Music in the church: Argument of the Ages

Insights and Questions from Inclusive Yet Discerning--Frank Burch Brown

Traditional or Contemporary? What does that even mean?

For a musician and someone that knows and music history, specifically in the church, knows that music has outraged and sparked conversations throughout time with the addition of the music of the time. 

What is deemed 'traditional' today was contemporary of the past. Music insights something in people and the style of music has spoken to people in ways that words have also effected others. No matter the style or genre there is something said about how music speaks to the soul of a person. 

Nicholas Wolterstoff said "to enjoy beauty and thereby to enjoy God and God's creation, is both a duty and a delight.(-p16) 

Are the arguments or 'worship wars' really worth it when most worshipping communities are no longer monocultural.
As we live in consumer culture we find a deep desire to please ourselves, please others, but at what expense. We take and we give what we have and might be ignoring the possibilities of artful worship.
Kim Long in class asked us to, "Reframe conversations and talk about what does it mean to love a brother and sister in Christ through music. I may not like the (insert song or genre here) but I love the sister or brother that worships through that expression."

We may not like certain music, or art but when we stifle certain forms or argue over style or genre we are neglecting those sitting around us that may be connecting with God in real and important ways.

In choosing music or forms of art in worship we must know our context, our congregation, and the appropriateness to the worship service. 

"Discernment is as necessary in art as it is in life." (p.25)

Should we keep singing hymns that, while familiar--

or even comforting--

may be theologically unsound? 

Is the music that is deemed 'contemporary' today be the 'traditional' of the future?
What instrument, style, or art form be the 'worship war' or tomorrow?


Music is the form of art in the church that has been a part of worship life. We know that the Psalms has musical form to it, and the writers of scripture talked about the songs, instruments, and dancing in response to God's loving mercy, grace, or even wrath. This long history of music in the life of communal worship has given the people their theology and their deep memories. Which is why when we push the boundaries of the community there will be push back. This is why our conversations need to be reframed from an us vs. them. It is not about either/or or this/vs/that but about the many ways the people of God express their love, devotion, questions, theology, praise, or lament. This may come from 'secular' music, praise music, organ and choir, chant, taize, or anything else.

Reframing the Conversation

1) Know your congregation. The stories, the people

2) Be open to the gifts of the people in your congregation

3) Talk about the music that you are singing in healthy ways.

4) Be sensitive to those who are angry at thing that are new while still helping them know how the music or art could be important to the worship of someone else in the room

5) Listen to what the Spirit is calling. Do not change the worship style because it will attract. Be the congregation that God is calling you to be now. If there are people that desire something different then the conversation is already reframed.

Why does it have to be Art or Call

Why can't we understand that phrase as Art AND call. Many artists are called, many who are called to specific ordained ministry are artists. Why does one have to be mutually exclusive of the other.

When I started college I really wanted to pursue an acting career, but to keep my mom quiet I went ahead and chose a school that I could double major. So I double majored in Youth Ministry and Performing and Visual Arts with a Theatre Concentration at King College in Bristol, TN. So many people though it was a strange double major, I had to take more classes to keep up my schedule but it was important. Though I still didn't know what it meant to do art in my call. Then there was a drama ministry team on campus. But still my worlds clashed and collided. The youth ministry world was more about sports, mission trips, and education. When I got a call to do full time youth ministry I thought I had to set aside my art.

For my reasons I was miserable in my call, it became and job and part of that was not do what I was created to do: create. I was not able to create and as a Anna Owen's said in class, "a performer is an interpreter" so I also was able to interpret. I was able to find delight in many of the things I was doing but when I was acting again, I felt alive.

In seminary I have found ways to create, to interpret, and to live into my art in ways that enhance my call.

I have found the my art is my call and my call is my art. 

The following quote has stuck with me since undergrad, when I first heard it after we opened a Buechner Institute and it continues to morph as I discern my call.

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet."                     -Frederick Buechner 

Place is not just a physical space but also a mental and spiritual space. My art is part of that. Performance art has been a new doorway. It has opened up possibilities for how to do Christian Education or lead worship. 

So I know what my deep gladness is, what about the world's deep hunger

   What is the world hungry for? 

There is a hunger for art for ways to reflect or ways to express. Art can be therapeutic but that is not the only purpose of art. Art speaks in ways that words may not be able to speak.  

In my travels to Israel/Palestine there is artwork all over the country. The ancient art that speaks to the graces and ways to seek to understand God and their place in the world with God. The other art that is being created today is speaking to a whole other purpose, reaching visitors and others to be reminded of the conflict, the art that is on the walls of the West Bank. 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Old City of Jerusalem
- the traditional site of where Jesus was crucified and Buried 

 These are both meeting deep needs, I think for both the artist and for those experiencing the art.


These pieces speak in many different ways.
At the church, visitors and worshippers are looking at the art and seeing the importance of the place and the art brings expression to what the site means to them. The art brings those looking into the space.

