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I grew up attending a very wide variety of churches. As far as I can remember, we attended small churches, larger churches, Presbyterian churches, a house church, an Episcopal church, a Baptist church (not sure if it was Southern Baptist), a charismatic church, a Methodist church, and a Bible church. The Episcopal church was very formal in its approach to worship (in architecture, dress, and music) but unfortunately was not evangelical. We started attending there when I was probably around 11 and I have many memories of elaborate liturgies, processions, amazing organ music, and even liturgical dance. Undoubtedly my knowledge of many great hymns of the faith came from this church, even though I didn’t learn the gospel there. I was saved when I was 12 at the ministry of a summer camp where I was attracted to the gospel lived out in the lives of my college-aged counselors. We had daily devotions (camp-wide!) and sang songs to guitars strumming around a campfire – songs like “I Love You, Lord,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “Leaning on the Lord’s Side,” etc. (I’m not sure if the old “standard” Lord, I Lift Your Name...
I grew up in and out of church in Drexel, Missouri. When our family was there, I recollect hearing the big American hymns most of you out there have heard of. However, my memory fails me as to which ones I actually learned.
In college at the University of Missouri, I began to be exposed to the praise and worship movement. While a part of a campus ministry in the early nineties, we sang a wide variety of praise choruses. It was during my senior year that I picked up the guitar again (had been burned out from playing for my sister in country music shows as a child, believe it or not) and began learning worship songs.
Following college, I did an internship with a campus ministry in Springfield, Missouri. There I became exposed to more praise and worship songs. I simultaneously became involved in a local church. Over the course of 7 years, I led worship with the campus ministry and played in the church worship band, largely doing praise and worship choruses interspersed with a few widely known traditional hymns.
I moved to Louisville in 2001 to attend Southern Seminary. There I...
When I took Hymnology in seminary, our first required paper was a 'hymnological biography.' We were to write about the hymnological influences in our life to that point. Might this be a good idea for us? What sort of worship environments were we raised in--church, home, private? What were the songs, styles, etc. that shaped? How have these been a help or hindrance toward God-centered worship?
David, I certainly agree with your statements at ReformedPraise.org and disagree with your critic for the following reasons:
1) There seems to be an unhelpful division in the writer's mind between thinking and feeling in worship. Many in the Reformed camp today have overreacted against the praise and worship movement, saying that feelings are irrelevant (this is similar to many in the church reacting to our society's "I fell out of love" point of view by responding with "love is a choice"). The author says, "Corporate singing is the worship of believers to the truth of God's Word and His character." What, then, is "worship?" Is it informing God of truths about himself? It it simply an intellectual exercise for us? Or is worship, by definition, an expression of emotion? I say it is. And I stand with Jonathan Edwards, among others, in saying this. Our church, in our bi-weekly "Brew and Books (by dead guys)," had the opportunity to read through parts of Edwards' Religious Affections, where he argues that religion devoid of affections for God or for others is no religion at all. Do we dumb down our lyrics and sing 7-11 choruses endlessly (7 words, 11 times)? No....
From time to time I receive critical feedback about what I am doing over at Reformed Praise and thought that I would share a recent email that is thought-provoking. I haven't responded to the author yet, so perhaps your comments might help me craft a deft reply.
On the homepage of reformedpraise.org it states:
Hymns have long been a rich source of deep lyrics, but many traditional tunes used to sing these hymns hinder rather than help believers feel what they are singing.
I lovingly disagree with this point. I love the old tunes and find them easy to sing and rich in melody. I have never found them to hinder my worship because the content is the focus. The one word that came to my attention here is "feel". Corporate singing is the worship of believers to the truth of God's Word and His character. Feelings cannot be trusted and should not be a focus of worship. Today's music is sung to ellicit "feelings" and get people stirred up to a point of hypersuggestiveness to where they cannot reason. We should be responding appropriately to God and His Word in humility and praise.
When we sing at our church we encourage...
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