I used to lead worship. Hymns were my enemy. I always lost my place in the verses. The chord changes were insane. And they usually ended with some wondrous transport to the gleaming starry hosts of heaven while the earth boiled and flamed below under God’s judgment.

Not exactly the “Kingdom of God coming to earth” theology I prefer…

And then I attended a wedding where everyone in the wedding party sang professionally in a church choir.

Hymns made sense in that context. Hymns are a different kind of animal from my preferred poppy, classic rock songs. They reflected the theology, music, and culture of a different time and/or style. They weren’t irrelevant. They were just different.

I could sing hymns by way of honoring another tradition and learning from it.

As we  look at the shifts in American Christianity of late, I’d like to start with worship. Worship is the low-hanging fruit that will give us a pretty clear picture of what has happened among American Protestants of late and what we should do now since it is often influenced dramatically by culture.

What Has Happened

One of the themes I’m going to hammer on this week is the ignorance of evangelicals regarding their past. When it comes to forms of worship, we have always mingled biblical worship with our culture. It’s inevitable.

We could (like some authors) call many of the influences on our worship “pagan,” but in reality there is no one biblical model for worshipping God. We are always adapting biblical worship with forms that are familiar to us. Therefore it shouldn’t surprise us that each new generation is looking for ways to worship God that feel familiar.

Even if we tried to worship in stripped down house churches along the most strictly biblical lines we can figure out, I’m certain that future generations will one day critique us for allowing the hyper-individuality of postmodernism to fragment our worship into small, independent (not interdependent) meetings that function very little like the “body” of Christ.

Robert Webber has written about our recent worship shifts as liturgy has become popular among many who were raised in lower church traditions. Dan Kimball’s Emerging Church book focused on this as well, where he, in many ways, wrote about retooling typical evangelical worship services to incorporate a broader range of ancient prayer practices.

Whether we call it culture or we call it a generational shift, many Christians are seeking different forms of worship than what they knew 15-20 years ago. Many of these forms incorporate older elements such as weekly communion, scripture readings, and liturgical prayer.

As I’ve watched my own shifts from hymns to contemporary to a more liturgical form of worship, it’s tempting to say that one is more authentic or relevant than another. We can make value judgments about which one is the most authentic way to worship God, never mind the other formats of worship we don’t even consider from around the world.

In the past 15 years I’ve seen many Christians react against either a dry form of liturgy or a shallow form of contemporary worship. They are seeking a deeper experience with God, and oftentimes that search takes them to other forms of worship in various denominations.

What Should We Do Now?

As we try to hear God today, the forms of worship that take shape in various cultures, time periods, and regions will have different strengths and weaknesses, and we should expect them to change with time.

Perhaps in twenty years Christian worship music will have a more driving beat and a greater emphasis on a simple chorus—think Lady Gaga meets David Crowder. Perhaps worship services will place a greater emphasis on silence and holy space as our work and entertainment follow us wherever we go.

I can’t predict what the future will look like, but I can say that after glimpsing our past, we can expect more shifts. Liturgies will be modified. Some will seek a high church expression, while others will be drawn to a decentralized, simple meeting.

In a sense, we should critique the past. Our forms of worship need to change as we encounter God afresh in the present. However, we should not cut ourselves off from the past. More times than not, a people cut off from their past are at the mercy of the present culture and thereby more vulnerable to its influence.

In our worship we live in an “ancient-future” tension that Webber speaks of, though we recognize that we are all making different kinds of shifts. Some are leaving the ancient forms for the contemporary, while others are leaving the contemporary for the ancient forms. 

It should not surprise us that we’re passionate about our forms of worship. It’s important. And yet, we should not let our worship, that will be predictably diverse, cause more divisions than necessary.

Worship has always boiled down to meeting with the Lord, and a good worship service will create space and provide tools to accomplish that. Hymns are no holier than the latest pop worship song, since the real goal is leading us into God’s presence so that he can meet with his people and lead us.

But I’ve been willing to pitch in where I can, and so for years I lead worship in youth group, college groups, my home church, and in many other gatherings. My lack of musical ability bred a tendency to avoid hymns.

I didn’t get hymns. They were hard to sing, hard to play, and sounded dated. I resisted bringing them into my sets, opting to toss the hymn-lovers a bone with a jazzed up version of an old standard. In fact, I only played a hymn if I could fit it into my style.

Five years ago I hung up my guitar. I was through with the Sunday morning worship production, but on a larger scale, I began to see myself more as a writer than as a worship leader—certainly not a musician. I may strum my guitar from time to time, but for this season of my life, I don’t see the guitar fitting into it.

And this brings me to the odd thing I realized about a year or two ago.

I was listening to the Passion Hymns CD, and I realized that years of attending conservative churches had implanted a fairly long list of hymns into my brain. They were part of me—and I liked it. In fact, I worried that I may attend a church where my own hypothetical children would not be grounded in the classic hymns of the faith.

That sense of gratitude and appreciation for classic hymns has only strengthened. I toss in the word “classic” so as to denote the enduring hymns that have stood the test of time and find their way into the regular play list of most congregations. At least those who still sing the old hymns. I’m thinking of songs such as “Blessed Assurance,” “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand,” and “Come Thou Fount.” Calling a song a hymn doesn’t make it classic, but there certainly are many classic hymns that we would do well to know, sing, and even study.

