As I go around doing the Worship Conference, the questions that people ask invariably give me an idea for an article. I’ve just been to Latvia (I can’t name-drop, so I might as well place-drop) and met a small but faithful group of Christians who are standing for the truth in a largely secular society. The other thing I noticed about Latvians is that they still clap when an aeroplane lands.
During one of the sessions we took time to analyse the content of some contemporary songs, and we noticed that many of them don’t even mention Jesus or God, so focussed are they on expressing individual sentiments. This gave rise to the question, ‘Is there a difference between the songs we sing on our own to Jesus in private and the songs we sing together as a body of believers?’
My own heart
The answer I’d give is, ‘Not necessarily — there are some subjective songs which encourage sentiments that we could all use to sing to Jesus. A song I sing frequently in my own heart is ‘I love you Lord, and I lift my voice…’. I know it’s an old song, but the tune has stuck in my head for years. The content of the song isn’t profound and there’s hardly any objective theology there, but it is a simple response which could be echoed by all. However, if our personal song of choice went, ‘Well ev’rybody dance, now, get in the Holy Ghost’ (yes, there is a Christian song which has this line), then there is a response which may not be able to be echoed by all.
