Wonderful WorshipSolving The Debate Over Worship Styles
All the arguments about whether certain instruments or musical styles are right or wrong can be easily solved if we instead look at what is the best music fallen man has to offer. Being the most high and holy one, God asks for the best to be presented to Him in one’s offering. How can we say we are paying respect and honor to a great and holy God, unless we are presenting the best to Him when we worship? This “best” would include the music that we are using to express our honor to Him.
As a professional composer and arranger working in the music industry, I could go on to describe in great detail what would qualify something as a great piece of music in Western society. For time, however, let me just say a great piece of music is one that is well crafted, using musical techniques and theory that have been honed and refined by the world’s best musicians over the course of the last 400 years. Music that eschews time-tested techniques and practices, and instead is developed out of musical ignorance and contempt for musical geniuses that have come before, is not something that falls under the category of “great” music.
One who disregards the physics of structural integrity, time-tested construction techniques, etc., and instead chooses to build a home out of glue and popsicle sticks, is not said to have a fine dwelling. Can it be called a house? Yes. Is it the best built home that one can construct today? Absolutely not.
Undoubtedly, great, well-crafted music can be challenging to some who aren’t regularly exposed to it. Nevertheless, I am sure most people reading this would prefer to go to a church where the pastor challenges them each week in their understanding of scripture. By the same token, why should we not ask to be challenged by the music that is presented in corporate worship? Should not the music be as sophisticated as the sermon that follows it? What better way to prepare yourself and your mind to critically analyze scripture, than with music that rises to that same level and requires not that you be entertained, but instead requires much out of you and your ears? Worship of a holy God should require nothing less.