Wall in Bethlehem- West Bank

In the West Bank the art is speaking to those who are oppressing and to the visitors as a plea and reminder of what is happening in that space. Bethlehem a place where people journey to see the birthplace of Christ is the place where men and women are oppressed by the Israeli government. The art on the walls is a way for them to express grief, pain, anger, and hope. 

Art is meeting the deep needs of the people. 

The artists have been called to say something and we are called to respond to that art. 

What are the responses to these two forms of art? 

How can we use various forms of art in our worship? In our Sabbath? 

How can we help others use art as a way to express our worship and praise of God? What will that look like? 

Many people hear the word art, these might be the responses: 

           Art can be: joyous, exciting, life-enhancing, fun-packed, insight-provoking, exalting

          Art can be: terrifying, frenetic, devastating, deadening, life-draining, mean spirited, illusion-shattering.

          When art is mostly all of the first category, it means the go ahead is on. When art is mainly all of the second category, it’s time to go dancing 

So in thinking about art and call and art and Sabbath we need to be free and allow ourselves---to dance. 

Beautiful Things

This blog post is a reflection of the first 3 chapters of Deborah Sokolove's book Sanctifying Art.

Each person experiences art in different ways. We have our visceral reactions to art, good or bad. What if we looked again, kept looking putting our judgements aside to see the multiple ways in which art is experienced by others. 

"There is nothing that does not participate in the beautiful" -St. Thomas Aquinas 

I know not everyone can walk into a museum and stand in front of a painting for hours or even want to go to a museum at all. I went to a museum a few months ago and saw a Impressionist painting that was stunning. I would look at it far away, close up, at every angle, I saw the movement in the painting and it was breathtaking. I'm sure plenty of people walked by that same painting and said, "Oh that's nice" and moved on. Which is what I did to a lot of the art throughout the museum. 

Each piece that is displayed or created participates in what is beautiful. In American 20th century churches many are looking for either what is practical with a great nod to aesthetics so to introduce art that is not aesthetically pleasing brings groans. But artists do not always think in the same way as others, "when artists speak of aesthetics, they are not usually speaking about beauty, but of relationship (harmonies or otherwise) among the various elements of artwork, and how those relationships express ideas or emotions." (p. 45) 

In the church I am currently working we have a few artists that have created pieces for our space. One artist is a sculptor and he created a piece that sits in our fellowship hall. Below is a picture with one of our parishioners. Many people walk by it and tell others they don't understand what it is saying. Many think it is ugly but they love the person that created it. After reading Sokolove's chapter on beauty and aesthetics I was thinking about how I need to keep thinking about this piece and see the new beauty of the art.

We cannot dismiss art because it doesn't look like our idea of what art is, otherwise we will miss out on something incredible. Something new is happening in art and with God as we look at art in our worship spaces or anytime we gather. There are times when art offends, and sometimes that is its purpose. But sometimes art is speaking beyond our preconceived notions of what art was, is, could be, or should be. 

I was struck by the story that was mentioned about  Robert Graham's Our Lady of the Angels. That someone saw this statue and called it ugly. When I looked at it I saw a beautiful depiction of Mary that is indistinct of a particular ethnicity or gender bias. The way the statue was situated where what was below and above evoked so many meanings is powerful. When we close ourselves off to beauty that is beyond aesthetics then we close ourselves off to the possibilities that art, in any form can bring us.

I want to close this with two thoughts.

One is from St. Augustine: "Do Beautiful things delight because they are beautiful or are they beautiful because they delight?"

And the other is from a contemporary worship band Beautiful Things by Gungor. With this quote about God. "You make beautiful things 
 You make beautiful things out of the dust 
 You make beautiful things 
You make beautiful things out of us"

Whether it is art, nature, or even the people you encounter. God sees all things as beautiful, and thanks be to God for that. 

Worshipping Body as Ensemble

Reflections on Clayton Schmit Too Deep for Words: A Theology of Liturgical Expression, chapter By Faith and Not by Sight

What a wonderful world we live in to be able to worship God in ways not only speak to God but speaks our language and enlivens us in ways that are unexplainable. I have been a part of worship services that several gallons of coffee haven't helped and I have been in worship services that gave me energy in ways coffee never will. This isn't just a contemporary vs. traditional issue. It is more than that. The first question that I always ask myself in worship is, Where is God?

Many people struggle with certain worship spaces, venues, or expressions because of one word: Performance.

Does this feel like entertainment? Worship isn't about us, it's about the audience of one--->God!

As someone who has found theatre to be one of the most life giving expressions, I really struggled to hear people exclaim the importance of high reverence or elevated vernacular. I hated hearing scripture read in a tone of voice that made it sound like something that was supposed to be done but not the most important part of service.

So why is the word performance a struggle? Is is possibly because people want so desperately to separate church life from other forms of entertainment that is also performance. Entertainment such as concerts, movies, and even live theatre are to keep us engaged and the people performing are praised for their work. Churches simply do not want to praise the artists but to only praise God. There is a fear of performance in worship because of the possibility of the performer being the focus instead of God.

