... praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. – Psalm 150:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 13, 2013): Psalm 149 & 150

I am a child of what has been called the Worship Wars. Early on in my life the style of worship around me was seen to be an issue. When I was in Junior High (or now Middle School) I was attending a church that had a midweek service. Every Wednesday night the church gathered for a time of worship. The younger kids gathered at the church for a “Boy Scouts” or “Girl Guides” like program called “Caravan.” The older kids, my age, gathered for their own church service – done our way and with our music, and the adults were gathered upstairs in a hall for their service. And one day my Youth Pastor got an idea. Let’s have a contest for attendance of the midweek services – youth against the adults. Over a month’s time, we will take attendance and the service that had the greatest percentage increase in attendance wins. And the prize was that for one night both groups would gather together for a night of worship as chosen by of the winner. In other words, if the adult won we would gather for a night of Southern Gospel Quartet music. If the kids won it was going to be a night of Rock and Roll (or at the time what we called Contemporary Christian Music.) We were pumped. And we won. And almost immediately the adults started to tell the teens that they were not going to come to the night of worship.

All the way through the worship wars was the idea that God would not ordain the use of Rock Music with its heavy use of drums and rhythm based instrument in worship of him. There seems to be a level of reserve that is needed in the worship of God. Some people really believe that it is of the devil to let choruses replace the hymns. According to this group of people the hymns carry God’s stamp of approval while choruses do not. And I do believe that Jesus uses the hymns, but I know he also uses the more contemporary music – in fact, I think God uses the noises that we make.

So the Psalmist writes that we are to praise God with loud cymbals. There is very little music in a cymbal. Literally this passage says that we are to praise God with the cymbals of hearing, which just means cymbals that can be heard a long way off. And if that was not enough, the Psalmist writes that we are to praise God with the resounding cymbals – again literally the cymbals of shouting. As if the cymbals of hearing or cymbals that can be heard a long way off was not enough, we are going to add to the cymbals of hearing the cymbals of shouting.

What worship is not about is the music. To be brutally honest, I really don’t care what the musical style is that you may enjoy. But if you like the hymn’s – then sing them loud. There should be no reserve in our worship. When the church gathers to sing, the neighborhood should know it. Praise should always be shouted – and heard a long way off.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 1