An Important Dialogue About Worship Music

This has been floating around in many of the online circles I run in.  It's a very, very good dialogue between three guys who I admire for thinking theologically and pastorally about worship--Kevin Twit, Mike Cosper, and Isaac Wardell.

Here are some of my takeaways:

• On the topic of songs and "singability" of modern musical idioms:
  • It is often said that a lot of "contemporary" music is unsingable...too many flourishes, too many pop-vocal-isms.  People say that about U2's music--too high, too irregular.  And yet, for many reasons, you attend a U2 concert and you find thousands of people joining in songs, where many people who would normally say "I'm not a singer" or "I can't sing" find themselves singing away. There is something profound about this observation.

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The State of Worship Music Today

Mike Cosper, Pastor of Worship at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY, is interviewed briefly by Bob Kauflin on the state of worship music today.  Note what this pastor-theologian-musician is and is not focused on.

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Review of The Water and the Blood, by Sojourn Music

The folks at Sojourn Music continue to lead modern church music down a different path.  Each album seems to be more aggressively their own, pushing outward the narrow boundaries of contemporary/modern worship by experimenting with new and old sounds and styles.  The Water and the Blood was produced with a different set of values than the industry standard—in analog, as a whole, and with a vinyl option.  Producer Mike Cosper explains,

While still reflective of a variety of moods and styles that occur at Sojourn gatherings, it’s a recording with a sound, a sense of space, something that’s meant to be listened to as an album, as a whole. It’s meant to be a listening experience, and vinyl, with its added depth, warmth, and presence, has a way of conveying that experience like nothing else.¹

The album was recorded largely in Bloomington, IN, with Paul Mahern, who has worked with Over the Rhine, The Fray, John Mellencamp, and others.  Tracks were laid down on tape, not bits and bytes, trading digitized perfection for human warmth.  Herein lies another subtle challenge to the value-system of contemporary/modern worship.  It makes a theological statement about authenticity, humanness, imperfection, and grace.

The Water and the Blood is installment number two of their ongoing quest to re-give the hymns of Isaac Watts to the Church.  The first installment, Over the Grave, was a masterpiece, as well.  “The Water and the Blood” appears to be a phrase codified over time in English hymnody.  It is perhaps most famous in Augustus Toplady’s “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me,” whose opening verse reads, “Let the water and the blood / from Thy riven side which flowed / be of sin the double-cure / cleanse me from its guilt and power.”  But the lesser-known hymn of Watts, “Lord, We Confess Our Numerous Faults,” which, adapted, appears as the title track, contains the phrase which predates Toplady.  Ultimately, the wording belongs to Scripture (1 John 5:8), but English hymn-writers have given this pairing a strong significance.  And, now, so has Sojourn Music.  We might consider “the water and the blood” poetic shorthand for the entire gospel story, and, given the album’s content, it is a fitting title.

SUMMARY

Musically, The Water and the Blood is superb.  Its production is fresh and original, and its diversity of style is so off the grid of a typical “worship album” that it seems other-worldly.  Textually, one simply can’t find fault with lyrics that pull from Isaac Watts, one of the most formidable theologian-pastor-songwriters of all time.  Sojourn could spend the rest of their musical years retuning Watts’ texts, and the Church would be incredibly blessed for it.  In my opinion, not every song is fit for congregational singing, but the two I’d be especially inclined to bring into my local church’s repertoire are “The Water and the Blood” and “Let Your Blood Plead for Me.”

MUSICALITY

If you have narrow tastes and appreciations, this album is not for you.  If you’re looking for modern worship’s standard sound, this project will be a disappointment.  If, however, you have a taste for blues, folk rock, country, bluegrass, soul, and Americana, you will love The Water and the Blood.  The album bears the hand-print of Mike Cosper’s subtle, soulful, and artistic guitar style—especially electric and lap and pedal steel, though he plays dobro and mandolin as well (!).  The guitar solos throughout aren’t necessarily always flashy, but they are thoughtful, melodic, and musical.  I am thinking particularly of the three songs I will mention next.

One of the first things to note is the album’s use of blues to convey confession and lament.  I have longed to see the intersection of this genre with this biblical expression.  Blues is uniquely suited to convey the hope-tinged anguish of the lamentations of David and Watts.  From the recurring electric line (and complementary bass line) in “From Deep Distress,” to the descending tremolo guitar line and soulful vocals in “Deep in Our Hearts,” to the heavy joy of “Death Has Lost its Sting,” Sojourn shows how powerful a song can be when music and text are so thoughtfully wedded.

The vocals are likewise remarkable.  I sense some different hues of control and expressiveness in Rebecca Dennison’s voice, especially on “The Water and the Blood,” which is a favorite track of mine.  The fact that six additional vocalists (Jamie Barnes, Rebecca Elliot, Kristen Gilles, Brooks Ritter, Megan Shaffer, and Chad Watson) sing on the album is a testimony to the vision of community music-making and anti-rock-star vision for artistry that Sojourn has grown to champion.  (Though not every church has the human resources to do this, I would add.  Sojourn is very blessed in this regard.)

