Is “God Inhabits the Praises of His People” Really Biblical?

I reluctantly lift up the truce-flag of exegetical honesty.  I desperately want it to say it.  Many worship leaders (including myself) have quoted it as saying it.  It would be a great proof-text-style summary verse for a very important aspect of the theology of worship.  But the fact is that the translational evidence leans heavily against us being able to say that “God inhabits the praises of His people” is an accurate rendering of the Hebrew of Psalm 22:3.  Now, it is certainly a possible translation, but it is not the one that makes the best sense of the poetry.  Before we unpack this, let’s look at why it would be so valuable for it to say what it doesn’t say.

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Worship Leader Magazine's 20 Most Influential Worship Albums - Reflections

Worship Leader Magazine - January 2012 IssueThe most recent issue of Worship Leader Magazine released their list of the top twenty most influential worship albums of the last twenty years.  Many of the album-mentions include articles of reflection and appreciation written by other worship leaders and songwriters in the mainstream worship music industry.  The list is interesting and worth some analysis.

The Top Twenty

1. Delirious, Cutting Edge 1 & 2 (1994)
2. Chris Tomlin, Arriving (2004)
3. Paul Baloche, A Greater Song (2006)
4. Israel Houghton, Live from Another Level (2004)
5. Vineyard, Change My Heart, O God (1996)
6. Hillsong United, United We Stand (2006)
7. Matt Redman, Facedown (2003)
8. Gungor, Beautiful Things (2010)
9. Andrae Crouch, Pray (1997)
10. Passion, Better is One Day (1999)
11. Hillsong, Shout to the Lord (1996)
12. David Crowder Band, A Collision (2005)
13. Donnie McClurkin, Donnie McClurkin (1996)
14. Various Artists, The Heart of Worship: Live 97 (1997)
15. Jesus Culture, We Cry Out (2007)
16. Vineyard UK, Hungry (1999)
17. Michael W. Smith, Worship (2001)
18. Misty Edwards, Eternity (2003)
19. Tommy Walker, Break Through: Live at Saddleback (2006)
20. Third Day, Offerings (2000) 

Observations

• I totally agree with #1 and #2.  Cutting Edge really is the most definable "moment" when the shift from "contemporary worship" to "modern worship" took place, and many, many songs from Arriving have become go-to tried and true anthems for the contemporary evangelical church (just check the CCLI stats).  Arriving, furthermore, is Tomlin's seminal album.
• I'm very surprised that, of all the albums Matt Redman has made, Facedown made the list.  If we're speaking of influence, isn't it obvious that The Heart of Worship (with the popular song by the same title), The Friendship and the Fear (with "Better is One Day"), or Where Angels Fear to Tread (with "Blessed Be Your Name") deserve to be featured?  The explanation says, "Facedown [is] the epitome of his craft and anointing."  I respectfully disagree.  The aforementioned albums have all had more influence (which is the criterion Worship Leader is using).  Granted, they mention The Heart of Worship: Live 97 as marking the introduction of the "British Invasion" of Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, and Kevin Prosch.  Nevertheless, if we're talking about Redman's work, at least four other albums have been more influential than Facedown.  Finally, with respect to Redman, my opinion is that his last two albums (We Shall Not Be Shaken, 10,000 Reasons) are breaking through to more complex, thoughtful, theologically rich, biblically reflective, and historically informed material.
• Hillsong United's United We Stand and Hillsong's Shout to to the Lord rightly deserve to be in this list.  Darlene Zschech's infectious song put the Aussies on the map, and Hillsong U, for better or worse, brought teenage-ish arena worship to the mainstream.  
• Likewise, the Vineyard albums deserve their place.  Vineyard has had a strong influence on modern worship, perhaps not with music as much as ethos.  Vineyard typifies third wave Pentecostalism, whose spirituality and worship ideologies have highly influenced evangelicalism, such that denominations not historically tied to charismatic Pentecostalism (many times unknowningly) apply Pentecostal thinking to their worship theology and practice.
• The David Crowder album that should be on this list is Illuminate, not A Collision.  Illuminate was to Crowder what Arriving was for Tomlin.  "O Praise Him" and "Open Skies" really were the worship-influence breakout for Crowder to move from semi-national cult-following to mainstream-imbibed KLOVE airplay.  Furthermore, it's very hard to classify the concept album A Collision as a worship album.  Though two or three songs became congregational material, this album marked a decided shift in focus from producing worship songs to making their albums art pieces (which, in my opinion, they are).
• I'm not sure why Jesus Culture is on the list.  They are too new to judge influence.
• I agree with Third Day's Offerings taking a place.  Here we had a major CCM band breaking relatively new ground by making a "worship album" of popular worship songs of the day.  This had several effects: (1) other artists began doing it; (2) popular worship songs started receiving mainstream radio airplay; (3) the line between congregational songs and pop-radio hits became much more blurry at this point.  This is all very significant.
• The verdict is not out on Gungor.  Worship Leader points out a strong musical influence to shift instrumentation and style in a new direction.  Gungor is intensely musical and very creative.  I hope they do influence the mainstream more.  But have they done so yet?  Putting them at #8 seems, at best, a prophecy.
• Where is Brenton Brown?

