November 4, 2002
Worship conference harmonizes music of the gospel
___By Greg Warner
___Associated Baptist Press
___WACO (ABP)--Christian music is a powerful force that often divides Christians and churches, as many music ministers can attest. But music also can unite, as one gathering of diverse musicians demonstrated recently.
___A church music symposium at Baylor University gathered leaders with different vantage points, including leaders of the multimillion-dollar Christian music industry, academicians who teach church music in colleges and seminaries and--in the middle--the ministers who lead worship music in churches.
___While celebrating the power and diversity of Christian music, participants also took a hard look at their differences. Yet throughout the three-day meeting, speakers pleaded for mutual understanding and grace among musicians who approach their ministries di
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| A PANEL DISCUSSION on "An Apologetic from the Christian Music Industry to the Church" featured Randall Bradley, Charlie Peacock, Peter York, Bill Hearn and Don Cason. (Photos by Baylor Photography) |
fferently.
___"Once you've sung someone else's song with them, you can't be strangers anymore," said Carl Daw of Boston, executive director of the Hymn Society i
n the United Stated and Canada.
___Participants modeled that sentiment during two distinct evening worship services. The first blended classical organ and choral music with African-American and indigenous global sounds. The second brought together rock-based worship music, soft piano ballads and contemporized liturgy.
___But high on the minds of many participants was the day-to-day struggle of planning and leading worship for congregations that reflect the growing musical diversity among Christians. Although researcher George Barna told participants about a new study that suggests most churches are not seriously conflicted over worship, many church ministers who attended the symposium weren't quite ready to believe the so-called "worship wars" are over.
___"We would like to ignore that we are in a mess," said Randall Bradley, professor and director of the church music program at Baylor. He voiced a hope expressed by many, "that music would cease to be the weapon of choice on the battleground of the worship wars."
___If the battle over worship is like a tug of war, the music minister feels like "the flag in the middle of the rope," said Terry York, associate professor of Christian ministry and church music at Baylor.
___"I think the worship wars will be settled in individual churches when we refuse to fight," he offered. "If we find peace there, it will spread."
___ York appealed to the Christian music industry to "keep one foot in the local church." He called for colleges and seminaries to make room for contemporary music within academia. And he advised music ministers: "A school cannot be expected to teach you everything you will need to know in ministry, but we can teach you to keep learning."
___The three-day symposium, planned and hosted by Baylor University, was funded by an endowed gift from Billy Ray Hearn, who also attended the meeting. A Baylor graduate and former church music minister, Hearn was a pioneer in the Christian music industry. While working for the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, he spearheaded the youth musical "Good News" in 1968, which spawned a youth music movement among Southern Baptists and other denominations. Hearn later worked for Word Records, founded the Myrrh and Sparrow record companies, and later sold Sparrow to EMI, a secular music conglomerate.
___Charlie Peacock, a singer, composer and respected industry insider who has frequently criticized the industry's faults, offered an "apologetic" from the industry to the church.
___Peacock recounted the remarkable growth of Christian music, which sold 50 million units in 2001 and now accounts for 5 percent to 10 percent of all music sales in the country. More than half those units (55 percent) are sold through mainstream retail outlets.
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| CHRIS TOMLIN opened the service and sang several praise songs, including "We Bow Down," "God of Wonders," "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross/Wonderful Cross" and "You Are My King (Amazing Love)." |
___The Christian music industry grew out of the Jesus movement of the 1970s, led by industry pioneers like Hearn who, Peacock said, "wanted to give the kids their own music." The industry, though imperfect, remains faithful to that original calling, Peacock said.
___Peacock's assessment: The Christian music industry creates popular music that reflects current music styles and is relevant to young Christians. And the secular distribution system allows many more people to hear Christian music.
___But, he added, the "overriding" need for music companies to be profitable makes it difficult to nurture innovative artists, and the result is "a very narrow bandwidth" of Christian music styles. "Whatever works is proclaimed as good," Peacock said.
___Moreover, Christian music remains racially divided--even as churches remain segregated.
___"When the church and academy become more diverse, I guarantee so will the industry," Peacock said.
___Peacock's sentiments were echoed by a panel of other industry insiders.
___Bill Hearn, president of EMI Christian Music Group and son of the symposium's founder, said his company--which like most is owned by a secular music conglomerate--never has been pressured to contradict its Christian mission. "I contend the greatest pressure is within ourselves."
___Peter York, president of Sparrow Label Group, acknowledged Christian music "far too often has been following the model of the world," and sometimes that imitation goes too far. But that tendency is driven by Christians whose tastes are shaped by popular music, he said.
___Also during the meeting, Emily Brink, research fellow at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Mich., traced recent developments in hymnody, including new attention to global music and justice issues like the environment, urbanization, children and the elderly.
___Michael Hawn, a professor at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, urged participants to think globally about Christian music in order to get "a bigger picture of God." He called for a "reverse missions" approach. "Is it time for us to receive from others, even as they received from us?"
___Robert Webber, a respected worship author and teacher, told participants that leading worship is the most demanding Christian discipline because it must be informed by 20 centuries of Christian practice. Yet most ministers receive little training in worship, he lamented.
___Webber, a professor at Northern Baptist Seminary in Chicago, called for a recovery of trinitarian worship, saying "an adequate Christian worship" must revere God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
___Many worship traditions emphasize one person of the Trinity at the expense of the others, he said, but ancient Christian worship addressed all three.
___"We worship the Father in the language of mystery," Webber said. Part of worshipping God is acknowledging God can't be contained or explained, he added. "God is wholly other. ... You'll never know God until you know you can't know God."
___"We worship the Son in the language of story," Webber continued. "The early church had a unique story and said the world could not understand itself without that story." The story is the story of the gospel--God reconciling the world to himself through the Son, he said.
___"We worship the Holy Spirit in the language of presence," Webber concluded. Christians believe God is present everywhere, he said, "but God's presence shows up in intensity in particular locations."
___In worship, God's presence is found in "the gathered people," in the minister, in the word and in the elements of communion.
___Yet many churches, Webber said, "adhere to the doctrine of real absence--'God's never going to show up in this church. Nothing supernatural will ever happen here.'"
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