Brehm Center

Hardware Drives Software

Hardware drives software. This truism in the computer industry indicates that the invention of electronic gadgets with new capabilities (i.e., hardware) precedes and then demands development of software tools known as killer apps (i.e., applications). For example, the development of software applications for word processing, desktop publishing, and e-mail followed inventions in disk storage, laser printing, and linking hardware, respectively.

This serves as an apt metaphor for the world of worship music. As the church seeks to make the most of certain hardware technology amplification, lyric projection, and looping DJ software, for example we can expect that our worship software, that is, the style of our worship, will also change. It may expand in potentially wonderful ways following the leading of the Holy Spirit, or it may narrow in ways that are historically and even theologically suspect. Three recently spotted trends are worth noting, either as warnings or hopeful harbingers of what God may be doing among us.

Amplification

The most pervasive technological trend in churches worldwide is use of amplification equipment such as microphones, speakers, and sound boards. It would seem every church requires this technology, without regard to actual acoustic properties of the building. Amplification lifts up for all ears the quiet things in church: the voice of a lay speaker, a child reading Scripture, a gentle flute obbligato floating over a sung psalm. In theological terms, amplification can enable the full, conscious, active participation of the whole congregation in acts of corporate worship. No doubt it has been a special blessing for the elderly and hard of hearing, allowing them to participate in ways they otherwise could not. In addition, many congregations are blessed by the thoughtful and passionate preaching of individuals whose voices, a generation ago, would have been considered unsuitably soft for pulpit ministry.

Perhaps the most noticeable software change following the use of amplification equipment has been a musical shift away from organ-and-choir-led congregational songs (e.g., hymns and anthems) to a pop/folk style led by teams of vocalists and driven by keyboard, guitars, and drums.¹Some feel this shift is a �dumbing down� of worship, while others suggest it has brought a spirit-led vitality to a moribund church. Neither side is quite right or altogether wrong. 

Praise band singers often use a vocal style that might make trained vocalists cringe: sung loudly without proper breath support, up in the head with little tonal control, employing highly idiosyncratic melodic embellishments that make congregational participation difficult. Too often the traditional goal of blending voices together in song is displaced when quieter voices are drowned in a sea of sound washing from the front of the sanctuary. 

While this may seem disastrous, there is something more going on. The question is not whether these stylistic changes in worship make for better or worse musicians, but their effect on worshippers, and thereby, Christians. What must be explored is this: does the new musical software help people participate more fully, more actively, more intelligently? Does it deepen their prayer and lift up their spirits? Does it call them to engage the presence of the Triune God who meets them in worship? The surprising answer, at least in those churches where the congregation has not lost its voice altogether, is a qualified yes.

The inclusion of folk and popular styles in worship is not merely a capitulation to culture, it can be a healthy encul-turationof congregational song. The Reformers long ago realized that worship was the work of the people and not the sole province of a trained clerical class. The Word needs to be spoken and responded to in the vernacular of the worshipping congregation. The Church honors martyrs who died because they believed this, and the same values apply to worship music. Here�s a cultural reality check: in North America, at the start of the twenty-first century, folk music and musical styles emerging from it (pop, rock, blues, etc.) became the musical vernacular for people in most of our congregations. Thus, to make use of the corresponding worship software enabled by amplification equipment is to allow people to speak to God in their native musical tongue. This language is particularly well suited to certain types of expression. Exuberant joy and praise is fittingly expressed in pop music, as is intimate loving and longing (a devotional trope at least as old as the Song of Solomon). Some argue that these two types of expression, authentically felt and expressed, are at the heart of a valuable Christian piety. Worship that had lost them has found them again, and many, rightfully, rejoice.

Unfortunately, in borrowing and baptizing popular music, composers often limit themselves to these two dominant models, which, for all their benefit, tend to emphasize internal, individual, and exclusively positive emotional states. Surely there are many under-utilized but fitting musical options: jazz to express the complexities of the Christian life; the blues for communal prayers of lament; even heavy metal for psalms of imprecation. Though worship software �engineers� still have development work to do, even fully developed forms of this software have significant limitations.

Music in worship serves a liturgical purpose, and there are some things we wish to say to God, or hear from God, which are not fittingly or excellently expressed in a folk-derived musical genre. As Matt Redman, a popular contemporary songwriter and lead-worshipper once told me: �Love it or hate it, the organ in a cathedral tells us that we worship a majestic God. I can do intimacy on my guitar, but when I try to use it to communicate transcendence, it just sounds �inky-plinky. 

