Inside ML

How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

The changes that swept through the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s also changed worship for most Protestants. The “worship wars,” which play out on canvases both large and small, leave many of us wondering where our church went. For many, it is hard to sing to the Lord in a way that moves our hearts.

The basic question is not whether to worship — although many have left the church — but how to worship. Smaller church’s resources are limited. Mounting contemporary worship demands skilled musicians and liturgists within the congregation — a rare occurrence.

Some who still worship each week are unclear about or even unhappy about the changes that have occurred in the last place they want change: their church. As a pastor, as a liturgist, as a worship leader, what can I do? Most of our church musicians are volunteers; many cannot read music; many don’t like the new music; some don’t like the old. Out of this we are to fashion contemporary, meaningful worship that links a community, sustains and offers our faith and points to the triune God. As Gordon Lathrop says in his book Holy People (page 18), “Go to the gathering and, with the community, be a theologian. There, together with the others, speak the meaning of God for our world.”

One day, almost inadvertently, I found one key to good worship. A member shyly came up and said, “Pastor, some Sunday could we sing some of the ‘old’ hymns?” I heard the longing in my friend’s voice. So, for the entire summer, I made sure that two of the three hymns each week were “oldies.” 

What happened? The congregation sang — young and old, members who had attended for 30 years and those who had been in the congregation weeks or months. All sang with voices lifted in joy and praise.

So into the fall season we combined new and old — Marty Haugen’s Now the Feast liturgy with hymns such as “Amazing Grace” and “Love Lifted Me.” People wept with joy as they sang “Beautiful Savior” and “Children of the Heavenly Father.”

No one sat by the river Babylon and wept. We all are beginning again to find out what builds and sustains a community of faith.

ML

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