The Psalms may be thought of as an honest response to God by humankind. In this frame of reference, they are particularly appropriate in corporate worship as a sung response to the reading of Scripture, particularly after the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures.
Recent years have witnessed an increased commitment to singing psalms at each worship service. As a result, composers of church music have produced a wealth of psalm settings for congregational use. These range in style and manner, but all intend to restore psalm-singing as a significant aspect of common worship.
The Psalms have been traditionally sung two ways in worship, to metrical paraphrases of the Psalms paired with hymn tunes and to the literal prosaic translations of the Psalms paired with plainchant melodies or psalm-tones. The following article explains these two approaches in more detail.
But while we smile at some of our preferences, our religious preferences are often quite a different matter. For some reason, our own particular religious traditions and experiences tend to color our ideas of what God’s preferences are and aren’t. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of worship styles. How quickly our preferences become biases. And how easily our biases become walls that keep us from the larger body of Christ and from fuller expressions of worship.
Many congregations today consist of people from a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Music in worship is one means by which this rich cultural diversity can be expressed. This article challenges congregations to sing the music of many cultures in worship.
Throughout history, the church has related to the culture in which it exists in very different ways, choosing in some cases to oppose cultural developments and in others to adopt them to a greater or lesser extent. Such variety is certainly evident with regard to the contemporary church’s response to cultural developments in music. Understanding these relationships and the special demands of contemporary culture is essential in developing a thoughtful approach to church music.
Music in black churches an is an exuberant celebration of Jesus Christ and realization of the power of the Spirit. It is necessarily shaped by the unique experience of black Christians and emphasizes themes—such as the need for liberation in Christ—important to this experience.
Unique to music in charismatic worship is what is known as “singing in the Spirit.” This form of music is characterized by a spontaneous response to the work of the Spirit in the worship service. It is based on a theology that emphasizes the dynamic and ongoing presence of the Spirit among believers.
Music in free worship is not bound to the text of worship itself but appears here and there as separate, special, occasional, and incidental to the order of worship. This approach has led to a wide divergence of practice among churches.
Although the Reformed tradition has been more restrictive about the use of music in worship than the Lutheran tradition, it nevertheless highly values the role of music in worship. This article describes emphases important in the Reformed tradition, largely in terms of the writings of Reformer John Calvin.