Then there is the matter of the song lyrics of the new software: there is a troubling lack of theological content in the most commonly used repertoire of popular worship songs. A recent study by Lester Ruth, associate professor of liturgy and worship at Asbury Theological Seminary discovered that the most commonly sung contemporary worship songs for the past 15 years (as measured by Christian Copyright Licensing International reporting data) demonstrate an almost complete absence of Trinitarian language for God.²This doesn�t have to be. With the skill and the will, theologically substantive lyrics that balance God�s objective activity with our subjective appropriation of it can be set to contemporary folk music as, for example, the growing body of work from songwriters Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend (e.g. In Christ Alone) show.

Two concluding cautions about the use of amplification technology and its effect on worship style: First, any amplification introduces a complicating intermediateness which should give us pause in embracing it too quickly or completely. Jesus Christ was the Word made flesh. As a professor of mine used to say, Jesus went to some trouble to become incarnate. Our own expressions of the Word then whether in spoken proclamation or in music, in voice and string and waves of sound�ought to have an incarnational character about them. Confounding to me is the phenomenon of what I call "Karaoke Kirk" where a vocalist offers "special music" in worship, accompanied not by another church member, but by a recording played over the sound system.  When the professional quality of a mediated accompaniment is preferred over the indigenous, incarnate giftedness of the local body, worship veers dangerously close to entertainment.

Indeed, one of the most pressing dangers of hardware-driven changes in worship style is the temptation to lead and experience worship as entertainment. Other cultural contexts in which complicated amplification technology is employed usually presume passive audiences as consumers of entertainment. Thus, as both leaders and congregants, we may unconsciously bring these expectations into worship. We must confront this tendency if we are to experience worship as an active encounter with the Triune Holy One where, through the words of prayer and song and sermon and through the actions of giving, blessing, confessing, and praising, we participate in a communal, covenant life with God.

Projection

In the same way that amplification equipment became standard issue for churches in the last generation, projection technology is finding a place in more and more congregations as prices fall and perceived usefulness increases. Computers and screens (either jumbo screens or multiple smaller screens hung around the sanctuary) to project artwork, song lyrics, sermon notes, congregational announcements, video clips, and so on is more and more common.³Many have pointed out two significant positive outcomes occasioned by the implementation of the new worship software related to posture and gesture. First, congregants who sing while looking straight ahead (rather than down at a book) are able to keep their backs straight, their windpipes aligned, and their heads raised�all elements for better singing. Second, congregations using projection technology are generally freer to clap and sway and move, therefore involving more of their entire bodies as spirits are caught up in worship. Not every tradition will be equally kinetic, but this sort of freedom in worship is a blessing not as available to hymnbook-bound congregations.

A third effect of presentation technology on music is a bit more subtle and possibly troubling. Songs are being composed not just to take advantage of technology, but are bound by its peculiar limitations. The structure of the songs and the shape of the melodies are being molded to fit the screen; for example, to ensure that everyone can read lyrics as they are projected, the font size of the words has gotten larger. It is not uncommon to see only five or so words per line, and three or so lines per screen. This results in simpler lyrics and simpler melodies, though perhaps without conscious intention.⁴Whatever the motivation, the effect is that lyrical, melodic lines are replaced with textual phraselets and melodic motifs�mere musical fragments, not bearing repetition, but repeated nevertheless. And repeated. 

An example is the song "My Glorious" by Martin Smith and Steward Garrard. The song is divided into verse and chorus which are brief and repetitive.⁵It�s not the repetition that is problematic, however, nor is it the simplicity�these elements are successfully employed in the meditative songs from the Taize community, for example. But those pieces contain melodic lines that have shape and structure, where the ascent and descent of the music matches the lyrical, and often biblical, content. The lyrics for "My Glorious" offer, sadly, little language bearing repetition.⁶   

This point bears emphasis: though over-simplified lyrics may be a trend in the composition of contemporary church song, it need not be. There are many counterexamples of finely crafted contemporary tunes and texts which give God�s people a voice, and give them something worth saying as they sing.

Looping Ambient Chill Trax and DJ Software

The last technological worship innovation to address here is use of the personal computer with special sound effects software.⁷Though this technology is foreign to most churches, as it is borrowed from the urban rave culture of the last few decades, it is more common in emerging or alternative worship gatherings.

The software, sometimes called DJ, looping, or mixing software, can take small bits of recorded sound a sample and play it repeatedly, in a loop. The sounds can be manipulated electronically in hundreds of ways, changing fundamental and subtle sonic characteristics such as pitch, timbre, reverberation, and so on. Looped sounds are then layered with other sounds, typically with synthesized drums and strings to create a unique aural environment. Those who use this software are both technicians and musicians.  They program and prepare beforehand, but each environment they create in results in a service as unique as any live musical event. 

