Creative Worship Ideas – The Use of Hymn Words
When planning an act of worship, hymns are usually selected to reinforce the theme of the service. One technique which I have used very successfully on a number of occasions is to effectively reverse this and actually use the hymn words as a basis for preaching. In other words, I don’t prepare a single 15 – 20 minute sermon but follow each hymn with a ‘mini’ sermon of about 5 minutes taking a particular phrase or phrases from the words of the hymn as a text. By careful selection of hymns it is possible to create a really cohesive service which flows easily from one element to another. I have found congregations to be very responsive to this approach.
Ideally, it is best to choose a service which has a very particular theme. I have used this approach for a Harvest service, on a Mothering Sunday and at a church anniversary. Any Sunday which has a very precise place in the church calendar would be appropriate for this approach. Pentecost or Advent, for instance, would be ideal. In all cases there is a wealth of suitable worship music available, from traditional hymns to contemporary worship songs.
This approach is particularly effective in an all-age worship situation. A ‘blended’ worship approach would be most appropriate for this kind of service so that both hymns and worship songs can be used; – something for everyone. Also, this way of doing things means that the young people don’t have to sit through any lengthy talks by the preacher. There is a lot to commend it!
To give an example of how this all works I will refer to a Harvest Service I did in this way a couple of years ago. I took the twin themes of “Thanksgiving” and “Caring”, two topics which we associate with Harvest. I then used three of the hymns as texts for my ‘mini’ sermons. These three hymns were:
- “For the fruits of His creation” – This hymn relates to both the chosen themes. The two main quotes from this hymn which I used were “The just reward of labour” which led logically to the issue of the Fair Trade movement. The line “In the help we give our neighbour” led me neatly into the importance of caring and sharing.
- “For the healing of the nations” – This hymn contains the line, “For a just and equal sharing of the things that earth affords”. I made the point here that the earth has the richness to easily feed, clothe and resource all its people yet so many go on living in poverty, in despair and, sometimes, in virtual slavery. The hymn then goes on to give us the answer, “To a life of love in action help us rise and pledge our word.” The reference to “love in action” is, of course, at the very heart of the Christian faith.
- “God in His love for us lent us this planet” – Sung to the tune ‘Stewardship’, this is a relatively recent hymn which focuses our mind on the resources which our world has and how we should be doing better in preserving it for future generations. It has been said that we don’t own the planet we just have it on loan from our children.
By using these hymns in this way and expanding on the main points I have mentioned, (I have just given you the ‘bare bones’ here) I got across the message of my twin themes in a concise way which the congregation found easy to follow.
As I said earlier in my article, I have found this approach very successful and I intend to use it more when leading worship on appropriate occasions. A secondary issue with this way of doing things is that it makes the congregation very aware of the words they are singing, perhaps giving them a whole fresh understanding of hymns they have sung for many years.
Copyright (c) 2010 Robert Hinchliffe
How to Write Worship Songs – Three Important Issues
If you wish to know how to write worship songs there are three issues which it seems to me are at the heart of all good worship music. These are:
1) The actual quality of both the music and the poetry – regardless of style or idiom.
2) The sentiments and/or theology on which the song is based.
3) The songs must be ‘sing-able’ by a congregation.
Let me look at these three points in a bit more detail.
We seem to be awash with new worship music at the present time and, frankly, a lot of it isn’t very good. It is an unfortunate fact that bad music in a popular idiom, whether it is Christian music or secular, is banal in the extreme. It comes over as lifeless, formulaic and boring. Having a clear set of criteria in your mind will guide you and teach you how to write worship songs which will be appreciated by the congregations who sing them.
We hear many worthy attempts by very sincere Christians who produce music for use in worship which, sadly, just doesn’t work. This is one of the reasons why the more traditionalist worshippers develop a bit of a ‘down’ on the contemporary repertoire, pointing to the wonderful hymns from the Victorian era and early 20th century tradition as examples of good church music. Unfortunately, they are overlooking the fact that it is only the good music from any age which survives and is carried forward to future generations. The quality floats to the top; the dross sinks without trace. This is the very nature of all art forms. It is the very nature of all worship music too. The fact is that there is no more poor music today than there has been at any other time in history, it’s just that we are aware of it because it is all around us.
