‘The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever’ (Isaiah 40.8, ESV).
I often think about the state of music in evangelical churches and lament the low standards of musical ability and quality (my own standards included). This is one of the reasons that we’re trying to train up church musicians on the Music Apprenticeship Scheme, because it’s important to sing praises to Jesus that honour him, and aren’t just second rate and thrown together ten minutes before a church meeting.
Choral jealousy?
However, I also forget to praise God that, whatever the quality, musicians in evangelical churches have been (and we pray always will be) committed to the faithful proclamation of the Word of God. It’s very easy to look at the English choral tradition, and the beauty of that music produced in wonderful cathedrals, and to be filled with a certain amount of jealousy and inadequacy when we pick up our guitars (I tend not to pick up my piano — I tried it once and it hurts). But, beautiful as this music is, it is only the word of our God that will stand forever — even the ‘great’ English choral tradition is only a few hundred years old, which hardly makes it great at all. Some English choral music is like a beautiful flower (though there are some pretty ugly weeds in there too), and should be enjoyed and celebrated, but not at the expense of faithful proclamation of the word of God. That’s because, unlike the English choral tradition, proclaiming God’s word is a truly great tradition, because it goes right back to the creation of the world, and is powerful not only to create life, but to bring people to eternal life.
