Can a Song be too Creative?—part 2
I am not
intimating that our worship music should be dull, uncreative, mundane, banal,
and uncreative. I am simply saying that
good quality; appropriate religious music should be about God and should
support the aims and purposes of worship.
The music part of church music should be a vehicle for the Logos Christos to find lodgment in our
hearts and minds. As I have stated for
years I my writings, sacred music should mirror the music of the Bible. It should be a Melos (words and music written as a unit) as we now have evidence
that the music of the Old Testament was. The melodies of the Bible (the
te’amim) were always the handmaiden of the text. The melodies of the OT were never in
competition or in contradistinction to the meaning of the text as many melodies
written and set to sacred texts are today.
As
Christian musicians we should always be cognizant of the fact that our
religious music and musicing is “mother’s little helper” rather than the “star
of the show”. I suspect that many
Christian musicians get caught up in the creative process and product rather
than lifting up the God we are “advertising”.
I have contended for years that when it comes to church worship we need
to keep the main thing the main thing.
Thought
for the day
Creativity in music, although appropriate for worship
music, is not the doorway to the kingdom.
Although creativity is in no way contradictive or incompatible with
public worship, the Lord awards his servants on the basis of being good and
faithful rather than on the basis of being talented or creative.
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