On singing in worship

Earlier this week, I read a post on Stuff Christians Like that I've been pondering ever since. It was titled, "Getting abandoned by the worship leader."

Stuff Christians Like is written from a distinctly evangelical perspective, so the phenomena the author describes are often only tangentially related to my own experiences. I like reading it because it's usually quite funny, and because it proclaims God's love for us (like today's post). It's also interesting to hear about a concept and experience of church that is different from my own in many ways, but very widespread.

Somehow, with this post, the gap between our perspectives seemed wider than usual. The post was about the awkwardness of the worship leader stepping back from the microphone during a song, so that his or her voice is no longer leading the assembly's singing.

A couple things struck me about this:

• The post was written with the assumption of a praise band and worship leader. This seems to be the standard form of worship for the author of Stuff Christians Like, as well as for the readers (based on the comments I read).
• The very reason the writer (and commenters) find it awkward for the worship leader to stop leading is this: "suddenly I can hear myself and my horrible, horrible voice. And so can everyone else, and we stop singing. We get all quiet and awkward until the leader returns from his or her mic vacation and saves us."

When I read that sentence, I realized that it summed up one of the primary reasons I don't usually like worship that involves praise bands with electric instruments and amplification and so on: because I can't hear myself or my neighbors sing.

My experiences with this type of worship is that it makes no difference at all whether or not I add my voice to the song. It makes no difference whether or not anyone in the congregation adds their voice to the song, because the only voices any of us will ever hear are those of the mic-wielding leaders.

I get so many negative messages from that experience. It tells me only "good" singers are worthy of being heard. It walks a fine line between worship and performance. It reduces the assembly of worshipers to passive and irrelevant spectators.

Music is a tool of proclamation. Congregational singing is one of the tools that allows the entire assembly to proclaim God's word together, rather than putting that word in the mouths of only a few (the pastor, designated readers, choir, or band, for example).

Quite regularly at my teaching congregation (and occasionally in chapel at Luther Seminary) the organist or pianist would stop playing so that the assembly could sing one or more verses of a hymn acapella. It never failed to thrill me!

Hearing real, unamplified, unobscured, imperfect-but-beautiful human voices (including my own) joined together in harmony to praise God and proclaim God's promises is a powerful experience of the body of Christ. For me, it's one of the greatest delights of worship.

I understand that not all congregations are musically talented enough to sing in acapella harmony and sound good. The proclamation can be just as effective with accompaniment and in unison. Either way, each person's participation matters, and each person's voice is pleasing to God.

I'm not one to push any particular style of worship as required or superior. I enjoy a wide variety of music, and I'm glad different styles exist to help different people better hear the gospel. Besides, any style of worship has the potential to send negative messages (traditional church choirs can be just as performance-like as praise bands, for example).

It's just fascinating to me that the same experience (the assembly's voices being heard in worship) can be an essential part of worship for me, yet scary and undesirable to many others. And I think we all have to consider carefully the various layers of meaning conveyed by our worship and music choices.