Lent 35: The curse of modern worship songs?

I have heard many people complain about modern worship songs - that they are not intelligently written, too repetitive, too simple.

Traditional hymns often have really beautiful and complex words which have deep meaning and which are the result of hours upon hours of prayer and work.  They sometimes summarise in one line something one has been feeling or experiencing, something which modern worship songs very rarely achieve.

Here is one of my favourites:

1. O Love, that wilt not let me go,
   I rest my weary soul in Thee;
   I give Thee back the life I owe,
   That in Thine ocean depths its flow
   May richer, fuller be.
2. O Light, that followest all my way,
   I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
   My heart restores its borrowed ray,
   That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
   May brighter, fairer be.
3. O Joy, that seekest me through pain,
   I cannot close my heart to Thee;
   I trace the rainbow through the rain,
   And feel the promise is not vain
   That morn shall tearless be.
4. O Cross, that liftest up my head,
   I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
   I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
   And from the ground there blossoms red
   Life that shall endless be.

The reason that there seems to be such a gulf between this kind of hymn and the songs of those such as Tim Hughes and Chris Tomlin, I believe, is that traditional style hymns and modern worship songs are trying to achieve something completely different.

Traditional style worship is essentially poetry.  Song lyrics are often very poetic, but the depth found in the words of many hymns is akin to the words of many poets, and indeed often are the words of poets.  They are worthy of in-depth reading and meditation and have very much to offer.  It is, indeed, worship when we use our talents and spend time working hard on something.  I personally find, however, that hymns would give me more if they were used much more meditatively - if we took the words and prayed them slowly, rather than singing them so quickly and skimming over so much meaning.

Whilst there are many well-thought-out recent songs (e.g. Stuart Townend), my experience of singing many modern worship songs is that they are, in contrast to traditional-style hymns, more of a tool to enable open, personal praise of God.  They are usually used as part of a longer session of worship in which there might be times when people sing their own words, or only music is played.  They are simple, and rightly so, because then the words do not get in the way of real encounter with the living God who is among us.  I find myself able to sing for a while, then stop and focus on God, then sing some more... something I find I cannot do with the more wordy hymns and songs (or when one song is played and we all sit down again - my brain needs time to get into gear).  These simpler songs give permission for me to use them as I will and help me to get into a state of mind where I can actually spend time with God and worship him from within myself.  Repeating lines gives us time to focus in and realise the meaning of even the simplest words of praise, and to allow them to become part of ourselves.  What else, after all, are Taize chants trying to achieve?

There is something amazing about many voices joining together in worship and unity, and this is an important part of praise, but if all we do is enjoy lusty tunes and poetic words, are we actually praising God?

There is nothing superior about the different ways of writing songs and doing worship, there is just something lost when we do not use the songs to their full potential, or mistakenly believe that all songs have the same purpose.