Graham Kendrick sets Molly Pollitt thinking about choosing worship songs

The celebration, earlier this year, of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Pratt-Green Trust gave a welcome opportunity to hear Graham Kendrick talking about worship songs. A quiet and unassuming man, Graham treated us to a comprehensive overview of the state of worship-song writing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

It was interesting to hear Graham’s assessment of the quality of the worship songs which are available to us today and I was particularly pleased to hear him suggesting that preachers and worship leaders had a responsibility to act as ‘gate-keepers’ when selecting worship songs for use in the services they lead. By this he meant that we should assess the songs we use, ‘allowing the best in, but keeping the poor ones out’. This set me thinking. I do a lot of ‘gate keeping’ (using Graham Kendrick’s term), but what criteria do I use to keep the poor ones out, and would other preachers and leaders of worship agree with me? Here are some initial thoughts:

Difficulties in singing
There are some songs which sound absolutely great when performed by the person who wrote them, but are well beyond the capabilities of your average congregation. Are we helping people to worship if they are struggling to follow a complicated tune, or fit a large number of words to a small number of notes? I have a CD on which Matt Redman sings ‘Let everything that has breath’ (SoF 880) and I find it inspiring to listen to, but expecting a congregation to sing this song is to court disaster; it simply isn’t a congregational song.

Inappropriate language
Some songs use language which is more suited to romantic love songs than to worship songs. Our love for God and his for us should not be compared with the love between two people and we should not ask our congregations to use the kind of language that suggests it is. SoF 836 (I agree this is an extreme example) reads ‘I’ve fallen in love / Since the first time we met / There at the cross where you paid for my sin’. I hope I’m not alone in thinking that the gate should be barred to that particular song. And what about ‘cradled in the arms of love’ (SoF 1333)? Some songs even stray into using phrases which lend themselves a sexually suggestive interpretation. I’d bar those too.

Language which diminishes its subject
Our God is a great and mighty God, and I’m uncomfortable with the use of adjectives such as ‘fabulous’ (SoF 964). I also find myself cringing at the description of God as ‘the apple of my eye’ (SoF 27). This seems to me to be an entire reversal of the accepted understanding of this phrase, (Psalm 17:8). I rejoice to be the apple of God’s eye, but to me, to reverse the metaphor sounds condescending.

Trite and sentimental expressions
The Christian faith is essentially simple, but expressions like ‘prayer is like a telephone’ (SoF 1504), detract from rather than add to our understanding of how we speak to God. And what about SoF 886, which tells us that Jesus Christ, ‘our great High Priest’ is ‘able to feel and sympathise’? Phrases such as these don’t come anywhere near expressing the depth of meaning which we find within the Passion narrative, and I cannot believe that our worship will be enriched by singing them.

As you read these thoughts, I wonder if you too are prompted to bring to mind worship songs which would never find a place on your order of service. If so, please share them with us. Or am I out of touch with the modern idiom? Your thoughts please!

Molly Pollitt is a Local Preacher in the Mansfield Circuit

All examples are taken from Songs of Fellowship, Volumes 1,2,3 published by Kingsway Music, 2003