A place of Sanctuary

As a child, holidays were always spent looking around cathedrals and ancient churches; these trips were never met with great excitement and within ten minutes of being in the building I would either be moaning or testing the acoustics. These visits were more of a history lesson than a spiritual experience. However, on a recent trip to Chichester I took time out to visit the cathedral and was pleasantly surprised by my reaction to it. I no longer felt that I wanted to be somewhere else; but that this was a place I could call home. I found great comfort in the fact there have been generations of believers that have loved, laughed, wept and sort comfort within the ancient walls. This historic background reminds me that I am part of something much bigger and although in the grand scheme of life my contribution is small, it is also vital as part of the team work which spans many centuries.

Cathedrals have long been places of refuge (and of course, worship!!) but maybe we should also see them as ‘spiritual hubs’, a place where we can draw refreshment and energy from. The spirituality and worship of previous worshippers going back a thousand years can be felt in the air as though the walls have held and recorded their connections with God. Time there can be spent reflecting and praying, and a short visit to the cathedral can be as effective as a short retreat.

How contemporary is 'Contemporary' Worship Music?

I recently attended a Christian worship event and heard someone say that they had written some 'contemporary' worship songs. They then continued to play through a selection of songs for the gathering to learn. The writer had taken great care in making sure that the theology of the songs was correct and edifying, and had even the songs vetted by theologians. The song in itself was well crafted both musically and theologically; from the outset it was obvious that the congregation found the music helpful in their worship. However it led me to ask whether Christian worship songwriters are really considering 'contemporary' style in their composition?

It would be fair to say that we have come along way from the days where the worship group would have a guitar with a rainbow strap and a few basic hippie choruses up their sleeve. But I wonder if the current style of music leaves us hankering for more? A member of a youth group that I helped out with years ago told me that they loved the way that modern Christian music is based on rock. After mulling over this for awhile I asked the young man whether he could name any bands in the chart that sounded like the music we hear in church today - slightly dumbfounded he replied that he would need to think about it. He never did get back to me on that one but it has kept me thinking about this topic for nearly a decade.

If we take a standard worship band line up - acoustic/rhythm guitar, bass guitar, keyboard/piano, drums and some wind or brass instruments (with of course singers!) and compare the popular secular bands of the last 50 years there are only two streams that have the same line up. The major stylistic comparison would be folk and folk-rock bands and the more popular streams of country music. In 2000 Wheatus got to number two with 'Teenage Dirtbag' which was mainly played on the acoustic guitar; during the mid 1990s Bryan Adams had great success with an MTV Unplugged album of his hit songs. But many of the musicians who solely based their act around an acoustic guitar belong to the 1970s folk era. To be fair there has been a resurrgence of the singer-songwriter (based on guitar or piano) in the secular charts in the last few years; we should note though, that by the time these acts get to record a second album there are sporting a full pop or rock band, plus synthesisers and programming. Maybe it is time to encourage a more stylistic use of instrumentation in our worship. I have been to churches where the music has been stylistically encouraged - worship lead by a string quartet, a more pop synthesizer lead group or a jazz band.

It's not only instruments that dictate musical style, the musicological key to style is chord and rhythmic structure. For many worship songs there is a standard I, IV, and V chord structure with chords III and VI used for harmonic colour. The songs mainly stay in the same key and do not deviate to any relative keys. Not something which is shared by is secular counterpart. If we examine pop, soul, rock and dance music over the last twenty years we discover that many of the songs will harmonically operate on two or more keys; either a key change in the final chorus to lift the song to a new level or the actual song structure itself will involve starting in one key in the verse and modulating by a tone and a half to a new key in the chorus. Some songs will be written using a mode or a melodic motif. Rhythms have infiltrated every area of popular secular music through latin infusions in dance music and rhythmic motifs in hip-hop. However many worship songs have not been written with these harmonic and rhythmic devices - is this due to lack of musicianship or a desire to write something accessible to all levels of musicianship? These type of musical devices are not frivolous or detracting if used sensibly. Isn't it time we encouraged greater use of the musical vernacular through use of harmonic and stylistic devices?

Of course, there are many great things about our current contemporary musical worship culture: we have a wider selection of songs than were available 25 years ago, they are easily accessible to congregations through sheet music, downloads, mp3s and backing tracks, they can be played keys and guitars, and most congregations pick them up with ease etc. But they're are encouraging a mono-style within our Christian music subculture. Perhaps it is time for us to spread our wings and build on the musical heritage of the renewal song and give it a new lease of life...