Praise Song Cruncher Observations

After my post about the "Praise Song Cruncher", I decided to run it by my Pastor. He is the Reverend Reggie Courliss at the Elkton Missionary Church. He made some very good observations some of which have been echoed by others. Here are his six points:

1. In the area of clarity. he suggested that many of the old hymns need to be brought up to today's language. "Young people don't understand the thee and thous."
2. In the area of repetitive: look up Psalm 136:1-26 (psalm= song)... Revelation 4:8 "Day and night they kept repeating Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy..."
3. In the area of doctrine: absolutely...but to look at all the songs...there are hymns that are not doctrinally sound.
   
4. In the area of singing about Jesus. "If I were to stand up in church and say "I want to talk to you about someone who loves me and died for me and wants me to spend eternity with Him" I would think everyone in a church service would know who I talking about. Maybe I assume too much. " In Acts 4:12 it says "There is no other name under heaven by which a man can be saved" but doesn't say Jesus. (editor's note: While it is true this phrase is part of a longer discourse Peter is giving on Jesus, the phrase itself is modifying the Greek subject "This One". )
5. "I do believe that we need to look carefully at all we say and do in the service. If I can sing a song to either my girlfriend or Jesus we need to establish up front who we sing to by use of scripture, etc. If you put those things in a framework by which people understand it's Jesus I'm singing to I think we're good. "
6. "It's all about the heart!!!!! You can say all the right words; speak doctrine clearly; sing like an angel but if your heart's not right...it doesn't mean a thing!!" 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

What really bothers me is when we sing songs about ourselves. Not songs that just mention people, or similar, but when we and our worship, or how we are worshiping, or how our lives are effected, is/are the main subject(s) of the song.

Even before I got into the discussion with Pastor Wolfmueller, these kind of songs bothered me. One example I can think of is the song "The Power of Your Love". Or pretty much any song that is me, me, me.

I'm not saying that there isn't a place in our lives for spiritually uplifting music and lyrics. It's just that when we come together in His name, our worship, whether in song or word, should be only about Him and His attributes.