Use Your Head

As a worship leader, I feel a great responsibility to lead the Church through a well-rounded, theologically sound song-list every week. But I’ve always been hesitant to put certain songs into a worship service that have a central theme of “I need Your presence” or “come now,” or “saturate me,” and so on. To an extent, those statements are Biblically sound on a personal level, but if you take a historical look at worship in the corporate sense, songs like that don’t really appear too often, if ever. Often when you see corporate songs of praise in the Bible, they tell a story of remembrance for what God did (see Moses’ song of praise in Exodus 15:1-18), how we are going to respond to him (see Psalm 9:2), or simply praise his name. I haven’t searched the Bible all the way through to check—haven’t managed to find the time—but I don’t think you really see people coming together for corporate worship and then singing “I need” and “come now.” Truthfully, those are very immature statements, like what young children scream to their parents. And these statements don’t really lend themselves to edification of the church body, which is the purpose of coming together for worship services. Additionally, isn’t it true that when we meet together in his name, God is already there with us? So saying “sweep through this place!” is kind of redundant if he’s with us already. I would much prefer leading the church in “It is written, Christ is risen, Jesus You are lord of all” than “Saturate us now, God”. I feel we are reminded of the purpose of our existence as individuals and as the Church when we engage our minds (i.e. remembering, dwelling) in worship, in addition to just physically and emotionally, which so many modern choruses are limited to (physically; i.e. raising hands, dancing [tastefully and joyfully]) (emtionally; i.e. smiling, laughing, crying).

I mean think about it, if you were in a room and Jesus walked in, what would you do? Ask him to saturate you with his presence? Ask him to come, even though he is already there? Would you feel the need to say “I need” and “I want”? Would you just smile at him, cry in his presence, or dance around joyfully? If I were in the presence of a king that I adored, I would probably do all that stuff to an extent, but I would also tell him why he is worthy of all praise and thank him for all the things he’s done, and I would probably get specific about it. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. I need to study it some more to see if I’m even accurate in a biblical sense.

I think that’s why I absolutely love where Hillsong has gone over the last decade. They have brought the simplistic choruses of the 80′s and 90′s back to a deep and theological remembrance-focused style of worship that was so evident in the hymns of old. Read the lyrics of “Stronger” or “Like Incense” and tell me those songs don’t speak to your heart and mind like a hymn does.

“Stronger” by Hillsong Live

There is love that came for us

Humbled to a sinner’s cross

You broke my shame and sinfulness

You rose again victorious

“Like Incense” by Hillsong Live

Your statutes are my heritage forever

My heart is set on keeping Your decrees

Please still my anxious urge toward rebellion

Let love keep my will upon its knees

And what’s better is that their music and instrumentation is emotionally and physically engaging with creative beats you don’t really ever hear in other songs in the “worship” genre (e.g. Our God is Love by Hillsong Live), along with emotionally moving chord progressions with catchy lead guitar lines. This gives us the best of both worlds: The Rock influenced song structure our generation loves, along with the feel of the 80′s and 90′s “Contemporary Chorus Revolution” that swept through churches, both coupled with the cognitively engaging lyric style of hymns. It’s ingenious, really.

I sometimes catch flack for singing an estimated 75% Hillsong tunes in our church and youth services, but it’s not just because Hillsong is a bunch of hipsters with a sweet philanthropic arm to their ministry, or that we all wish we were as cool as them… Their songs are deep and moving to the soul. On the other hand, I often have people come to me and suggest that we sing songs like this:

I want to touch Your face
I want to see You, God
I want You, Jesus
More than ever before

It’s nice and everything, but sometimes it never actually gets any deeper than that. The instrumentation of the song may be outstanding, and it may have had a $400,000 production budget for the album it came from, but I think sometimes we let how good it sounds get in the way of seeing how mentally un-engaging the lyrics actually are. And while I guess I can appreciate the person who wants to just “get lost” in the presence of God, while singing mindless lyrics reminiscent of an 80′s love ballad (I’m obviously not that type), that all needs to be balanced out with strong, theologically sound, powerful, and recollective songs that force you to think about what you’re singing, who you are singing to, exactly what He did for us, and what we are going to do in response.

I know that Hillsong isn’t the only answer here. Many other comparable churches (e.g. New Life Worship, Gateway Worship) are beginning to follow this very healthy trend in songwriting. But for the most part, Hillsong seems to really nail it. So let’s get back to using our heads while we sing, eh?

By the way, I really like 80′s love ballads.

Discussion Questions:

Am I out of touch with my emotions?

Am I projecting my personal preferences on the congregation?

Is asking God to come and “saturate us” with his presence when he’s already there a waste of breath that could be used more efficiently to tell God how awesome he is for sending his son into a fallen world to live a human life, feel our pains and discomforts, then die a sinner’s brutal death, all while bearing the shame of mankind?

Should I quit Church and work @ Starbucks 4E?

Is Joel Houston more relevant than Jon Egan and Chris Tomlin?

Does anyone else think Paul Baloche is the nicest guy you’ve ever met?

If Catalyst Conference was around in 1724, do you think Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley would have led worship and requested room temperature mango juice in their green room?

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