Reflection #2: Music is a Gift that Needs to Be Shared, Not Limited

When I first began my ordained ministry music in worship was almost exclusively organ based. Now our most recent hymnal (Evangelical Lutheran Worship) has music in it that would not sound right on the organ at all, requiring piano or guitar instead. In my first years as a pastor the majority of people would have said that the only truly appropriate music for worship would be hymns and liturgy led by on an organ. Having experienced church camps and youth gatherings in the summers of my youth I knew this to be a falsehood for I had experienced many occasions when I had a sense of deep and meaningful worship at those camps or youth gatherings where the music was led with guitars or piano.

So much has changed in the past 25 years. I witnessed the decade of worship wars, where people who wanted more contemporary music in worship fought with people who wanted to maintain the organ and classically based music as the exclusive style of music for worship. In many situations it was the either/or attitude of both sides that created friction and fighting. I have been grateful to serve in a congregation that has been more open to a variety of music expression in worship, we have been able to use a both/and approach to music.

Personally, I feel I been fortunate to be able to bridge this spectrum, having been a classically trained musician who also developed ability and familiarity with pop, rock and jazz styles. In a sense I embodied the diverse spectrum, and saw the value in all of it. I also saw the problems within each style, in other words I could see the benefits and the difficulties of any one musical approach. So the challenge for me became not which musical style is appropriate, but how to use a certain musical style appropriately within a worship context.

Music, by its very nature, can produce within people a deep emotional reaction. Music has the ability to bring tears to the eyes or a smile to the face. Music triggers memories almost more than any other stimulus, and thus we often associate certain music with meaningful moments in our lives. For example, if one has fond memories of going to worship with the family as a child, then the music of those early worship services will simply 'feel right' to that person. I can't count how many times after we have used the organ for a worship service that people have commented to me "Now that felt like worship!" However a person who grew up in a remote African village, where a cappella singing was the only music of their childhood worship experiences, would probably have a very different reaction to a Sunday morning filled with 18th century hymns led on the organ. Rather for them it would be a rousing a cappella version of "We Are Marching in the Light of God" that could cause them to exclaim "Now that was worship!"

In our current multi-cultural context (and by that I don't mean people who have immigrated from different countries but also the different cultures found from one generation to the next) we will need to be aware that music that will help evoke a meaningful response in people will be quite varied. This does not mean we need to learn to like all kinds of music, but it does mean we need to find ways to accept the music of meaning for others. How we do this in worship will depend on the particular context, but whatever the context we should not dismiss or denigrate the music of meaning for others.

As Luther wrote "I truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given to mankind by God." I have been fortunate to be saturated with this gift, and a big part of my ministry has been to use this gift (in a variety of styles) to help express the mysterious, emotional, reflective, challenging, and transformative relationship we have with God through Christ our Lord. Music, like the love of God, is a gift that needs to be shared - not limited!