All I was saying is that I think that the more modern arrangements of the hymns are more suitable to connecting the message of the hymns with today’s culture. I’m thinking – for instance – of my daughters. I want them to learn to love and appreciate the hymns, but the traditional arrangements with the traditional instruments (organ and piano) probably won’t do it for them. More modern arrangements – like those on Jadon Lavik’s new album, Roots Run Deep, will connect better with many people unfamiliar with the beautiful hymn heritage many of us “older” people have grown up with. Slapping down a Second Chapter of Acts CD full of hymns just won’t cut it with my girls.

Relevancy is essential if we’re going to connect younger people to the rich heritage of the faith that you and I have grown up with. I’m not talking about relevancy to the exclusion of things like hymns. I’m talking about relevancy in order to communicate things like the hymns in a way that will be received by those who do not associate the hymns with good “faith memories” like Sunday night hymns signs, powerful revivals, and warm, intimate camp fires.

And by the way, I was listening to the radio this morning when a “modern” worship song came on. Its fluff and repetition annoyed me so much that I changed the channel! See!!

I think the goal should be to strike a healthy balance between singing to instruct and singing to respond to the instruction we’ve already heard. By blending hymns (the more modern the arrangement the better!) and modern choruses of response, hopefully we can strike that balance.

With that in mind, my biggest problem with most praise songs, as opposed to more traditional hymnody is that the majority of praise choruses that we sing have little content to teach or instruct us about God's character, His life, death, & resurrection, or our renewed relationship with him. So many songs that we sing, even at Foothills, seem to focus on how "cool" or powerful God is, and how much I/we like/love him (leaving aside the weirdness of singing nearly romantic love songs to Jesus). While these are good sentiments in the proper context, I am increasingly convinced that a non-christian entering our midst on an average Sunday morning would come away knowing little or nothing about the *substance* of what we believe.

In this regard, many older hymns are markedly different from modern songs because of their focus on the character of God. Ideally, we should be teaching people through (and learning from) our worship music just as much as through the preaching and our care for people. I will certainly acknowledge that there are hymns that are fluffy and feel-good, and there are modern songs with substantive lyrics, but as a general rule, those don't seem to be the ones we sing these days.

Please note, though, that this has little or nothing to do with musical style, in my mind. I'd love to hear songs that are theologically sound and don't sound like funeral dirges. I've heard arrangements of hymns that sound more "modern," as well as recent songs that don't resort to archaic language to communicate real lessons about our Faith. Ideally, I think we should be using modern musical styles (and there's a wide variety of genres that can be included in that), coupled with substantive, instructional or meditative lyrics that engage both our minds and our spirits. I can dream, right?

Our church has 3 different services that go on at the same time and the Pastor is piped into 2 of them. One is major rock, one hymns, and one Christian Contemporary. So I feel this is an interesting way a large church has handle an ever growing church issue. It works for us…thanks for sharing your blog!!

Trace Musser Dillman, Columbus, OH