The quality of the lyrics (the poetry) used in contemporary songs is also vital to its success or failure. The words must have a genuine theological basis or reflect a clear Christian sentiment. If you look at any of the great hymns of Charles Wesley you will find every verse, if, indeed, not every single line has a strong scriptural basis. Its message is crystal clear. You can’t do much better than to take Charles Wesley as an example if you are studying how to write worship songs. His idiom may be very different from the one which you are using, but the approach to writing is fundamentally the same.
The one criticism I often have of contemporary lyrics is that the writers try to cram far too many words into each line making the songs very difficult for congregations to sing. In songs written specifically for ‘performance’ in worship, this is less of an issue, so long as the listeners can actually follow what is being sung about.
Similarly, the melody of any worship song must be easy to sing. It must not go to the extremes of vocal range nor leap about wildly making pitching of the notes difficult for anyone other than a professional opera singer. The most popular and effective songs ever written, secular or Christian, have a simplicity which is both musically satisfying and easy to sing. The great songwriter, Burt Bacharach, was told by his composition teacher to always write music that people could go out singing. This is very good advice!
These are the key issues to consider if you wish to know how to write worship songs that congregations will enjoy singing. The bottom line for a contemporary worship song is that it has a good melody, clear, meaningful and uncluttered lyrics and is sing-able. If it doesn’t meet these criteria it is unlikely to survive beyond its first performance.
Copyright (c) 2010 Robert Hinchliffe
The Celtic Church And Worship
If we look at two early accounts of the Church at worship we can begin to get a feel for the foundations of our own denominational style.
Pliny was governor of the Roman province of Bithynia, and in the year 112 AD wrote to the Emperor asking for advice on what to do about troublesome Christians.
It was the practice of these Christians ‘…to sing antiphonally a song to Christ as a god, and to bind themselves on oath… to commit no theft, murder, adultery, not to break their word, not to deny possession of something entrusted to them… to disperse and then reassemble to share a common meal together…’
From this we may deduce that the early Christian Church used song and the Ten Commandments within their times of worship together. From approximately forty years later comes an account from the Christian Justin Martyr. He describes the format of an early gathering of Christians.
There are readings from the Word, followed by a sermon. The people would then stand for prayer, after which would be the sharing of the kiss of peace. Bread and wine were shared, and prayers said by the president. Justin uses the term ‘Eucharist’ (meaning ‘thanksgiving’) to describe the sharing of sacrament and prayer.
There are some lovely prayers that have survived from the fledgling Church. In the Didache (a first or second century Christian treatise on Church practice) comes this prayer. ‘Just as the bread broken was scattered on the hills, then was gathered and became one, so let your Church be gathered from all the ends of the earth into your kingdom, for yours is the glory and power through all ages.’
As we pass into the third century and beyond we find descriptions for various acts of worship. Hippolytus gives us a liturgy for the Eucharist to be used during the consecration of a bishop, which is similar in style to our modern forms of liturgy, with familiar responses such as ‘The Lord be with you’, ‘And with your Spirit’.
Although Justin Martyr’s description of a Christian gathering contains echoes of our more familiar ‘service of word and sacrament’ there is very little known about the ‘service of the word’ (sometimes known as the synaxis) in New Testament times. Later evidence suggests influence from the synagogues, in the form of readings and prayers.
In Colossians 3:16 we read that the Church was encouraged to ‘..sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs’ and in Corinthians we have descriptions of the gifts used within the Church – prophesy, ecstatic utterance, interpretation, revelations and teaching.
For the apostle Paul, the most important consideration seems to have been that Christians ‘..present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.’
From the evidence of Scripture and the early centuries of the Christian Church the sharing of bread and wine (the Eucharist) seems to have been at the heart of Christian worship.
This sacred element together with the reading of the Word, songs, sermon and prayer seem to have been the foundation upon which most of our modern styles of worship have built.
One commentator has stated that all worship should be ‘eucharistic’ in that it should centre on the cross of Christ, have at its heart thanksgiving, allow for all to participate and have a sense of sacred drama as truth is proclaimed through actions.