Theology’s Missing Pieces in Worship Songwriting - Various
Lessons for Songwriters from Theology's Deleted Scenes Knowing well that modern churchgoers get as much of their theological understanding from the worship songs they sing as they do from the pulpit, we asked some prominent theologians which theological topics they think need to be written about.
Roberta KingWe need songs about God's saving intervention in our lives. The Song of Moses (Exodus 15) serves as a model for theologizing through song. Woven throughout the song, we find theological statements of what God's deliverance from Egypt meant to the children of Israel. They praised God powerfully by proclaiming "the Lord is my strength and song" based on a life-specific event in their community. I believe we need songs that follow this model: songs that arise out of the pain and difficulty confronting our lives and declare the specific ways in which God meets us."
Roberta King is Professor of Communication and Ethnomusicology at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of A Time to Sing: A Manual for the African Church
.Gordon BorrorWe need songs that declare the attributes of God in appropriate musical terms that give musical fabric (substance) to the attribute. We've done pretty well with "holiness" and "faithfulness" but not much with "justice" and "sovereignty" and His redemptive agenda. Songs that improve the personal and collective view of God would be a great advantage to the Church. Among other things, worship should always be directed to improve the participants' view of God; they should leave the experience with a more biblical view, to displace the pollution our society seems determined to impose on the over-all understanding of who He is.
Gordon Borror is Professor of Music and Worship at Southwestern Theological Seminary and author of Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel. Reggie KiddFirst, the one
topic I have the hardest time finding new songs for is "pressing on" in the Christian life. When people come to worship, they come with emotions and struggles. Songs that acknowledge the hard work and the promise ("All that has been taken, it shall be restored") of the Christian life can be a great help in our pilgrimages.
Second, I could use more songs that are recognizable settings of Scripture. Singing is a profound way of "laying up" God's Word in our hearts. In college and grad school we sang Scripture that ran the gamut from Scripture ditties to moving meditations of Psalms or other passages. I would love to help my congregation sing Scripture into their hearts-wedding profound texts to a meaningful musical idiom.
Reggie Kidd is the author of With One Voice
, a professor of New Testament and a pastor of worship. Brian McLarenWe need more songs that take the teachings of Jesus and set them to music that stays in our hearts. For example, we have a thousand songs about loving God, but how many songs do we have about loving our neighbors? We have a thousand songs about God blessing us, but how many of our songs plead with God to bless the poor, the oppressed, the war-torn or the unloved?
Brian McLaren is a pastor (crcc.org), author (anewkindofchristian.org) and fellow in emergent (emergentvillage.com).
David PetersonMy only request would be for more songs taking seriously the struggles of the Christian life-with sin and temptation, with persecution and rejection by family and friends, with sickness, suffering and death. I think immediately of some of the Psalms, though there are portions of the New Testament, such as Romans 8, that give a really helpful perspective on these things.
David Peterson is the Principal of Oakhill College and author of Engaging with God
.Tricia RhodesWe need more songs about the gospel from a God-centered perspective. Though we're seeing a trend toward more God-focused worship songs, what seems to be lacking are lyrics that teach us God's ways-how He works in all things to exalt the majesty of His Son. Writers like Watts and Wesley managed again and again to write songs that taught the entire gospel-from creation to the consummation of the ages-without putting us, or even what we gain, at the center of the story. I'd love to see a rash of songs that do the same in our day.
Tricia Rhodes is an author and teacher, her most recent book is Intimate Intercession
.Dr. Don WilliamsAs has been often noted, our congregations learn most of their theology from the hymnal or, perhaps, PowerPoint and music CDs. Since this is true, the lasting value of a song is related to the strength of its theology as well as its lyrics and sing-ability. This becomes your challenge, as well as the challenge to your pastors and leaders who teach you. You must become working theologians. Make it your goal to provide the structure of our faith, our biblical worldview, for the church today and especially the emerging generation.
Don Williams is a Vineyard pastor who works with Soul Survivor and author of 12 Steps with Jesus
.John David Walt, Jr. We have a great host of songs that declare and celebrate the attributes and names of God in the church today. What is needed are more songs narrating the story of God-songs that cause us to remember the great saving acts of God in history. If you look at the Psalms they are continually lifting up the imagery of Passover and Red Sea, of Sinai and Promised Land, of Exile and Return. This will, in many mysterious ways, give rise to Kingdom imagination. For it is only in remembering the mysterious, unconventional and unpredictable ways of God that we can imagine them in our time.
John David Walt, Jr., is Vice President and Dean of the Chapel at Asbury Theological Seminary.Eddie GibbsWe need a new genre of contemporary songs in the form of ballads that tell the biblical stories. We have a generation that is biblically illiterate. We now live in a culture of the artist rather than that of the orator. It is the songwriters who are likely to have the most impact on popular culture.
Eddie Gibbs is professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary and co-author of Emerging Churches
.Dr. Marva J. DawnIf only we (the Church) had songs about several important aspects of the faith, worship would be more faithful to the whole narrative of the triune God. Some of the dimensions of the Church year or the biblical narrative for which good new music is lacking are these:
Advent - songs about John the Baptizer, about preparing for Christ's second coming, about how the Messiah came to a world as troubled as our own.
Lent - songs that take seriously the suffering of Jesus throughout His life. Especially we need Good Friday songs that really lament!
Lament - songs based on the Lament Psalms in Scripture.
Marva J. Dawn is a Christian theologian, author, musician, educator and author of Unfettered Hope
. Sally MorgenthalerDare we imagine a genre of new millennial worship music that doesn't gloss over the doubts, the cynicism or our own humanity? Songs that refuse to minimize pain, but rather, lend voice to it? If we refuse this challenge, I fear that even our Gen-X evangelicalism will become uninhabitable by real people.
T. S. Eliot once said, "Christians tend to make life neater and tidier than it really is." We could take a lesson from both Eliot and his friend, C.S. Lewis, both masters in keeping the edge-the bite-in what it means to follow Christ. Why do our songs and sermons become exercises in denial, rather than avenues to affirm the God at the center of the hurricane? Somehow, if we just don't acknowledge the darkness-if we don't admit to addictions, fears, regrets, doubts, questions, confusion and disorientation, we think they don't exist.
Sally Morgenthaler is a worship consultant, speaker and author of Worship Evangelism
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