Worship for blokes; or, what did that song say?

Some time ago, I referenced a book called The Message in the Music: Studying Contemporary Praise and Worship, edited by a couple of professors at Spring Arbor; it’s a good book which I highly recommend for its multifaceted analysis of the lyrical content of the top 77 contemporary worship songs in the American church. (I lack the expertise to comment similarly on the essays devoted to the music itself.) That post was focused on Dr. Lester Ruth’s study of the Trinitarian content (or lack thereof) of those songs, but that’s only one angle the book takes; there are also excellent and highly valuable essays on topics such as “Contemporary Worship Music and God’s Concern for Righteousness and Social Justice” (is anyone surprised to hear the author’s conclusion that the songs studied were “sorely lacking” in this respect?) and “Worshiping God in the Darkness—The Expression of Pain and Suffering in Contemporary Worship” (in which respect there were at least a handful of really good songs), among others. It’s an important book for anyone interested in planning and leading worship with strong theological content.One interesting aspect of the book is that there are two different essays approaching the question of romantic lyrics and the influence of American love songs in our contemporary worship music—one of them explicitly from the male perspective. I’ve been thinking about that again since Hap put up this post considering her responsibility as a worship leader to help lead all those in the sanctuary in worship, not just those who share her perspectives (or vocal range—I do hope you still have your upper register, my friend). As part of her post, she included a fascinating snippet of an interview with Matt Redman (which I’ve posted as well below) in which he talks about learning to write songs that blokes can worship to without feeling uncomfortable. As Keith Drury showed in his essay in The Message in the Music, romantic-sounding lyrics aren’t as much of a problem for as many guys as one might think, because many of us find ways to handle it; but as Dr. John Stackhouse points out, not only are there a lot of us who do find that creepy, but there are some relational and theological problems with that sort of language in worship if we interpret it in the way in which the world teaches us to interpret it.The thing I most appreciate about Redman’s reaction in this interview—which is no surprise, since he tends to be theologically and scripturally strong and aware, but is still gratifying—is that he acknowledges the importance of thinking carefully about the lyrics he writes, so that they use language which is both biblical and free of cultural distortions. This is, as Hap puts it, a major part of responsible songwriting for the church; unfortunately, it’s a discipline which is too easy not to practice. The more that folks like Redman and Brian Doerksen and Chris Tomlin, the people who set the musical and lyrical agenda for the Western contemporary church, talk about and practice that sort of discipline, though, the more the rest of the church will follow, and the better off we’ll be.