Conclusions

For an exercise as broad-sweeping as this, consensus is hard, and I recognize that.  Still, it appears to me that, while there is some validity to this list, either (a) it was hastily drawn together to meet a publishing deadline, (b) it was compiled through the grid of "the industry" which ended up using different criteria than "influence," or (c) both a and b.

Indelible GraceBecause Worship Leader is wedded to the industry and the labels, they are only going to mention those albums which are connected to the industry.  Therefore, a highly influential grass-roots worship album like Indelible Grace (2000) won't make the list.  Ironically the Indelible Grace movement has influenced the industry.  Several mainstream-labeled bands have re-recorded their material, including Jars of Clay (Redemption Songs) and Caedmon's Call (In the Company of Angels I and II).  Now, no Indelible Grace song has made the upper eschelons of the CCLI charts, but influence is more than popularity among mainstream evangelical churches who report their stats to the mothership.  The hymn revival among young modern worship leaders and small startup churches (alongside older established churches) continues to accellerate while the industry train chugs on.  

CCM Magazine March 2005 - "Hymns: The New Modern Worship?"But there is even more compelling evidence than this that this hymns movement is highly influential.  In recent years, the industry has taken notice.  For instance, PraiseCharts, the dominant online resource-provider for worship music and material is in the R&D phase of liturgies.com, dedicated to worship environments that embrace hymns and a more "liturgical" structure.  Producers like John Hartley (Matt Redman, Leigh Nash) are interested in expanding the reach of mainstream-styled worship albums like Love Divine into the realm of hymnody.  These folks, too, are in the midst of some R&D for websites and albums that will resource modern worship versions of hymns.  CCM Magazine's March 2005 issue featured the cover story, "Hymns: The New Modern Worship?"  So influence must mean more than just megachurch airplay and CCLI stats.

Do Some of Our Historic Images of Jesus Hinder Our Ability to See God as Joyful?

If you don't think that art has the ability to shape the spirituality and worship of the Church, hopefully this little exercise will shift your perspective.  What's your reaction to the statement, "God is an intensely joyful God"?  Or, perhaps more starkly, "God is Joy."

My Pentecostal brothers and sisters have no problem with joy in worship.  Modern worship capitalizes on it.  But what about the more traditional-liturgical traditions?  Is there a sense of joy in our worship?  Many of my somber, cerebral, liturgy-loving friends would say, “Of course! It’s just internal, reverential joy.”  Okay, sure.  If I’m honest with myself, though (I won’t speak for others), when I’m experiencing the richest joy there is, I would have a terribly hard time containing it within a “reverential” shell.  It would probably burst forth.  I might smile.  Perhaps I’d even shout.  Perhaps I’d even dance.  Come to think of it, are reverence and joy at such odds that to express one would be diametrically opposed to expressing the other?

Even if my more high church brothers and sisters aren’t responding to these little jabs, perhaps we might see how our historic Christological art has affected our thinking and worship of God, and specifically the Second Person of the Trinity.

