SINGING THE CONGREGATION:
How contemporary worship music forms
evangelical community
By Monique M. Ingalls
Oxford University Press. 272 pages. £22.99
ISBN 978 0 190 499 648
It surprised me to learn that Christian contemporary worship music is a subject studied by academic sociologists.
The book Singing the Congregation, from Oxford University Press, is a fascinating example of such a study. It will interest anyone wanting to understand more about the impact of contemporary worship music (CWM) on evangelicalism in the West.
Music-shaped gatherings
Though an academic work, it is not plagued overmuch by academic language or concepts that are difficult for the non-specialist to grasp.
The author’s aim is to identify how CWM has shaped evangelical gatherings. After an introductory chapter setting the context for her study, she examines five settings where contemporary worship music predominates: Christian concerts, worship conferences, a local church, praise marches and online use of audiovisual technology. Part of her main argument is that CWM not only expresses the praise and worship of individual Christian congregations and gatherings, but also itself forms and shapes them.
The author shows how Christians gain their identity from concerts and conferences where contemporary worship music is heavily used and promoted, and how the music and worship which they experience at such events shapes their expectations for local church worship and creates a sense of unity with others who share in similar worship experiences.
Tensions we feel
Monique Ingalls’ work demonstrates some of the tensions at the heart of these uses of CWM, in particular the conflict between the expressed desire to worship God on the one hand, and the inevitable focus of the concert or conference upon the soloists and band who are leading the worship.
She brings out the heavily commercialised nature of the contemporary worship music industry and expresses concern at its domination by white, middle-class, younger male figureheads. She shows how the use of CWM became mainstream among evangelical churches under the influence of the Christian music industry in the early years of this millennium.
Shift in worship
The author’s introductory chapter explores the origins of contemporary worship music in the Pentecostal and charismatic circles of the 1960s. She shows how, under the influence of CWM, a shift occurred in the evangelical understanding of what worship is: contemporary worship music became the means whereby the worshipper was able to enter into a direct experience with God, a ‘divine encounter’, through extended periods of musical worship.
Evangelical churches in the UK have, over recent years, shifted very significantly to the use of contemporary songs and hymns in worship today. Though this move is widely accepted, it raises questions and concerns in the minds of some. This book, written by someone without a theological axe to grind, provides an insightful and informed perspective on the phenomenon which is CWM.
