Old versus New

Going into overdrive with these posts here...I'll make this a quick one though.

A few weeks ago when I was leading worship in church we were singing Before the Throne of God Above. I asked our powerpoint guy to put up the original words instead of the new updated ones. You know, 'graven on His hands' instead of 'written', 'bid me thence depart' instead of 'force me to depart' and all that caper. This led to a debate with a team member as to whether we should update songs lyrics and the Aaronic blessing etc.

I always like to strike a balance when planning a service between modern songs and older tunes/hymns, and this isn't for any congregational reasons (keeping the peace between younger and older members), it is because of the lyrics. First of all, as Graham and I were discussing recently, the words of hymns like Before the Throne are incredibly deep and powerful. They paint pictures with a descriptive quality that is largely absent in modern contemporary worship. For example, 'graven on His hands' is a far more striking image that 'written ion His hands'. Graven is a permanent mark, carved forever leaving a scar, whereas as to write something is temporary or removable. It sits in harmony with the pain and sacrifice that was made for us. This is true of many hymns. Not that I don't think there is a place for simpler expressions of worship; one of my favourite modern worship songs is David Crowder's 'Rain Down' which contains only fifteen words. I love that worship is deeper than lyrics and so much can be expressed without relying on language the way everything else in our life does, but there is certainly much to be said for the way hymns move us by their words.

The other reason behind a wide range of songs is that we worship a God who is outside of time. The God who we will worship this Sunday morning is the same God who met with Moses on the top of Mount Sinai. He remains unchanging, and I like that our congregational worship can reflect this through the words we sing. Older language speaks of a time that has past, yet the words that were written then speak of the same God we now serve. I think by modernizing everything we can lose this aspect of God from our services.

Give me thees, thous and thys any day :)