What is the role of music in worship?
The Directory for Worship of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) includes these statements on “Music as Prayer”:
Song is a response which engages the whole self in prayer. Song unites the faithful in common prayer wherever they gather for worship whether in church, home, or other special place. The covenant people have always used the gift of song to offer prayer. Psalms were created to be sung by the faithful as their response to God. Though they may be read responsively or in unison, their full power comes to expression when they are sung. In addition to psalms the Church in the New Testament sang hymns and spiritual songs. Through the ages and from varied cultures, the church has developed additional musical forms for congregational prayer. Congregations are encouraged to use these diverse musical forms for prayer as well as those which arise out of the musical life of their own cultures.
To lead the congregation in the singing of prayer is a primary role of the choir and other musicians. They also may pray on behalf of the congregation with introits, responses, and other musical forms. Instrumental music may be a form of prayer since words are not essential to prayer. In worship, music is not to be for entertainment or artistic display. Care should be taken that it not be used merely as a cover for silence. Music as prayer is to be a worthy offering to God on behalf of the people. (W-2.1003—W-2.1004)
The Directory also offers these reflections on the role of music in proclaiming the Word:
The Word is also proclaimed through song in anthems and solos based on scriptural texts, in cantatas and oratorios which tell the biblical story, in psalms and canticles, and in hymns, spirituals, and spiritual songs which present the truth of the biblical faith. Song in worship may also express the response of the people to the Word read, sung, enacted, or proclaimed. (W-2.2008)
Music may serve as presentation and interpretation of Scripture, as response to the gospel, and as prayer, through psalms and canticles, hymns and anthems, spirituals and spiritual songs. (W.3.3101)
Music and the ministry of healing
Photo courtesy of Virginia Bethune. The November 2009 issue of Call to Worship on healing features an article titled "Sound and Music, Signifying Healing," in which harpist Virginia Bethune describes her use of music in healing ministry. Download examples of Bethune's music:
Arioso 
Canon in D
Shenandoah
(MP3 files — For best results, right-click the link [or click and hold for Macintosh], select "save target as" and save the file to your desktop).
Learn more about Bethune and her ministry.
Read the featured article
Greg Scheer, “Sing to the Lord a New Psalm: An Essay with Four New Settings for Congregational Singing,” Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching and the Arts 41.4 (2008) 16-24.
 Join the discussion
Join our Facebook group to discuss the following:
- Scheer laments the decline of congregational psalm-singing in modern worship, suggesting that our “faith has been deprived of a rich source of inspiration and sustenance” (page 16). Do you agree? If so, to what do you attribute this decline? How might we reclaim the use of the psalms?
- How are the psalms used in the liturgy at your church: as a response to the first reading in the Sunday service, as congregational song, as choral anthems, or as texts for preaching? What musical expression(s) do they find: responsorial chants, metrical settings, contemporary choruses or global song? How are the psalms used in your personal practice: as texts for daily prayer, as a resource for study, or a focus for meditation?
Use the Decalogue in worship
The reading or singing of the Decalogue (or Ten Commandments) following the Declaration of Forgiveness is a historic part of Reformed worship, evident in John Calvin's Strasbourg liturgy (circa 1540). Here, the recitation of the Commandments offers worshipers a glimpse of how we should live — as new people, forgiven and free in Christ's grace.
During this 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth, consider using the Decalogue in worship after the Declaration of Forgiveness. Here is a musical setting of the Ten Commandments by David Gambrell. This setting is offered for congregational use in honor of late Austin Seminary Professor of Liturgics Stanley R. Hall, for whom it was originally composed.
 Stained glass window by Stephen Wilson. Photo by Marie Constantin
Read and share book reviews
Is there a book on liturgical music you’d like to recommend to other readers of Call to Worship? Submit a review. Be sure to include bibliographic information and a brief description of the book, indicating what you appreciated about it and why others might find it helpful.
Kathleen Harmon’s The Mystery We Celebrate, the Song We Sing: A Theology of Liturgical Music (Liturgical Press, 2008)
by David Gambrell
Harmon’s work is based on Joyce Ann Zimmerman's proposal that liturgy is a ritual enactment of the dialectic tension of the paschal mystery — that is, the tension between the soteriological “not yet” and the eschatological “already” of our redemption in Christ. In other words, in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, we can see that God's new creation has already begun; yet it is abundantly clear (think of the recent earthquake in China or the cyclone in Myanmar) that the salvation of the world is, as of yet, incomplete. The “ritual enactment” that Harmon describes is a way of remembering (anamnesis) and entering into the “originary” events of the faith (the Exodus, e.g., or the Christ event) that reveal to us who we are and how we are called to live. [Keep reading]
Read these recommended materials
Jeremy S. Begbie, Theology, Music, and Time (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
John Bell, The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song (GIA, 2000)
Albert L. Blackwell, The Sacred in Music (Westminster John Knox, 1999)
F. Forrester Church and Terrence J. Mulry, The MacMillan Book of Earliest Christian Hymns (MacMillan Publishing Company, 1988)
Melva Wilson Costen, In Spirit and in Truth: The Music of African American Worship (Westminster John Knox, 2004)
Lucien Deiss, Visions of Liturgy and Music for a New Century (The Liturgical Press, 1996)
Harry Eskew and Hugh T. McElrath, Sing with Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Hymnology (Church Street, 1995)
Robert Buckley Farlee, ed. Leading the Church’s Song (Fortress, 1998)
Marilyn L. Haskell, ed. What Would Jesus Sing? Experimentation and Tradition in Church Music (Church Publishing, 2007)
C. Michael Hawn, Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally (Eerdmans, 2003)
Robin A. Leaver and James H. Litton, eds. Duty and Delight: Routley Remembered (Hope, 1985)
Robin A. Leaver and Joyce Ann Zimmerman, eds. Liturgy and Music: Lifetime Learning (The Liturgical Press, 1998)
Mary E. McGann, Exploring Music as Worship and Theology: Research in Liturgical Practice (The Liturgical Press, 2002)
James McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge University Press, 1987)
Robert H. Mitchell, I Don’t Like that Music (Hope, 1993)
Alice Parker, Melodious Accord: Good Singing in Church (Liturgy Training Publications, 1991)
Erik Routley, Church Music and the Christian Faith (Agape, 1978)
Günther Stiller, Johann Sebastian Bach and Liturgical Life in Leipzig (Concordia, 1984)
Leanne Van Dyk, ed. A More Profound Alleluia: Theology and Worship in Harmony (Eerdmans, 2005)
Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music (Fortress, 1998)
Andrew Wilson-Dickson, The Story of Christian Music (Fortress, 1996)
Brian Wren, Praying Twice: The Words and Music of Congregational Song (Westminster John Knox, 2000) |
