The Simplicity of Christian Music

If you own an instrument and know how to play the chords of E,C,D,G,
and A, congratulations, you can now play ninety percent of today’s
worship music.
Not only are the chords elemental and repetitive, the musical structures
of the songs are so similar that you can sometimes use the same musical
pattern for different songs by merely interchanging the lyrics.
Imagine yourself in a beautiful European church surrounded by tall
spiraling pillars. You happen to be sitting in a wooden pew directly in
front of a stoic choir, each member wearing a perfectly clean red robe
and dwarfed by a monstrous organ that has metal tubes shooting
upwards right behind them.
The organist, an old lady wearing thick round glasses and whose denim
blouse smells like a thrift store, gently presses her wrinkled fingers onto
the keys, and deep, low, foghorn-like chords rumble throughout the tiny
church, shaking the pew you were just about to fall asleep in.
The choir starts to sing, “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below...”
Suddenly, and subtly, the words change.
“All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful
voice...”
Two different songs are being sung with the exact same chord structure
and rhythm. This tradition was started hundreds of years ago during an
era when music was the same and was intentionally interchanged with
different lyrics.
But while music has greatly evolved over time, Christian music has
somehow been left behind, stuck in antiquity. It is simplistic, anthem-
esque, and boring, light years behind modern-day trends, technology,
and creativity.
At one of the first churches that hired me as a youth pastor (their first
mistake), I quickly discovered that the students struggled to worship
God through music because the youth ministry was missing a worship
leader, so reluctantly, I was forced to learn the worship tunes all by
myself.
Fortunately, I owned an acoustic guitar (every good Christian does), and
was amazed at how easy the music was. Not only did I lead worship for
the youth on Wednesday nights, but within weeks I was quickly
substituted in as a main worship leader for the Sunday morning services
(their second mistake).
At first I was impressed with myself, but I eventually realized just how
pathetic the situation was. Is worship music so bland and simplistic that
even an idiot like me can learn complete songs in less than five minutes?
Disturbing trends within the Christian music world started to arouse my
curiosity.
The first and most apparent trend I noticed was that musically, most
worship songs are depressingly simple. A frightening amount of worship
songs really are founded on only a few basic chords. The songs can be
learned in minutes, and although some are intentionally meant to be easy
to sing and play, I think God would also appreciate ones that are
complicated and difficult.
The second thing that surprised me was how dangerously unoriginal
Christian music had become.
Every year I’m surprised by the number of mainstream Christian artists
who cover old worship songs and hymns by subtly “adding their own
style.”
How many different renditions of “Amazing Grace”, “Be Thou My
Vision”, and “Holy, Holy, Holy” can we have? Hundreds? Thousands?
During my stint as a worship leader, one of the most frustrating things
was trying to find credits to certain songs. Five different artists would be
listed under one single title. Artists basically reworked old songs and
“modernized” them by slightly modifying the rhythm or changing a few
chords. This happens over and over again. Are Christian artists capable
of creating original music?