One of the marks of creativity in songwriting for the local church is in the careful balance of innovation and singability.  “Compel My Heart to Sing” is a great example of this.  The melody is melismatic and easy to sing, and the music beneath is far from bland.  The chorus’s progression (C, C/E, Fm, Bb, Eb, Ab, G) is beautiful and different.

“Let the Seventh Angel Sound” is a fun arrangement that sounds like it came from the brains of Paul Simon and James Taylor.  The organ is calibrated to a mellow, almost whistle-like setting.  The clean, loose guitar playing, coupled with Barnes’ smooth vocal style, is engaging.  I wonder, though, how fitting the text’s intensity is with the song’s easygoing nature.  I’d love for Barnes to comment and bring insight to that.

Brooks Ritter has written a beautiful new setting of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”  The music brings out certain hues from the text absent in its more triumphant (and equally beautiful) setting (“St. Anne,” by William Croft, 1708).  Ritter’s tune is a soulful country ballad that highlights the comfort Watts probably intended to evoke in his beloved text.

Some might think that the musical setting of “Let Your Blood Plead For Me” is too playful for the gravity of its content, with its on-beat, honky-tonk-style piano and interlude progression (I, III⁷, vi, I, IV, II⁷, V, V⁷).  I find its light-heartedness an interesting take on the hymn (see comments on the text below).  The Scriptures speak about the human response to salvation being our “skipping like calves” (Malachi 4:2), and this music surprisingly and tastefully colors the text in that direction.

THEOLOGICAL CONTENT

As noted above, the first thing that one should notice about this album, textually, is the amount of verse devoted to the under-used biblical expression of lament.  Verse 1 of “Death Has Lost Its Sting” cries:

My God, how many are my fears
How fast my foes increase
Conspiring my eternal death
They break my fleeting peace

The first verse of “From Deep Distress,” in keeping with the anguish of the opening lines of Psalm 130, records:

From deep distress and troubled thoughts
To You, our God, we raise our cries
If You truly mark our faults
No flesh can stand before Your eyes

I have now heard many a worship theologian proclaim that the church’s song really does shape the church’s spiritual health. Unfortunately, because evangelicals have little vocabulary for lament, when suffering comes our way, we have no theological and spiritual categories to handle it, and we question our faith, God’s goodness, or even His existence.  Lament teaches us to suffer rightly.  Sojourn has given a gift to the church by bringing this to the fore.

The second thing one should notice is the album’s gospel-saturation.  Time and again, the source of delight in the texts is found in the meritorious work of the life and death of Jesus Christ.  “The World Will Know” praises:

Our faith adores Thy bleeding love,
And trust in one that died
We hope for heav’nly crowns above
Redeemer crucified

The world will know the righteousness
Of our incarnate God
And nations yet unborn profess
Salvation in His blood
Salvation in His blood

The chorus of “Deep in Our Hearts” testifies:

Oh gracious God, You’ve heard my Plea [notice the capitalization]
A once cursed pris’ner, now released
Those dreadful suff’rings of Thy Son
Atoned for sins that we had done

The gospel is the motivation of all our worship, as “Compel My Heart to Sing” intones:

Jesus, my God and King
Thy wisdom is a boundless deep
What wondrous love has purchased me and
Compels my heart to sing

Sojourn and I share a passionate desire to see modern worship embrace a richer vocabulary of the gospel in our song.  If there continued to be progression in even that one area in contemporary Christian music, the Church would be tremendously blessed.

There are two songs, though, that stand out in their weaving of text and music.  “The Water and the Blood” is the first:

Lord we confess our many faults
And how great our guilt has been
Foolish and vain were all of our thoughts
No good could come from within

But by the mercy of our God
All our hopes begin
And by the water and the blood
Our souls are washed from sin

It’s not by the works of righteousness
Which our own hands have done
But we are saved by our Father’s grace
Abounding through His Son

It’s a simple song of confession, but the words are crafted so carefully and beautifully.  The verses center around minor tonality, and the choruses switch to major, with a lift in the melody to a new tessitura.  It’s all just very well put together.

“Let Your Blood Plead for Me” is the other outstanding song.  It is a song of testimony:

Lord, how secure my conscience was
And felt no inward dread
I was alive without the Law
And thought My sins were dead

My hopes of heaven were firm and bright
But then Your standard came
With a convincing power and light
To show how vile I am

This testimony is starkly (and without much transition) contrasted with the chorus:

Let Your blood plead for me
Let Your blood wash me clean
I believe, Lord I believe
Your blood has covered me

It is a song that aptly exegetes the oft-used phrase (it appears in various forms), “The bad news is I am more sinful and broken than I dare imagine, but the good news is, in Christ, I am more loved and accepted than I dare hope.”  The Law rightly condemns me, but, through Christ, the Father justly pardons me.  This is the essence of the song.  And it’s powerful!

Both for its text and its music, I heartily recommend The Water and the Blood as a fresh and timely work.  I look forward to what’s next from Sojourn Music.  They’ve quickly become leaders in a new kind of evangelical modern worship, and I welcome it!

