As a worship leader and musician, I’m always looking for ways to make church music more understandable and accessible to the culture outside our church’s four walls. It’s been a growing and a learning experience.  I’ve been at it for almost a decade, and the one thing I’ve learned is that everything changes.  In fact, musically speaking, change is the only that stays the same.

Church music has always been evolving. From simple Hebrew melodies… to Gregorian chant… to harmonious choirs and majestic pipe organs… to soft-pop ballads with the acoustic guitar… to “praise teams” singing highly repetitious “praise choruses”… to stadium-rocking anthems driven by electric guitars.  Change is the only thing that has remained the same over the centuries of musical evolution.

A lot of churches have pushed the pause button at their favorite era of church music. If they’ve made it to “contemporary music” at all, most churches in my area are stuck in the “praise team” thing, with over 10 singers doing their rendition of “Lord I Lift Your Name On High” or “As The Deer.”  One problem with that.  “Contemporary music” is not contemporary any more.  Since when do you turn on the radio and hear a “team” singing anything?  Since when have choirs been all the rage in pop culture?

That’s why I’ve set up our music ministry differently. Just like any song you’d hear on the radio (pop, rock, country, even Christian radio), our sound is driven by drums, bass and electric guitar, with hints of acoustic guitar, keyboards, drum loops, synth programming, strings and other sounds added as necessary.  Top it off with a lead vocal and one or two harmonies, and there you have your recipe for making music that has the potential to sound like the CD’s people buy off the shelves or the latest hit single on the radio.  When the unchurched visit our services, they don’t have to enter a strange musical subculture to become Christian.

For years, this rock model has been the standard.  But is it time to change again? I’ve been a fan of Derek Webb for many years, and for all those years, his name has been synonymous with acoustic guitars and folk songs.  He chose to write in this style because  folk songs were the vehicle culture had been using to carry the ideas of a generation.  Then came his latest album, Stockholm Syndrome… and a very abrupt departure from the style that had characterized his entire career beforehand.

Relevant Magazine asked Derek this question:

Part of your appeal is that people know they’re going to get good music with challenging lyrics that doesn’t fit into any one box. With Stockholm Syndrome, that’s proven true with the sound as well. It’s changed and progressed from a folk sound to a more synthetic vibe. Can you explain how your sound has changed and if you’ll ever go back to a more acoustic feel?

Derek’s response:

The one consistent thing for me, the thing that hooked me early on, was this posture or approach of these folk musicians—the protest movement of the ’60s, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan—the people who were really representing the stories of the people, telling the unfiltered stories of what’s happening in culture. They put a voice on the issues of the day. That’s the thread that I follow. Where I have picked up the thread again over the last 10 years or so is hip-hop. Hip-hop is contemporary folk music. That is one of the only genres that really seems to be fearless in terms of the way it speaks on behalf of the people. That style and the sound of the music started to just kind of infect me a little bit.

Those are brave works from a brave artist, willing to leave his comfort zone to speak in the heart language of a new generation. I pray I might have the same courage as church music continues to evolve.  Even though I love where we’re at now, may I never be guilty of selfishly hitting the pause button so that I can have my preference while the world moves on.

Posted in: Cool Stuff, Musical Musings