pronoun used purposefully) wrath or justice to be satisfied, it’s no wonder that our justice system would also be built on the idea of retribution rather than restoration. A crime has been committed, and satisfaction must be paid for that crime even if we desire to show mercy. What happens before and what happens after is of little consequence; punishment is the key. And if we lay this theological system onto a racially-biased criminal justice system, Christians too often find themselves “theologically justifying racism.” In the end, if we distort our worship, we not only distort how we understand God, but also distort how we treat one another.

A Challenge

I think this is offers a challenge to worship leaders and songwriters to offer congregations different ways of understanding Christ’s atonement. We desperately need more praise songs that sing of Christ’s saving way of living in the world that challenged oppression and injustice and continue to challenge us to new ways of living in right relationship to God, others, and creation. We need more songs that celebrate Christ’s resurrection as an integral part of Christ’s victory over death, not just to save me from my sins, but to reconcile the cosmos. We need more songs that remind us that God’s death was motivated not by an angry God who scares us into obedience, but a God whose “love so amazing, so divine, / demands our souls, our lives, our all.”

 

David Bjorlin – Blog Author

 

 

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