With songs of praise

Pictures may paint a thousand words, but there’s something about worship music that stirs the soul, evokes our deepest emotions and lifts our hearts to God. Songs of praise form a vital part of our communal worship, whether as part of the liturgy or the service of a charismatic church. We asked two masters of worship music from our own diocese - one of the traditioinal genre and one modern - to tell us what inspires them to compose and play.

Modern

Worship is man’s highest calling and his highest privilege. Jack Hayford in his book, Worship His majesty writes, ‘worship may be possible without song, but nothing contributes more to it’s beauty, majesty, dignity, and nobility or to it’s tenderness and intimacy.’ Christiana Rosetti states: ‘Heaven is revealed to us as the homeland of music’.

There are 85 places in the bible where we are directed to sing or to make music to the Lord. I once heard someone say that if God says something once he means it, if he says it twice he really means it and if he says it three times then he really really really means it!

From the Reformation of the 16th century to the youth awakening in the late 90’s, new songs have been the voice of a new move of God. As one writer puts it: ‘If we keep in step with the Spirit, we will always be singing new spiritual songs.’

Worship and Praise is the characteristic mark of every spiritual renewal and often these new moves of God are characterised by new insights, new revelations, new encounters and new songs.

Recently, as I stepped out of my shower one morning, the thought passed through my mind as to why the Bible never instructs us to sing an old song to the Lord. The psalmist is clear in his instruction to sing a new song to the Lord. That is not to say that we should do away with the great wealth of musical tradition, which has been harnessed in the church. I believe we are called to be wise stewards and bring out old treasures with the new.

Similarly many times we are instructed to ‘remember’. In that sense writing new songs is about taking old truth and unchanging themes and expressing them in fresh ways.

This is really what inspires me to write contemporary congregational worship songs. The fundamental things of the Gospel are unchanging but the expression will always need to keep changing in order to communicate and connect those truths with a new generation of worshippers. What appeals to one generation does not always translate to the next.

Here is an extract from an American paper objecting to new trends in church music:

‘There are several reasons for opposing it. One, it’s too new. Two, it’s often worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style. Because there are so many new songs, you can’t learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than godly lyrics. The new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it. It’s a money making scam and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.’

Sound familiar? This was in fact written by a pastor attacking Isaac Watts, writer of the famous hymn ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’ in 1723.

Of course there are issues concerning style etc but ultimately I believe that in our sung worship we need to get a balance of content and engagement. It is important to have songs that stretch the mind (2 Corinthians 14:15). Hymns are wonderful examples of songs, which are full of wonderful content and rich doctrine. However great worship is not built purely on great content. We also needs songs of engagement which connect with our hearts and allow our spirits to soar.

Music and song is a tremendously powerful tool which as Luther states has the power to ‘comfort the sad, subdue frivolity, encourage the despairing and humble the proud’.

We have a great responsibility to use this tool wisely as we seek to touch a new generation for Christ and minister to the church body as a whole.

Martyn Layzell, formerly of Soul Survivor, is Worship Pastor at St Aldates, Oxford and is responsible for the oversight of the church’s 85 musicians.  His CDs include Lost in Wonder and Turn My Face.  Photos: www.johncairnsphotography.co.uk

Traditional

The success of our Saturday lunchtime concerts in St Mary’s Parish Church, Slough, are testament to the magic and power of music, of whatever genre, to move people; to speak to anyone regardless of class, religion and culture.

Next year we will celebrate our 1000th concert – free musical interludes in the midst of a busy weekend that regularly attract 50 or more people and have artists from as far away as Austria and Japan queuing up to perform their work. The concert diary for this year ranges from jazz to classical to choral works, all at a very good standard.

In worship, too, there is room for traditional and modern arrangements of the words that all serve to praise God. But my personal first love is for organ (French Romantic) and choral music; traditional worship music composed by masters such as Durufle, Louis Vierne, Dupre, and English composer Herbert Howells, who understood harmony and orchestration.

Good worship music should reflect and draw emotion in keeping with the wider service in which it is set, whether from a full-blooded anthem by Samuel Sebastian Wesley that fills the worship space giving you a real buzz, or something relatively simple. If it is successful it should hit the soul very deeply and make your hair stand on end. I think this is what the traditional hymns and music can do so well.

There are good and bad as with any genre, but the wealth of songwriting and composing talent of our ancestors was phenomenal.

The words of these traditional hymns, taken from the liturgy also, for me, has great depth, and reflects a wider range of human states, retaining relevance and connections to our lives as we sing the words even centuries later.

Although the hymns can sometimes seem more complicated or less joyful to sing than modern worship songs, they evoke the tradition and history of the liturgy.

Think of the beauty of hearing psalms sung to a traditional arrangement, or the emotion of singing those historic words yourself.

I have been privileged for the last four years to play the organ for the Reading Midweek Choir at Reading Minster. The depth of emotion from the choral music sung in the minster or in other historic churches, cannot fail to make your heart sing.

When I was asked by choir master David Butler to compose a piece of music for the introit in their10th anniversary service in March I based it on Psalm 47, ‘O clap your hands together all ye people,’ which was inspired by the commitment and joyfulness of the choir itself and fitted them perfectly.

Here at St Mary’s I’m delighted to say we still have a small choir, and the original Norman and Beard 1912 organ is still in working order for our weekly and special services.

The music I choose for our services is mainly traditional, following the liturgy. We do try to find a balance and sometimes go for more modern arrangements and songs, but it requires the skill of the organist to adapt and enhance the basic harmony.

Neither does this music play to the strengths of instruments like the organ with its huge range of tonal colours and sheer grandness. It is more suited to the guitar and electronic keyboard which, though versatile lack, I believe, the effortless presence of the organ.

As in many Church of England churches today, there is sometimes conflict between connecting with the younger members of the congregation and also the older members, musically. But I find it interesting that this isn’t always the case. On a number of occasions I’ve been asked for a particular traditional hymn by a young person. I think all ages can find beauty and meaning in these compositions.

My great sadness is that as church has become less of a weekly non-negotiable commitment, fewer young people are being exposed to and exploring traditional worship music through being part of a choir, or learning an instrument such as the organ.

Peer pressure and the lure of band culture is understandable and inevitable, yet without new blood this wonderfully evocative music could be relegated to occasional airings. This is our heritage. We are the custodians of it and mustn’t let it disappear.

Malcolm Stowell has been organist and choir master at St Mary’s Church, Slough for more than 20 years and is senior organist for the Reading Minster Midweek Choir. He works with the Herald Singers and Schola Cantorum Sancti Adigii and, since 1998, he has also played the organ during the summer months at the Royal chapel, Windsor Great Park, for the Royal Family. Photos: David Butler