Meaningful and Beautiful
Since we place so much emphasis on Music; discussing it may not be a bad idea.
There are two evident elements that frustrate folks when it comes to our worship music: Type of music and delivery of music. Though there is a wide margin between old, high church hymnody and the modern rock praise and worship of today; the problem is not the songs. The answer is in the "Why!"
We worship to:
1. Glorify God
2. Join together in agreement as the Body of Christ
3. Proclaim God's bigness
4. Thank God for His bigness
5. Praise God for His bigness
If this is the basic criteria for worship, then why do we not come to common ground that would ensure that these elements take place. I believe the common ground is:
1. Meaningful Truth in the Lyrics
2. Beautiful and Easy to Sing Melodies
The Lyrics to some of the old Hymns are written in an English that is not easily understood and may have hard-to-sing melody lines. I remember a sweet teacher coming to me one time and asking what the song was about. I couldn't tell her everything. What we had was a beautiful song with no inherent value.
I once noticed only a handful of folks singing a certain hymn and realized that the melody made it nearly impossible to understand the truth in the song.
On the other hand, there are some hymns such as A Mighty Fortress is our God that are packed full of God's bigness and ideas that we as the Body of Christ can hold on to strongly and find unity. I decided to sing A Mighty Fortress is Our God one Sunday morning accapela to a different melody. Several educated and committed Christians came to me that morning and stated that they had never considered the depth of truth found in that song until hearing it in a more different genre or style. I joked that they paid attention to the words to distract them from my poor job of singing.
Many hymns only sound right if sang by a person with an operatic boldness.
The lyrics and manor of a great many of the Praise and Worship songs are NOT deep. There are some that definitely are, but I would be remiss if I didn't powerfully say that many aren't. So many of the newer songs are not God-centered, but "me" centered. "I will worship You!" instead of "You are the provider of all things!"
But then again, there are some that are both beautiful and powerful. Sweet, simple melodies and doctrinally sound, unifying lyrics can also be found.
A side note-->I don't like the fact that seemingly most P&W songs seem to need someone with a breathy, almost sexy voice to sing them to bring out the full effect. This is not a good thing. Nor is repeating the chorus in overabundance at the end of a song. Some might consider this as "working people up".
A major part of the answer would lie within one simple question: is the song a spiritual song? Is it about how big God is and are we responding to that bigness?
The evangelical church seems to be focusing on form instead of God alone.
The most important aspect of our worshiping through music should be meaningful Truth. Then, it should be simple and beautiful to sing.
The focus not on any leader, but on God alone. He, God Almighty, is looking to see our heartcry not the leaders performance.