John Jefferson Davis, in his fabulous work, Worship and the Reality of God,¹ points out that evangelical worship could stand to rehearse more often one of God’s most inspiring attributes—joy. (By the way, since when have we seen "Joy" as one of the sections of communicable attributes of God in systematic theology texts?)  Davis briefly proofs his claim through showing the richness of joy in God and in early church worship (Acts 2:46-47; Lk 10:21; Jn 15:11; Jn 1:1-3; Prov 8:30-31; Zeph 3:17; Lk 15:5ff; Rev 19:6-7). He then reminds his readers of God’s joy through what may be a shocking statement: “heaven is a happy place; God the Father and God the Son have smiling faces.”²  And, in a footnote, Davis points out something quite profound about ecclesiastical art in both the Western and Eastern Christian traditions:

The images of God in the church and in the Christian’s imagination can have powerful impacts for good or for ill in personal piety and worship.  The crucifix in Roman Catholic churches, portraying a dead and suffering Christ, and the icons of ‘Christ Pantocrator’ in Orthodox churches, portraying a powerful but very somber Jesus, do indeed portray profound biblical truths—but not the whole truth; the joyfulness of the inner life of the Trinity is missing in these images.³

Let it sink in.  When you scan in your mind the depictions of Jesus you’ve seen in paintings, sculptures, and film, what is the prevailing mood?  Now scan your theology (what you believe about God) and your resulting spirituality (the habits through which you personally relate to God).  What do you see?  Is God a highly joyful God in your mind?  Do you relate to God in public and private worship in ways that others would describe as a relationship "full of joy"?  Perhaps a discussion about how art over history has shaped this is a bit chicken-and-egg.  Did art shape our spirituality, or did the ways we thought of God seep into our art?  It's probably some of both, a symbiotic relationship.  But, nevertheless, here we are.

Perhaps I can’t appeal to your intellect.  Maybe you remain unconvinced that you need to see God as more joyful and that this could have a dramatic impact on your individual and corporate worship.  So I’ll try appealing to your hunger.  Don’t you want, deep down inside, to believe God is intensely joyful?  Don’t you yearn to know and love a God who is pulsating delight—delight in Himself, delight in His creation, and delight in you?  I sure do. 

Artists: it looks like we have some work to do.  We have an opportunity to fill a significant gap that could have a shaping impact on Christ's church going forward.  We need more songs, more paintings, more sculptures, more film, more drama, and more dance that give us a balancing picture of God’s eternal joy!

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¹John Jefferson Davis, Worship and the Reality of God: An Evangelical Theology of Real Presence (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010).
²Davis, Worship, 58.
³Davis, Worship, 58, n. 48.

If You're Trying to Think More Pastorally About Worship...

If you’re trying to think more pastorally about worship, then you should read this interview.  It is both a model of what pastoral thinking looks like and a display of some application of thinking pastorally in the local church context.  Bobby Gilles, over at My Song in the Night has a great set of Q & A with Bruce Benedict of Cardiphonia.  My favorite two parts of this interview:

Bobby Gilles: What do you say to a pastor or worship leader who says “Hymns won’t work in my context. People here want new music”?

Bruce Benedict: I’ve been reading through Jamie Smith’s book Desiring the Kingdom getting ready for the Calvin Worship Symposium coming up.  In the book he talks a good deal about how our world does a better job of recognizing and forming our desires than we often realize.  And how the church needs to begin to treat people as more than heads on sticks.  Our worship/music ministries really reveal this.  People want new music in church constantly because that is largely what we are used to being fed by the world.  Even my work-week is typically filled with the latest album and records coming out…

Bobby Gilles: What do you think is the relative importance or balance in the relationship between singable tunes and interesting tunes? 

Bruce Benedict: Great question! This is something I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately. Especially as I’ve realized that what will sound great on a recording isn’t always what will work well for corporate singing…and I think we have to be honest about how each approach requires a different mindset when we sit down to song write.

Because so much of what we are writing is also what we are thinking about, in terms of recording, we can get ourselves into trouble. I think this often provides much of the rub, too, between what we like to sing and what we want to write to record.  This is a tension we need to talk and think about a lot more…especially in terms of being intentional about how we write.

So much of our life is spent listening to music and we are often hard wired to think about what kind of music sounds interesting to us.  Thinking about what is singable is a lot harder.  I often chart out songs I’m working on in a notation software as part of helping me to think through ‘singability’.  I also preview a lot of new songs in monthly potlucks with my musicians where we talk through new songs.

Read the whole interview.

Our Worship is a Measurement of What God is Worth to Us

Both the content of and effort in our worship say something about what God is worth to us. Often we don't realize that even mundane decisions we make about worship speak to how we view God's worth.  We evangelicals are often accused of being pragmatic in our decision-making when it comes to worship--and for good reason.  We have a long history of making decisions based on pragmatics like "what will get the most people in the door," or "what's most convenient for guests."  Certainly these aren't all bad considerations, but we do need to ask important questions about where such considerations fit within the hierarchy of our priorities for worship.  

