WORSHIP MYTH #1 - HYMNS ARE OLDER SONGS

At the age of six I came to know Christ as Savior.  My earliest memories as a Christian are about memorizing Scriptures on note cards, using those note cards to share the gospel with my friends and family, and singing in the church before the pastor preached.  I honestly don’t recall any of those early sermons, yet I distinctly remember some of the songs that we sung.  Music has a way of sticking with us long after the memories of lectures and sermons have disappeared, especially at a young age. Just the tune of a song is enough to awaken memories of places, smells and lyrics not sung in ages.

The first church I attended was a Southern Baptist Church in National City, Ca. In our children’s class we often sang songs that were deemed appropriate for kids.  I remember the right arm, left arm movements of the infamous song Father Abraham.  Having just the tiniest grain of truth in the song, I never understood or was explained how this Abraham guy was our father. I certainly didn’t understand why we did all the motions but it was a fun memory as a child and a cringe-worthy one as an adult.  It wasn’t until decades later that the dots were connected and I understood the reality of Romans 4:16, 9:8 and Galatians 3:7-8.   Indeed Abraham is our father if we have faith in Christ to save us.

Another song I recall from that church was They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.  I’ve never played this song as a musician, but I can distinctly hear in my head this tune from nearly forty years ago and I can tell that minor chords are predominantly used in the song. The minor chords are what give this song a serious feel.  It wasn’t a silly song like Father Abraham and the message was certainly more weighty that a right arm, left arm lyric. The song starts with “We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord.”  The unity and communion of believers because of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is an important theme to know and even sing about. This unity that believers have is to be demonstrated in our love and care for one another.  Hence, the chorus of the song, “They will know we are Christians by our love,” which is drawn from John 13:34:35 and perhaps Philippians 2.

As a six-year-old Christian I recall that we didn’t stay long at this church.  We attended another church for a couple years and then we finally landed at an independent Baptist church not too far away from the first two churches we attended.  This church is where I spent the next nine years being discipled and growing with other believers.  It’s also the church where I grew to love very old songs commonly called hymns.  Here are just some of the titles I recall from the top of my head, songs I still love:

Doxology

Amazing Grace
How Great Thou Art
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
All Hail The Power of Jesus’ Name
Holy, Holy, Holy
It Is Well
Rock of Ages
Be Thou My Vision
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Blessed Assurance
To God Be The Glory
Jesus Paid It All
At The Cross

These songs taught me a lot about the gospel of Christ. They were commonly called hymns in our church and hymns were the only thing we sang—from a book that looked like a Gideon’s hardcovered Bible—from a book that had musical notation that I could not read—from a book where the 3^rd verse was often skipped in a song and no one knew why—from a book that an organ player used while a song director waived his arms in some fashion that somehow kept the rest of us in line. When you are new to hymnody that’s what it feels and looks like.  To the noob hymn singer, it all has an unfamiliar feel to it, but you soon realize that it has a part in teaching you about God.  Unfortunately, in our church, we didn’t have a well-communicated theology of worship, so it often felt like were only singing about God.  I don’t ever recall actually singing to God.

But what an odd word that hymn is.  Some people pronounce the n and some people don’t—sort of like the l in almond. Properly understood a hymn is simply a praise song to God.  It actually has nothing to do with the age, style or structure of the song, although many people equate hymns with a certain sort of religious song from a particular time period.

Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 use the term hymn to simply refer to songs that are spiritual in nature. This plain meaning and usage of this term was well in place before the popular usage of the term that we now often misuse.  So properly understood, hymns are not old songs from the 1600’s to the 1900’s. Hymns are not songs with five verses and a refrain.  Hymns are not songs that adults sing while children sing praise choruses. Hymns are not theologically rich songs while contemporary songs are theology light.  Properly understood, hymns are songs of praise to God.  Understood in this way, even praise songs and praise choruses are hymns, if they are songs of praise to God.

It’s very important to understand this because we may be tempted to superimpose our current understanding of the term hymn onto Scripture and mistakenly relegate our musical worship to the usage of songs that are of a certain age or from a certain time period or contain large quantities of theology.  Accordingly, we may distance ourselves from new hymns or older hymns simply because of our prejudices, preferences and stereotypes and thus cut ourselves off from the spiritual treasure troves that God's people produce in song.  Nowhere in Scripture are we told to sing songs only from a certain time period.  Rather, we are admonished to sing songs that are spiritual in nature—primarily songs of praise to our God.  Thankfully, there is a lot to praise God for and thus there are lots of songs we can sing.  Now some hymns are poor and some hymns are great.  It just depends on how accurate those songs are according to God’s self-revelation.

So the first myth I’d like to dispel is that that hymns are really old stuffy songs that contain a lot of theology, while modern day songs are really cool fluffy songs that contain a lot of emotion.  Both are caricatures of different periods of hymns.  There are really old hymns that are just theologically horrid.  There are really new hymns that are equally suited for the scrap heap. Conversely, there are songs written from centuries long ago that are beautiful treasures for believers today.  There are also beautiful treasures being written and composed today that will direct minds and hearts toward God in praise for centuries to come.  Christians from the 1^st century to the 19^th century do not have exclusive rights in adding to Christendom’s hymnody. Christians from every era are free to create fresh hymns for the church to use in corporate or private instruction and the worship of God.

In summary the period from which the song arises is not what makes a hymn a hymn.  The amount of theology in a song is not what makes a hymn a hymn.  The instrumentation used in a song is not what makes a hymn a hymn.  What make a song a hymn is whether or not it praises God.  And by that definition, every song we sing at church during our services is a hymn.

Stay tuned for more articles to come on worship myths.  Up next: myth #2 - Repetition in worship is bad.

So what are some of your favorite hymns: new or old?