Jonathan Leeman, Mark Dever and Matt Merke give their advice on what to do
Spend some time with members of a Khosa church in South Africa, and you will quickly discover how wonderfully they sing. No instruments. No microphones. One individual leading, the rest following. Many hands clapping. And how they join their voices in full-throated praise!
This article is not written for them. It’s written for a traditional Western church. Westerners are accustomed to professional-quality and performance-oriented music. And for better or worse, this affects what Christians expect musically when we walk into the church gathering. Unless a church deliberately pushes in an alternative direction, we expect the music to demonstrate the same quality of performance as what we hear on the car radio or through our Mp3 ear buds. Anything less can sound clunky, tacky, even embarrassing.
