Two types of worship music.

There are two types of worship songs we tend to see in churches.

No, I’m not talking about hymns versus Christian pop songs. That’s been an old Evangelical debate ever since churches began using contemporary worship choruses in the early 1970s. Nor am I talking about traditional-ish (hymnlike songs) versus contemporary-ish, nor organs and pianos versus guitars and basses, white gospel music versus black gospel music, or any of the other music debates we find nowadays. Those are stylistic choices, and Christians are free to disagree about all of ’em.

Nope, I said type of worship song. It refers to the purpose and content of the song. Generally there are two of ’em.

INSTRUCTIVE describes the songs written to deliberately teach an idea—to put it to music, and get it into Christians’ heads. They teach us about amazing grace, about what a friend we have in Jesus, about how great God art, and that he’s holy holy holy. They tend to have a lot of verses, various complicated words… and no I’m not only talking about hymns, though a lot of ’em totally fit the description.

MEDITATIVE describes the intentionally simple songs. They have few verses, or lots of repetition; their ideas are basic Christianity. Like how there’s wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb, or on Christ the solid rock we stand, or God’s a good good Father. Their purpose is to give us something we already know by rote, so we can sing ’em and not ponder the words… and instead meditate on God and his greatness, and pray to him while our lips go on autopilot. Yep, exactly like when we pray in tongues.

Didn’t know your worship songs had these purposes, didja? You just thought you were singing nice things to God. But yep, every Christian song does one or the other. (Even if—and yeah this is gonna sound cynical of me, but it’s nonetheless true—even if the song was really only written to be catchy and sell albums. Because the artists are fully aware it won’t be recognized as a worship song otherwise.)

Okay. Since humans are creatures of extremes—us Christians included—many of us love one type and hate the other. We won’t always know why we have this preference; we tend to think it has something to do with the style.

Nope, not style.

Christians’ll claim they “love hymns,” because hymns are so detailed and deep. Except… okay, some aren’t. “All Things Bright and Beautiful” isn’t. Not every hymn was written to be instructive! Some are totally meditative.

But it’s really easy to take a hymn, rearrange the music slightly, swap out the instruments used to perform it—instead of a pipe organ, use a lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums—and those Christians who “love hymns” might pitch a fit about how they’ve taken all the “holiness” out of the song. But more often they’ll appreciate it, ’cause what they really like about the song isn’t the style; it’s the “depth.” It’s the instructive nature of all those verses. It’ll make you think, and “spiritually feed” you. If your worship music has nothing to teach you, they consider it time wasted to sing such things.

Conversely, those Christians who say they “love contemporary worship,” might love hymns too… but y’notice they won’t sing the whole hymn. They’ll skip verses. Not just the third verse—they’ll sing the first verse, over and over and over, and ignore all the other verses. Or they’ll only sing the chorus, and ignore all the verses. Or they’ll create a pop-like version of the song which eliminates everything but their favorite hooks. They’ll turn it into something which drives the fans of instructional music bonkers.

Because they’re trying to turn it into something meditative! They’re not singing to learn; they want something repetitive and familiar, which they can use to help ’em focus their prayers, and solely concentrate on Jesus. That, they consider worship. Not so much the music, although they love music. Interrupt that meditative time, and they consider it time wasted.

Then there’s the occasional odd duck who doesn’t like music at all. Often these folks don’t understand what worship leaders are trying to do with it, and consider all of it dead religion, and time wholly wasted. These would be the people who find various excuses to show up for church services in the middle of the very last song: They’re only here for the good parts. Like the sermon, holy communion, getting prayer, or interacting with fellow Christians after the service. Phooey on music.

Me, I’m one of those little-of-one, little-of-the-other types. But my church? Full-on going for meditative music.

Worship songs as mini-sermons.

I’m not sure which of the two, instructive or meditative songs, came first in ancient Christian worship practice. The psalms in the bible have a little of both, y’know. For every Psalm 119, a super-long acrostic poem about how awesome God’s Law is, there’s the super-simple Psalm 150, which just tells various people how to praise the LORD.

But the ancient Christian songs we kept tend to be the instructive songs. The rote prayers Christians have memorized and prayed for centuries, often started off as instructive worship songs. Sometimes get turned again into songs, ’cause some songwriter rediscovers them, or has always prayed ’em and wants to put ’em to new music. Nothing wrong with that.

These instructive songs, like the instructive psalms, are mini-sermons. The writer wants Christians to learn something. Either new stuff for new believers, or re-emphasized stuff for old believers. Sometimes it’s about a particular scripture; sometimes it’s topical, and is about Jesus’s sacrifice or forgiveness or prayer or something we oughta know about God.

As a song, it’s meant to stick in your brain. And they do. In fact you’ll find a lot of Christians base their beliefs on the songs they know. Not on the scriptures, ’cause they don’t read their bibles! But they know Christian songs, and can recite all their lyrics… which is why it’s important for music pastors to put some thought into what they have all of us sing. You don‘t wanna make an earworm out of heresy!

Because Arius of Alexandria did exactly that. He taught his particular heresy (that God created Jesus) by getting the people of his churches to sing his song “Thalia”—

…He who has no beginning, made the Son the beginning of all he made

And he made him into a Son for himself, making a child

Nothing unique to God within his particular person

He’s not equal, but isn’t the same being as God…

—and thus got all those Egyptian Christians to think Jesus isn’t really God. Arius realized how very useful instructive songs could be. Pity he was heretic.

In comparison, authors like Charles Wesley definitely used worship songs to teach. Songs like “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” or “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” or “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” or “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” Plus some 6,000 more. Seriously, that many. Wesley left the sermonizing to his brother John, but his pulpit was the hymnal.

Worship songs as rote prayers.

But as I explained about rote prayers, once we’ve got such a prayer (or song) in our heads, we can meditate on it every which way, or use the prayer to help us focus on God. We have space in our brains to move around a bit, and try to be instructed by God directly, instead of through the music.

So like rote prayers, people will repeat choruses and lines over and over and over. And of course get rebuked by Christians who think we’re not allowed to do that. (Who clearly haven’t read the psalms which do that.) In fact they’ll get really annoyed when a music pastor keeps repeating choruses, and wanna know when we’re finally gonna sing the verse she skipped, or move to the next song: “She repeated that bridge nine times! Nine! What’s wrong with her?” She’s meditating on the bridge. As should you be.

To be fair, some music pastors are playing their favorite parts over and over and over, like a kid who discovered there’s a repeat button on their iPod, or like a jazz musician who’s found a bit he really wants to riff on. Still, just because they’re not meditating doesn’t mean we should stop meditating.

Ideally Christians should worship God with both types of music. All of one, or all of the other, means our worship lives are off balance. If your church prefers the one type, go ahead and listen to the other type on your own time, and use it as part of your personal devotional time.

And if you’re hung up on the style—you don’t care to listen to hymns because you prefer music that rocks—you do realize various Christian rock musicians have rockin’ versions of hymns, right? (Just for fun, here’s Phil Keaggy’s take on “Be Thou My Vision.”) Likewise there are acoustic versions of contemporary songs. There truly is something for everyone these days. Dig around for it, and worship God with it.