Why we need more negative songs!

I’ve just had a conversation with a member of the congregation that has helped me hugely.

It was a challenge to church musicians (I don’t think just me!) to examine the material content of our songs – not just for good theology, but for a faithful representation of the whole Bible’s message.

The criticism was that the majority of our songs and hymns are chosen because they are popular, and popular songs are overwhelmingly positive in their outlook, whereas the balance of the whole of Scripture is weighted more to reflecting the hardship of waiting for the Redeemer in a fallen world.

Lamenting well

I understand the point, and I agree. It’s a problem not just with contemporary songs but with older hymns too. I always find it hard to find a song or hymn that matches the tone of lament in a passage in Isaiah (for example) that then doesn’t end up looking to the promise of redemption in Jesus. In one sense I’m happy with this as, in my view, the magnitude of the solution in Jesus far outweighs the quantity of the Bible’s pages that are given over to the problem. But it’s also important to make sure that our congregation knows how to lament well – to mourn at our struggles in exile, to plead for Jesus’ return, to grieve at the way the Lord’s name is dishonoured in our world.

Where are these songs of lament? They do exist, but the tunes that accompany them are by definition never anthemic – they don’t have tunes that give a real lift to the singing of a congregation. Instead, the songs are much more downbeat and have tunes that meander rather than hit home. This makes them harder to sing by congregations, and therefore less popular too, so we tend to avoid singing them.

One of the best songs of lament written in the last 20 years (in my view) is a version of Psalm 73 by Simon Pedley (‘Whom have I in heaven but You?’), but because the tune follows the wide range of the sentiments of the words so well, this makes it more appropriate to be sung by a soloist rather than by a congregation. Another problem is that many of these laments end up being very specific to Bible books. I wrote a lament on Habakkuk in the mid-90s which we haven’t sung since the last time we had a sermon series on Habakkuk. It’s now forgotten, though it really wasn’t my best effort either!

Surveying our songs

This doesn’t mean that we do nothing to address the situation, however. Whilst singing is still banned in our church meetings, why not take up the opportunity to carry out a health check on our song repertoires, to make sure that we have a good range of songs that help us to respond to our current situation appropriately? Recently, we surveyed our repertoire to make sure we had a healthy representation of songs that focused on the past, present and future of our salvation. It was a very useful exercise, and has caused us to make various changes to our song choices.

There are other things we can do. We may need to ‘own’ just two or three songs of lament that the congregation gets to know well (however hard the tune). It may mean using soloists every now and then so that the congregation can learn how to sing laments well when they sing them together. It may mean writing a song that would be appropriate for your own congregation. Any of these actions would be a good start, and much better than doing nothing.

Priority of maturity and unity

My friend's main criticism is that we can be in danger of choosing popular songs that attract the newcomer rather than feeding the flock who want to grow in Christ. We always want to have an eye out for the newcomer, of course, but it’s been an important reminder that our priority is the maturity and unity of God’s people.

With every hope that when we gather we will be able to grieve our sin, to proclaim His wonderful grace, and to find rest in our Lord Jesus.