The Latest Developments in Thoughtful Worship

This blog is dedicated to discussions surrounding worship, church, theology, and culture.  A subtext of that agenda is to encourage Christian (and particularly evangelical) worship along its trajectory toward more thoughtfulness, biblical reflection, theological awareness, and historicity.  A sub-subtext of that subtext is to encourage this growing movement of folks dedicated to the setting of old hymns to new music.  I do this not because hymns are the be-all and end-all of the deficiencies of modern worship, but because this one practice embodies so many of the subtext's aforementioned values.  Many hymns are thoughtful.  Many hymns are soaked in scripture.  Many hymns are written from a fiery theological heart.  And all hymns except current-day ones force the Church to reckon with the fact that she is a body rooted in history--a history of God's past worth celebrating. 

So, people might get tired of me barking about this very specific thing called the "hymns movement," but they must remember that this movement is a herald of the shifts taking place with these bigger, more fundamental issues in American/Western Christian worship today.

I am therefore excited to share a brief "status update" of the movement.  More rumblings, more exposure, more buy-in.  The hymns movement continues to affect and infect the Church with greater potency and wider distribution.  Four things stand out.

Less than 48 hours ago, the 2011 Gospel Coalition Conference kicked off with none other than a hymn sing, gathering together and exposing before a new generation of eager, cross-denominational, Gospel-loving evangelicals some of the heavy-hitters in the hymns movement: Kevin Twit and Indelible Grace (Sandra McCracken, Matthew Smith); Mike Cosper and Sojourn Music.  As Cardiphonia likewise reported, Noisetrade is giving away a free sampler of these artists.  One more indicator that the next generation of pastors and church leaders care about deep, substantive worship, exemplified in hymnody.

Seven days ago, High Street Hymns released their third major hymns album, Hearts and Voices, centered on hymns for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.  It is available at a very affordable price on bandcamp.

In less than two weeks, Sojourn Music will release another album, The Water and the Blood, a second installment of an ongoing project to reshape the hymn texts of Isaac Watts for new ears.  As will be explained in my upcoming review, Sojourn continues to push out the narrow musical boundaries of contemporary/modern worship, forging ahead while reaching back hundreds of years into the vault of Christian hymnody.

In five days, an album will be released which features a bunch of well-known mainstream modern worship leaders headlining re-tuned hymn-texts of Charles Wesley.  It is called Love Divine.  I have already spoken about what a significant mile-marker this is, notwithstanding the fact that it will probably go unnoticed (though I hope not).

A little over two weeks ago, a unique conference took place in St. Louis.  Hymns movement leader Bifrost Arts hosted a gathering on "Liturgy, Music, and Space."  The average age was interestingly young, given that the topics discussed at the conference were ideas that contemporary worship used to say that only "older people" cared about: liturgy, history, aesthetics, theology, inter-generationalism, etc.

Folks, there's no organizing force behind the coincidence of these things...at least no human one.  This can be characterized as nothing short of a movement of the Spirit through renewal of the worship of God.  All this is very significant.

Hip-Hop Worship, Eschatology, and Aesthetics

This jazzes me on so many levels.  Check out this footage from a recent worship service at Sojourn Church in Louisville, KY. 

The rapper is Shai Linne, whose blog called "Lyrical Theology" shows that hip-hop and Christian thought/worship aren't antithetical.  These videos conjure several stream-of-consciousness observations:

• Check out the cool way the medium of rap allows for creative twist on a traditional "call and response"...that's ancient future liturgy at its finest!
• Check out how into it the whiteys are (hey, I'm a whitey...I can say it).  Hip-hop worship doesn't have to be only for the African-Americans.
• Check out the glimpse of the eschaton--when people of every tribe, tongue, and nation, will be gathered together worshiping around the throne.  Some people would look at that video and say that it's appalling, even blasphemous.  I say: that worship is more heavenly than a lot of the stuff out there.
• Check out the generous spirit of some seriously gifted artists.  In video #1, you've got an amazingly talented singer and artist, Brooks Ritter, on the far right on the stage.  That guy has a golden voice.  And yet, he's open enough to clap and dance and join in an art form from a different world than his own.  In video #2, the guy in the glasses in the back is Mike Cosper.  That guy is a phenomenal guitarist...and yet, he gives it up for Shai Linne.

As I was growing up, my dad always said (probably tongue in cheek) that rap wasn't music.  I disagreed then, and I disagree now.  Like any art form, you have to understand its rules and paradigms.  Then you discover, as is the case for a lot of things which people broad brush as "not art," that there are expressions within the art form that excel and expressions which fail.  There's good rock and bad rock.  There's good hip-hop and bad hip-hop.  There's good contrapuntal writing and bad contrapuntal writing.  Of course there are transcendent, objective aesthetic values rooted in the being of God, but we must also account for the fact that there is a "relativism" to aesthetics that bids us understand a piece of art within its context.  What are the "rules" of a given art form? And how does a given artist interact with those rules?  Those are the kinds of questions we must ask in our evaluation.  If we did, I think we might find a more generous church toward seemingly "deviant" expressions such as hip-hop in the context of worship.