• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Client Portal Login →

The Center for Healthy Churches & PneuMatrix

Church and Pastor Consultants and Coaching

  • Home
  • About
    • Our Team
    • Our Partners
    • Our Work
    • Testimonies
    • News Releases
  • Services
    • Coaching
    • Consulting
    • Interim Ministry Training
    • Leadership Transition Work
  • PneuMatrix
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Webinar

Apr 22 2021 | By: Doug Haney

Reflections on Worship and Music Ministry

Worship music

“Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” ~ Jaroslav Pelikan

I am grateful that I serve Wilshire Baptist Church, where our worship tradition is alive and well. Recently I have been in conversation with our pastoral and music ministry staff. We are living with this question: How do we nurture and replenish worship so that it is a thriving tradition for a vital worshipping community?

A little background: worship at Wilshire is based on a Trinitarian model.[1]

Our two traditional/liturgical worship services on Sunday morning are broadly similar with varied musical elements. We generally do a good job of creating space for a variety of music styles that co-exist without being in unfriendly competition with one another.

We are working together to lean more fully into the Trinitarian model including “Father music” (classical and traditional), “Jesus music” (gospel and folk music) and “Spirit music” (global, ethnic and jazz idioms). While each choir or  group has a natural musical affinity determined by people resources and the mission of the ensemble, a diversity of musical idioms suggested by the Trinitarian model is good for performers and worshippers alike. In turn this variety helps worship remain fresh and avoid any tendency toward sameness.

In the following sections I offer some thoughts that are inspired by the Trinitarian paradigm and raise some questions that may generate ideas to infuse energy in any local context.

Artistry and Accessibility

Is music both artistic and accessible to the worshipper? At Wilshire there is an expectation that music selected is well-crafted and performed well.  There is also an expectation that music serves the worshipping community, a community that is diverse in musical and aesthetic appreciation. We are renewing efforts to seek out congregational song materials that are creative, choral and instrumental music that is beautifully crafted and music that helps worshippers worship well. A beautiful choral example of this is the anthem “Late Have I Loved You” by Paul Carey[2]. Set to a text attributed to St. Augustine, it is theologically and poetically substantive. The music illuminates the text in ways that help worshippers toward a deeper level of prayer and praise.  This is music and text as well crafted as a Shaker chair.

Simplicity and Complexity

Are we engaging our people with a broad range of music at all times? A spectrum of simplicity and complexity is another way of thinking about music that is heard and performed. Partly this is for the sake of the worshipper, partly for the sake of the musicians. When notes are relatively simple to learn, more time can be spent on expressive features that are vital to helping music come alive. I once heard Donald Neuen, Distinguished Profess of Conducting of UCLA and music director at the Crystal Cathedral, exclaim passionately, “Almost any expression is better than no expression at all!” But music should be more challenging or complex when this makes sense liturgically. There is a time for “Jesus Loves Me” and there is a time for “O Magnum Mysterium” (O Great Mystery).

Immanence and Transcendence

Do we select a range of texts that speak to all the ways of understanding God? God is with us/among us, and God is beyond us.

Searching for and choosing a breadth of theological texts ensures there is a breadth of musical styles and expression. Two examples: “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” is a gospel classic, simple in form and straightforward in expression. Although it comes out of the black gospel tradition it has found its way by common usage into the mainstream. The colloquial idiom gently underscores a prayer that God be with us “through the storms, through the night.” And “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” (first movement of Gloria) by Antonio Vivaldi is grand and energetic fitting the text “Glory to God in the highest.”

Paying attention to texts that speak to both God’s immanence and transcendence guarantees we will include in worship a range of congregational, choral and instrumental music that is artistic and accessible, that is sometimes simple and sometimes complex. The goal of renewing our legacy of traditional worship is that all who gather for worship will be “lost in wonder, love and praise.”

[1] Wilshire’s Trinitarian worship paradigm is derived from a series of four lectures entitled “Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land” by George Mason. If you would like to receive these lectures, you may email Doug Haney at dhaney@wilshirebc.org.

[2] Available directly from the composer at http://www.paulcarey.net.  To listen to the anthem: https://youtu.be/SfGjjOwMd6E

 

Categorized: Article Tagged: music, relevant practices, worship

Avatar photo

About Doug Haney

Doug Haney is the Minister of Music and Associate Pastor at Wilshire Baptist church where he has served since 2004. He came to Wilshire from Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte , North Carolina, where he was minister of music. At Wilshire, he directs the choral program and supervises the church-wide music ministry, with major responsibilities for worship. Wilshire’s 70-voice Sanctuary Choir has recorded four CDs under Doug’s leadership: “Carols We Love”; “The Journey Home” with Cynthia Clawson; and "Prayers We Love;" and “Hymns We Love.” In the role of Associate Pastor he h... Learn More »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. David Fitzgerald says

    April 27, 2021 at 4:00 pm

    This is a great article and is very relevant to what we are seeking to do at Ardmore Baptist Church. I will be visiting many churches virtually on my sabbatical this summer to experience worship models and music and liturgy that is used across a broad spectrum with great diversity in music styles, formats and liturgy. We are hoping to craft a new service down the road that is different from our very traditional service at the present. A service that will be authentic to who we are and our musicians and musical resources, and a service that will incorporate this trinitarian model. Excellence, beauty, artistry, authenticity, immanence and transcendence are extremely important for our worship at Ardmore.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search

Recent Posts

  • The Keys to an Effective Search Process
  • Developing A Vision for Your Church
  • 10 Things about Church That Are Not Changing
  • What to Call Your Elephant
  • Real Love Is… Gritty and Dangerous

Categories

Footer

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Center for Healthy Churches

Cleantalk Pixel