I remember that Brian McLaren once wrote an open letter to those who write worship songs. He criticized the huggy, sentimental nature of many contemporary worship songs. In addition, many contemporary songs are little more than a scramble of “worshippy” words and phrases that are typically lifted from hymns and arrayed in a sequence that doesn’t always make sense. In fact, there’s a recent worship song by a prominent worship leader that I can’t even figure out…

And so before I lose myself in whining, here are a few thoughts about the lessons of hymns and then some reasons to write contemporary hymns that will endure the test of time:

What Classic Hymns Teach Us

Classic Hymns Have a Narrative

For starters, classic hymns have a poetic narrative that binds them together. There is a progression and development of thought. I once led worship with a guy who loved hymns. He couldn’t bring himself to play the first and last verses of a hymn because he felt like we were missing out on key elements of the narrative. There is a complexity and direction to the lyrics that I have come to appreciate.

Whether telling the story of the cross, the perseverance of the saints, or celebrating a particular theme, hymns have a story to tell that takes us beyond a feeling or experience. While there are exclamations of joy, wonder, and gratitude, the overall narrative of classic hymns converges with God’s salvation narrative.

Classic Hymns Have God-Centered Theology

Hymns certainly touch on one’s personal experience with God as many contemporary songs are skewered for emphasizing, but in the classic category there is a strong emphasis on the work of God, with the song writer/singer playing a significantly smaller role. For example, the song “And Can It Be” has a strong personal dynamic, but the overall focus is the saving work of God.

There are many good Christian songs with Christian themes and rallying cries to ministry. However, they aren’t exactly worship songs per se. At their best, they declare allegiance to God, but at their worst they betray a self-centered fixation on what we are going to do for God. I think we’re better off celebrating what God does and the ways God uses us. We can be part of the picture, but a classic hymn doesn’t place the singer on center stage.

Why We Need New Hymns

Some Hymns Have Dated Theology

Many classic hymns are focused on heaven, and who can blame them. Heaven is a great place, and so they end with some kind of transport into glory. However, if you’ve been following the buzz these days about heaven and our eternal future with God, there are many scholars who are calling such pictures into question to a certain degree. For instance, in Surprise by Hope, NT Wright asserts that the point of scripture is God’s coming to earth (a la Revelation 21:3) rather than beaming us up to heaven.

This means the trajectory of many hymns misses a key element of scripture. This doesn’t negate their value or even make them “wrong.” Rather, we have overstated the parts of scripture where believers leave earth to be with Jesus at the expense of God’s plan to one day return and to restore creation. In addition, our understanding of the Kingdom of God has developed over time, and so it will be crucial to see this renaissance in the Kingdom theology of the NT reflected in contemporary songs.

We Have a Limited Number of Hymns

There are two songs that drive me bonkers. One is “This is the Day” after the church I attended in college played that song at the start of EVERY SERVICE. When I shared my issue with a guy in the choir, he looked at me in utter disbelief. “But, but, that’s how we start our service!”

The other song is “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” I know you’re probably shocked. I probably shouldn’t even call myself a Christian if I feel that way about it…

I know it’s a great song. The words are awesome. I just can’t take it. Soooo many churches sing it, and it became the unofficial school song of my college because… well… we didn’t usually sing the official “school song.”

And there we have a problem. There are only so many classic hymns out there. So even if we gave in to the old-timers and crooned hymns from start to finish each Sunday, we would only wear our congregations out on the classics. There’s only so many sets we can do 52 weeks each year before hitting some repeats.

We Need Modern Hymns That Celebrate God’s Work Today

God is at work in our congregations, our communities, and all over this world, and so our songs of worship should celebrate God’s provision, faithfulness, and redemption. On a few occasions over the years I welled up so deeply in gratitude to God that I actually wrote songs and poems in response. These are kept under lock and key, but for those with the talent to pull it off, we need fresh celebrations of God’s work.

It’s Not About the Music…

Before I take myself too seriously with this discussion, I should end with a note about the place of worship music today. It’s nothing new to say that our lives should be offerings of worship to God. Worship extends into all areas of our lives, even if we also need to set aside specific times to pray and sing in worship of God.

The way we fight over our music in church, you’d think the existence of God was at stake. I don’t think we should be surprised that in a world with so many niche markets and strong brand loyalty to music that our churches are a battleground over music styles and songs. We should expect that.

When one pastor told me about the conflict in his church over the selection of music, I suggested, “Why not drop the music altogether for a period of time and explore other avenues of communal worship?” He didn’t of course because  music has become an essential for most Christian gatherings. We can’t imagine gathering for worship without music.

While I see the value of worship music and love it dearly, I feel like it’s taken on an inflated role in our congregations today. I’m far more interested in a congregation moving forward in God’s mission to the world than fretting over… frets.

I used to care about the piano drowning out my guitar, but now I can’t believe I was such a petty jerk. Our world has much bigger problems, our Gospel message is far more compelling, and our mission remains urgent.

We need workers in the harvest fields.

Worship and music have a place among the people of God as they go about God’s work, but the amount of time, worry, and energy given to our worship music belies our deeper problem. We have too much riding on one piece of the puzzle, and thereby reject other key pieces we need desperately.

I hope and pray that I’ll be able to continue singing the classic hymns as well as some wonderfully creative new songs that celebrate God’s works. However, more importantly, I pray that one day we’ll be so amazed at the splendor of God and the mighty ways that he has used us that we’ll be singing his praises with hardly a thought as to its form.

For further thought…

If you’re curious about a next step for writing “classic hymns” today, have a listen to David Crowder’s songs. Not all of them work for congregational worship, not all of them will be classics, but he’s blending the old with the new and dreaming up fresh, poetic expressions in his lyrics. He offers a good place to start.