It�s important to note that the function of the music created with this technology is very different than the function of the music previously discussed. It is still used to engage the worshipper, to draw the worshipper�s presence into the presence of God. But it is not intended as accompaniment for congregational song or to give voice to the prayer of the people. Rather, it is meant to shape space with sound, to provide a sonic backdrop to whatever liturgical or ritual action might be taking place (e.g., prayer, offering, meditation on Scripture, hand-washing, etc.). The "feel" of the music might be agitated or peaceful, it might ebb and flow from intense to barely noticeable, but its values are quite different from other church music: it is more concerned with texture than structure, with ambiance than content, with patterns more cyclical than linear. 

Though innovative, this music reflects a theology of worship that actually resembles Orthodoxy, where the purpose of worship is to draw back the veil separating heaven and earth, to invite the congregation into the constant, cosmic worship of the Trinity by all creation. Both Orthodox worship and this ambient music have a sense of mystery, timelessness, and hospitality. And though theological criticism may be leveled at it for these very reasons,⁸ such music seems to have affinities with the postmodern culture into which we are moving.

Conclusion

Whether the trends highlighted in this article stand the test of time whether they offer something of lasting value to the life of the Church remains to be seen. But they are all attempts to open up and make use of culture, to follow the creation mandate to fulfill and subdue the earth. Avoiding technology in worship is simply not an option, and has not been for years. The hardware is already pervasive in the setting, from central heating and wrist-borne timepieces, to the electronic devices that drive an organ bellows or a guitar amplifier. Whatever the future holds, the church will continue to need pastors and musicians who are theologically astute and culturally discerning, who can help design, develop, and adapt worship software that brings glory to God and enhances the worship of God's people.

ENDNOTES

1. A random Google search on the percentage of churches using contemporary music will yield many studies from the reliable to the anecdotal. Studies by Barna, Alban, or the PCUSA�as well as a dozen other groups put the number of such churches in mainline denominations between 30% and 70%.  These studies do not take into account evangelical churches outside the mainline denominations, who predominantly use an amplified musical style.

2. Presentation by Lester Ruth at the annual meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy, January 7, 2006.

3. It's fair to ask how the use of these technologies will affect the software of our preaching: how does projecting preaching notes, video clips, and other homiletical helps affect congregational attention spans and a preacher's capacity for sustained sermonic thought?   Can such tools be used to draw a congregation deeper into the Word, or evoke deeper feeling or will to act? It's also fair to ask how the projection of artwork in worship might inhibit or enhance our encounter with God, how it might either sharpen or dull congregational aesthetic sensibilities. These questions are for another day before us here is the effect of presentation technology on music.

4. I am not addressing the question of whether using projection technology is a cause or by-product of diminished musical literacy. I do, however, note that the use of screens need not be either. I have worshipped with a congregation that made use of a huge screen upon which they projected, every week, entire soprano, alto, tenor and bass arrangements of both classic hymns and contemporary worship songs. (And they sing as well as any congregation I�ve visited.)

5. The verse section of �My Glorious� contains two lines of nine syllables, then two lines of six syllables, and a six syllable bridge into the chorus. Melodically, the first two lines begin on the fourth of the tonic and alternately rise and descend either a step or a fourth in simple quarter notes. The next two lines use only two adjacent tones in a repeating motif with eighth notes. The chorus employs a simple four-note descending motif (dotted half-quarter, dotted quarter-eighth) that is repeated four times.

6.   The world is shaking with the love of God

     Great and glorious, let the whole earth sing

     And all you ever do is change the old for new

     People we believe that

     CHORUS:

     God is bigger than the air I breathe

     The world we'll leave

     God will save the day and all will say

     My glorious!

     Clouds are breaking, heaven's come to earth

     Hearts awakening let the church bells ring

     And all you ever do is change the old for new

     People we believe that

     Written by Martin Smith/Stuart Garrard copyright 2000 Curious? Music UK

7. When I speak of software here, I mean it in the commonly understood sense of a program or application enabling a computer user to perform a particular task. 

8. See especially Jeremy Begbie, Theology, Music, and Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 128�54

Theology, News & Notes (ISSN 1529-899X) is published for the alumni/ae and friends of Fuller Theological Seminary. It is published three times a year, in winter, spring, and fall.

The editorial content of Theology, News & Notes reflects the opinions of the various authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the views of Fuller Theological Seminary.

Copyright 2006 by Fuller Theological Seminary. Produced in limited quantities for alumni/ae and friends.

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