CCM: Clichéd Christian Music

We often accuse the young Christian generation of falling into Satan’s

trap of secular music, and we—responsible Christian parents and adults
—find it inconceivable that they would willingly choose to listen to it.
But maybe they listen to the songs because they can actually relate to the
words being sung.
Traditionalists will surely respond in shock and disbelief. “What? That
can’t be!” They’ll put the blame on the Devil, their kid’s misbehaving
friends, and the inherent evil of the world—especially the “younger
generation.” They shake their heads in disappointment. “The world just
keeps getting worse and worse.”
Maybe Christian music is getting worse and worse. It’s sad that all other
forms of music have become more truthful and relatable than worship
music. Lyrics that talk about sickness, divorce, drugs, depression, debt,
breakups, and sex are concepts that people can actually understand and
relate to.
Have you been a Christian long enough to have the jargon memorized?
Concepts like “holiness,” “blood of the Lamb,” “cleansed,” “grace,”
“sin,” “saved,” “light,” “redeemed,” “assurance,” “witness,” “confess,”
and “repentance” are often too vague to clearly understand.
These words, along with hundreds of others, are sung repetitiously
without the singer really knowing, or appreciating, what the words
actually mean. These overused—but vitally important—ideas need to be
written out and translated into real-world scenarios that can relate to
people’s lives. Unfortunately, significant Biblical ideas and concepts
have become generic Christianese lyrics that are repeated over and over
again just to keep the religious status quo.
One of the scariest things to see in a church are congregations moving
their mouths again and again for the millionth time, staring at the screen
as if in a stupefied trance, waiting to go home and watch football.
The lyrics of Christian music have been overused. They have lost their
ability to capture our imaginations or rightly describe our lives. Their
potency is gone.
It is a worldwide problem. I’m always surprised and disappointed when
I attend mission trips to faraway countries, only to discover that they
sing the exact same worship songs that we do back in America.
I start to feel sick. Singular worship is overtaking the world, destroying
languages, cultures, and unique traditions by replacing them with
Westernized versions of our worn choruses. Hearing Americanized
worship thousands of miles away from the United States felt similar to
the time I was in Vienna, Austria, looking for a great local restaurant to
eat at, but all I could find was a McDonald’s. I traveled to Europe to
experience unique cultural cuisines, not to eat another Big Mac Extra
Value Meal.
In the Bible, Jesus avoided communicating his ideas through
generalizations. Instead, he used detailed stories, examples, and parables
to clarify His teachings. Jesus adjusted his message according to various
audiences. We added the generalizations later.
Worship music needs to add the same kind of clarity to its message that
Jesus had.
Ironically, secular bands have taken Christian concepts and words and
transformed them into mega-hits, much like the Doobie Brothers were
able to do by taking a gospel song written by Arthur Reid Reynolds and
turn it into a pop sensation: “Jesus Is Just Alright.”
Another example is the sorrowful and moving song originally written by
Leonard Cohen, and famously covered by Jeff Buckley (among others),
simply entitled “Hallelujah”:
I heard there was a secret chord, that David played,
and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
Well it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall
and the major lift,
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to her kitchen chair
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Well baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
 It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do you?
And remember when I moved in you?
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Well maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who'd out drew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen in the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
The song is a beautiful description full of depth, meaning, symbolism,
and complexity that relates to concepts Christians have been attempting
to sing about for years.
“Hallelujah”: one simple word with so much meaning and importance.
While this song is saturated with Christian truths and a convicting
weight that searches the soul, it was hardly intended to be a song of
worship. The author was not a Christian. Rather, it was a masterpiece
done by an artist who took the idea of “Hallelujah” and coupled it with
Biblical references—creating a musical masterpiece that somehow
grasps the hard realities of relationships, spirituality, and faith.
If only Christian artists could be brave enough for the type of honesty
and boldness that worship music requires. Instead, Christians are handed
hundreds of songs with generic lyrics that mention “Hallelujah” over
and over again, but with no real description of what it means. Therefore,
Christians are left singing about words that they don’t understand or
even really think about.
During most Sunday morning services, why am I not cognitively or
emotionally moved by the worship songs in the same way that I’m
moved by songs sung by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, The
Who, The Temptations, or Phoenix? This realization is starting to make
me sick.
Am I possessed by Satan, immersed in evil, incapable of worshipping
God because of my sinful heart? Or have the words of Christian music
been repeated so many times that they have lost their ability to
powerfully move me? Have the phrases become over familiarized and
too meaningless?
Every time the band U2 does a concert tour, people testify about the
mystical feeling that overwhelms them during the performance.
Audience members get goose bumps, are filled with an abnormal
amount of energy, become emotionally jolted to their core, and
recognize profound truths about themselves, others, and the world. U2 is
a good example of a group of artists who have successfully incorporated
spiritual truths into their music that seem to touch people’s souls.
Transformational music that is true, profound, moving, and just plain
good is what Christians crave, and maybe that explains why U2 has
practically been adopted as an alternative source of worship music by
many Christians who struggle to find that type of music within their own
churches.
Our worship songs are missing complicated details of life’s realities (or
even the realities of the Bible). Instead, the songs are flowery and bright,
filled with an empty hope, and painfully void of the brutal candor
required for true transparency and worship towards God.
The Bible is brutally honest about life, faith, and God, and Christian
music should follow suit.
How does our worship today relate to our lives and the everyday lives of
the world around us? Does it strike a resounding chord? When people
hear a particular chorus, are they moved by thinking “Yes, this is how
I’m feeling!”? Or are they simply singing the words out of habit?