What can we learn though from performance? Schmit quotes Richard Ward in his definitions of performance from the French par+fournir which means 'carry through to completion" and as performance being a "form coming through" (p. 31)

I have heard a someone say a worship service is a rehearsal and the performance is what we do in our daily lives. We rehearse together as a community how to do kingdom living in the world. In many ways this works with the definition and in some ways it's counteracts the above statement. Because we are practicing kingdom living in worship, in community, as witnesses to the world but it is never completed. Schmit offers some insight into this from a quote by David Power in saying, "The church celebrates the presence of the Lord in these symbols [liturgy], while at the same time recognizing the absence that will endure until the eschaton." [the end of time, return of Christ] (p. 34) We are practicing to live like Christ but we not achieve that because one, we are not Christ, and two, Christ has promised his return.

Is worship performance? 
In many ways, yes. Thinking this way may be dangerous but it can be extremely powerful as well. Kierkagaard saw simlarites between worship and drama and said that the congregation and leadership were playing to God as the audience. But Schmit says something that is super powerful. "God is also active and performing in worship..in a sense there is no audience in worship." (p. 32)
   
What if we thought of the body of Christ, the worshipping body as an Ensemble. The group, including God, all come together to play, figure out, work out, sing, dance, move, mess up, create, destroy, try over and over again. Find their voice, lose it, create bonds, and work together for a common purpose. As an ensemble, all players are integral parts. We pray for God's presence and hold on to scriptures that tell us, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20) Leaders of the church, whether it be the pastor or musicians are there to speak of the promises of God but it is the work of the Holy Spirit and the presence of God that makes it holy and changes substances such as the water for baptism, or the bread and wine for communion into more than merely visual symbols. We are participants with God, enacting the greater story alongside.

Worship is performance is not performance in that, the goal is the entertain the potential audience, which is the congregation. Many people feel certain worship styles do that for them and they struggle. But I have experienced the same type of expression of praise, in the form of clapping after a piece, following a particularly complicated organ piece. And the comment made to me by the minister is that she wished that she got that kind of response following her preaching. I remember my immediate response being I hope one day to get that kind of response from a congregation following what I had to say. I think back on that conversation and wonder was it that I got out of the way and creating a space for Presbyterians to actually clap after I spoke or that I wanted a big pat on the back for a job well done. What was the preacher's subtext when wondering about the applause following the organist piece of music?
 
Can performance be worshipful?  

Yes! I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what we do, God works with it and makes it beautiful. I think about this conversation and question a lot as someone who is a performer. I love being creative in worship and using my gifts in theatre to glorify God. I do know that there are times when I have to step back and ask myself is this "the Kristy" show or is this helping other come to know God in a rich, authentic way. Creativity for the sake of creativity, while beautiful and fun runs a big risk of having worship no longer be about God but about the performer(s). But can it still speak to people and glorify God.

God has created varieties of people and guided them to places in their lives to enrich their own worship and the worship of those with which they share community and identity. The words we hear in proclamation and the things we see in visual art or hear in music are words that 'God gives us and are a sign that God is with us, actively giving us the message of grace or reproval.' (p. 38) God is a hidden presence.

In theatre when people enter into a performance they are asked to suspend their disbelief. We know that the actors aren't actually the characters they are playing, we know that we are not in 1789 during the French Revolution when we see Les Misérables  performed but we suspend our disbelief as we watch and we are there with the performers, in the story, in the moment.

God is there with us, when we read the scriptures we are not in 1st century Palestine, walking with Jesus and the disciples but the words are real and can bring listeners in to feeling like they have heard it for the first time and that is powerful.

In thinking about theatre, the group practices and studies their roles for a long period of time, familiarizes themselves with the words so much that if something changes in the midst of the play (such is live theatre) than they can adapt and keep moving.

So what if we are worship leaders and active participants in worship put some of that effort into our gathering. How much more would we be familiar with the Word of God? How much more would we be familiar with the people with whom we tell the story?  How enriching to rehearse a text. I can't imagine how an oral tradition could not have had priest and rabbis as incredible engaging storytellers. Since we have the texts written down many times leaders are so wrapped up in the preparation of the sermon or in what is happening around them that they the end up just reading the text and not telling the story.

Acting is not a bad thing

The great Stanislavski, talked about the 'Magic If,' acting is asking a lot of "what if" questions. Schmit highlights Jana Childers comment that the word if, "gives us permission to be something other than what we are." (p.36) In thinking about us being imitators of Christ, and thinking of Christ in our lives and how we enact our faith.

When we read scripture, sing, dance, pray, or any other form of expression we are inviting the 'what if' into our lives. When we attempt to live out our faith in the world we are constantly asking ourselves the 'what if.' When we try to love one another and love God we are acting out our role as worshipful beings.

Can the idea of saying we are acting be dangerous---yes. But that is because the idea that we are putting on a face or facade is what acting means to someone. But plays are supposed to be imitations of real life. They may be abstractions or even distortions. Performance can achieve something in worship that can be extremely powerful for the whole worshipping body.