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Eleven Reasons Why Singing Is Important

As a worship leader who tries to engage people pastorally, I not infrequently encounter men and women who don't care one bit about the singing portion of a worship service.  It's pulling teeth for them.  There are a host of reasons.  Often times, it's personal--they don't feel they have a good voice, or the emotion tied to singing is uncomfortable and foreign for them.  Sometimes it's philosophical--they believe that the only important part of a worship service is the sermon and so they just want to "get on with it."

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Worship Reading Goals for 2012

Worship leaders should be worship readers, so here’s my ambitious list for 2012 (off the heels of what I have read in 2011).  These are the books I want to focus on in the field of worship, but they won’t be the only things I read.  In fact, I want to take seriously C. S. Lewis’s admonishment to read one old book for every new one.  These are all relatively new books, and though I won’t read as many old books, I hope to read a few (Bradshaw, below, will open me up to some primary source material that will take me into the old stuff).  I also hope to read one or two works of classic literature and am open to recommendations.  Literature always stirs my soul and imagination and often helps me think about well-worn issues in new ways.

John Jefferson Davis, Worship and the Reality of God: An Evangelical Theology of Real Presence (2010)

I’ve actually read this one already, but I plan on revisiting it, outlining it, and imparting its wisdom to others.  In fact, our Worship, Music, & Arts team at Cherry Creek will be discussing it at our retreat this January.

Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology (2009)

I’m about half way through this book already, so it will likely be my first finish in 2012.  It is blowing my face off.  Its dialogue is so different from what evangelicals typically talk about, and it really lifts up a high view of gathered, corporate worship.  It is also heavily footnoted (which I love) and is therefore opening me up to a host of resources, especially to choice worship-thinkers outside of the evangelical tradition.

Jean-Jacques von Allmen, Worship: Its Theology and Practice (1965)

Both Davis and Chan (above) have cited this resource enough times that I feel it’s important enough to dig up.  It’s from a Reformed perspective, but it takes some surprising turns, I believe, such that it wouldn’t sound like the standard fare from Reformed worship writers (not that they’re bad!).

Edward Kilmartin, Christian Liturgy: Theology and Practice (1988)

A Roman Catholic liturgiologist who will especially inform me in the area of Worship and the Trinity.  Chan references this book a fair amount.

Paul Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy (2002)

I’m looking forward to this book being a resource of primary material regarding early Christian worship and its roots in Jewish synagogue worship.

Hilaire Belloc, “On Song,” from On Everything (1910)

I honestly can’t remember why I’ve flagged this essay to read, except that something else I read referenced it and compelled me to check it out.  Free download from Google Books.

Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music (1998)

This one won’t be read from cover to cover but will be referenced heavily, especially as it pertains to traditional worship music and liturgy.  Bruce Benedict at Cardiphonia turned me on to this resource.

John Williamson Nevin, The Mystical Presence: A Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1846)

I’m interested in understanding my Presbyterian/Reformed tradition better when it comes to the theology of the Lord’s Supper, and many have said that Nevin’s work is seminal.

Honorable mention (or, books on my radar that may either gain or lose traction on the journey to making the 2012 list): 

Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, The Works of God (2001)

Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (1997)

Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (1966)

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Worship leaders & thinkers: What are you reading?  What will you read?  What has recently impacted your view, practice, and leadership of worship?  I'm very curious.

My Favorite Worship Reads from 2011

The beginning of 2011, for me, was largely about getting a recording out the door.  Halfway through, I picked up a few books, and I’ll mention the ones that had the most impact in the area of worship, music, & arts.  I'll post my anticipated reads for 2012 later this week.

**If you're a pastor, worship leader, or worship thinker, I'd love to know what books, articles, or other works influenced you this past year.  Please share!**

John Jefferson Davis, Worship and the Reality of God: An Evangelical Theology of Real Presence (2010)

This one lit a fire under me, and I’ve been challenging others I know to read it.  Its central thesis: evangelical worship needs to recover a sense that God is truly present among us in a unique way when we gather for worship.  It not only diagnoses the historical and theological reasons why evangelical worship lacks a sense of God’s real presence, it proposes very helpful solutions to the problem.  It is my number-one recommendation to my readership.  If you can only read one book on worship this year, read this one.

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