From a pastor-friend,

At the request of one of our dying parishioners I’ll play a couple of Hillsong songs at her funeral, namely Shout to the Lord and Jesus What a Beautiful Name. They brought her a great degree of comfort and strength.

I get the impresssion that in some christian quarters that Hillsong songs get a bit of a “hard time”. I simply want to say that I believe that songs from Hillsong can be and are a great blessing, and are one of many sources that we can draw on to aid and enhance our worship. Just as an aside, I recently bought a CD called “Worship in the Key of Life” featuring Linda McKechnie. It combines wellknown hymns and choruses with classical music (eg. Bach’s: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring with Fairest Lord Jesus). It is just beautiful.

My response:

Now that’s not a bad mix! The problem aesthetes on the one hand and theological sophisticates have on the other with Hillsong-type songs is that they are mostly not very brilliant either musically or theologically (understatement of the year!). Mike Frost refers to them as ‘Jesus is My Boyfriend’ type songs. (That’s OK if you’re heterosexual 🙂

If that’s all a church sings they’re into too much pink theological fluff. But on the other hand, if Christian folks can’t express their love for God in the *affective* area, they’re too heady, eh? I like Wesley’s (or did he pinch the phrase from someone else?) ‘wonder, love and praise’ idea.

But the hymns/songs that will last aren’t necessarily brilliant either (Amazing Grace with its poor English for example). However nothing modern beats ‘Jesus Thou Joy of Loving Hearts’ (except for the petititon ‘Make all our moments calm and bright’) or ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ – and it’s a pity that

(a) Our young people don’t know these great hymns, and/or

(b) No one’s translated their sentiments into modern English (so far as I’m aware).

See Ross Langmead’s article on all this for a balanced approach – Music in Worship (http://jmm.org.au/articles/15430.htm )

Keep the flag flying!

Shalom! Rowland Croucher