LifeWay Worship Project.blog

What my posts will "accomplish" is to show the significant gap in theological richness between the P&W music and the music of our fathers before us in the Church. The P&W music of today is almost completely devoid of doctrine and is almost soley used as an evangelism tool, which is not how we are commanded, in Scripture, to conduct worship service. The majority of church services are "dumbed down" to accomodate the "un-churched" or non-believer. But the corporate worship service is a time when God's people are to worship Him according to His Word for His glory and for His sake. We are nowhere is Scripture commanded to make corporate worship comfortable or easy on the non-believers sensibilities. And P&W has done just that, made it comfortabel for the non-believer to feel quite at home in the worship of the Almighty. How can that possibly be justified by God's Word. The Trinity Hymnal extols the full range of doctrine contained in Scripture and is infinitely more appropriate for the corporate worship of His people.

I hope this helps in some small way.

Michael Puyear

I understand Michael's feelings about the overall depth of P&W music. There is truth in what he is saying, though a point to consider is some of the hymns we continue to sing also contain some of the same "clichéd pabulum". Conversely, I have never thought the lyric to "In Christ Alone" or "How Deep the Father's Love" as "dumbed-down". Michael's point is that standard hymns generally have deeper and richer content than the P&W texts, with which I would not disagree.

We certainly haven't been living in a climate of "The Great Awakening" or the revivals of D.L. Moody, which spawned many great hymns of faith and commitment. However, we most certainly have been living in an environment of "Great Marketing and Technology" and engaged in destructive "Worship Wars". I think to some limited degree, we sing the result.

So rather than "show the significant gap in theological richness between the P&W music and the music of our fathers before us", we might consider encouraging the writers and post theological ideas and concepts they may not have considered, thus building up the body of Christ. I know that as a writer, I respond to a spirit of nurturing, kindness and a loving tone. I receive Michael's message and want to challenge myself to press on in what the Lord has given me to do and say with a life abandoned to the Lord, ultimately resulting in more powerful texts, fashioned in a climate of gentleness and forbearance.

Greg Nelson