Since congregational singing is so very important, we should have the goal of teaching our church families songs that have rich biblical texts sung to good tunes. What we teach them should not be time-bound. We should build together with them a body of songs that express the Gospel in its fullness, songs that they will sing into old age. 

I am concerned about poor congregational singing these days in many evangelical churches, and in the Presbyterian Church in America in particular. There is a lot of mumbling and half-hearted singing going on. This, I believe, is a result of what is being sung and how it is being sung.

One cannot overstate the importance of congregational singing. It is one of the main elements of worship. God decided that singing His praise would be our chief way to respond, in worship, to His revelation of Himself and of His grace given to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, in both the Old and New Testaments the command and encouragement to sing God’s praise is pervasive. The presence and size of the Psalter in the Bible underscores singing’s importance.  In heaven, where preaching is no longer needed, our consuming activity will always be to sing God’s praise.

In addition to God’s praise, another important function of singing together in worship is that of mutual admonition and encouragement. The “audience” for our singing, then, is primarily God, but also our fellow worshippers.

For some today another “audience” is the focus of in choosing songs.  Not a few ministers or worship leaders are choosing songs especially to please those who visit the church, perhaps with a view to attracting the non-churched or unbelievers.  If so, they have the wrong audience in mind. When it comes to choosing the songs of worship, the choice should be made with the gathered church family in mind. The music we use needs to give our people an adequate means to praise God in all of the richness that we see modeled in the Psalms and in the language of heaven’s worship. It is a mistake to plan the songs for worship and preaching principally to attract new people to the church. Where that is done the church family often suffers malnourishment. They may not be singing the kind of music that gives them the full range of biblical topics.  We need to remind ourselves that, in the end, it should be the preaching of the full gospel and the Christ-like character of the church family life that attracts and holds people. Actually, it is because we are not just like all of the rest of the world in which they live that they see an attraction.  The uniqueness of our message, our worship language and music, if it is biblical and authentic, should not be apologized for but should be our goal.

What are we singing in our worship with regard to texts?  Again, a significant concern of mine is that our songs have texts of biblical and doctrinal depth, variety and clarity. Far too much of what is being sung is shallow and narrow in those regards.  For a textual model all one need do is to look at the Psalms. They do not say “let’s just praise the Lord.” They command praise and then give a litany of reasons for that praise. These have to do with the character of God and His actions, especially in regard to His saving acts.

What are we singing in our worship with regard to tunes?  I think it is important that a church family build a common body of music, or tunes, which can serve the singing of their substantial texts well. This is in order that they are able to sing joyfully and from the heart.

What a mistake it is to do music that does not has lasting worth for the congregation. If we are constantly changing what they are singing, introducing new songs frequently and throwing out others because they have no lasting textual and music worth, the church family will not be able to build a body of songs that they know, love and sing well. Every generation has its fad songs, just think of some of the gospel songs of our grandparents, “Pass It On” from the 70’s, “El-Shaddai” of the 80’s, etc. So too, most of the new songs of our time will not last.

Experience has taught me that congregations are slow to learn tunes well. This means that they will need to concentrate on a somewhat limited number of tunes if they are to build this well-sung common body of tunes. Those tunes need to be good tunes, ones that will serve them for a long time, hopefully all of their lives.

What constitutes a good tune for this purpose? A good hymn or spiritual song tune is one that sings well, that is memorable, original and creative in character.  A tune that sings well for a group is one that has a reasonable range, a rhythm that is rather simple and predictable and a melody line that does not contain a lot of unusual intervals.

A good tune is a good tune is a good tune (thank you, Gertrude Stein). There are a number of good tunes that have been time-tested, that still work well, and are not really time-bound. Worshipers of every generation like them and relate to them, i.e, the tunes for “Be Thou My Vision” (probably 200+ years old), “A Mighty Fortress” (500 years old), “Amazing Grace (200+ years old), “Crown Him with Many Crowns” (ca. 150 years old), “We Come, O Christ, To You” (240+years old). There are many more I could list. What we need to do is to build up a body of good tunes, new tunes and old tunes that form the corpus of our church families’ songs. While it is more difficult to judge the lasting nature of a new tune, one can make reasonable judgments based on the criteria I gave above. For example, the tune I would submit is that of the Getty and Townend songs, the tune (and certainly text) for “In Christ Alone” meets the criteria that I gave and may will be around for more than a generation.

Some are choosing the latest appealing solo-type song heard on Christian radio to be sung by the church family the next week. A problem with some of those songs is that the tune does not work for congregational singing. The range, and or rhythm may be difficult. What works for a soloist may not work at all for the congregation. So what you hear is mumbling and low energy singing.

Even in some new, more classical hymn tunes, especially those coming out of Great Britain recently, have unusual melodic intervals that are difficult and cause folks to stumble.

I am a fan of the Reformed University Ministries and applaud their desire to give the students songs of substance. Their use of time-tested texts set to tunes that are original is a creative and a well-directed concept. I do, though, find a fair number of the RUF tunes lacking because they are not group friendly.  Groups do not sing them well because they are not easy rhythmically, often pitched way too low, and if re-pitched have a difficult range, and are, in the main, not very creative melodically. We use these at our church with my encouragement because of the heart-attachment of many of our returning students, but when they are sung I hear a lot of mumbling and half-singing going on.

In summary, I say that since congregational singing is so very important, we should have the goal of teaching our church families songs that have rich biblical texts sung to good tunes. What we teach them should not be time-bound. We should build together with them a body of songs that express the Gospel in its fullness, songs that they will sing into old age.

Bill Wymond is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves a Minister of Music at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss.