Most of the songs we sang were what we'd call "spiritual songs" rather than "praise songs" (songs of doxology/worship). Songs of praise are sung to God as act of worship and we didn't sing many of those. One song of doxology and praise that we did sing was "How Great Thou Art."
Most of the songs that we sang were "spiritual songs," songs the church sang to each other, rather than directly to God, as a form of encouragement.
For example, "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms" wasn't a praise song, a song of doxology. "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms" was, rather, a song of edification and encouragement:
What a fellowship, what a joy divine,"Leaning On the Everlasting Arms" is pretty folksy, in lyrical content and music, but there were other more magisterial hymns that were trying to do the same thing. For example, "It Is Well With My Soul":
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Refrain:
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,Another example, which is a favorite of mine, "Be Still My Soul":
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
it is well, it is well with my soul.
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.Beyond these songs of trust during times of struggle and sorrow we also sang songs that reminded of eternal consolation and reward, songs like "I'll Fly Away," "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder," and "To Canaan's Land I'm On My Way." Some of these were African American spirituals like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." And some were rooted in agricultural imagery and the farming life, like "Bringing In the Sheaves":
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.
Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,Some of these songs encouraged sharing the gospel, mission work, and evangelism. Songs like "Send the Light":
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
Refrain:
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
There’s a call comes ringing o’er the restless wave,Again, the focus of these songs was communal edification. These were less praise/worship songs sung to God than songs we sang to each other to console, encourage, uplift, challenge and care for each other. And most of the songs in our hymnbooks were songs of this sort. We mostly sang to encourage each other.
“Send the light! Send the light!”
There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save,
Send the light! Send the light!
Refrain:
Send the light, the blessed Gospel light;
Let it shine from shore to shore!
Send the light, the blessed Gospel light;
Let it shine forevermore!
We have heard the Macedonian call today,
“Send the light! Send the light!”
And a golden off’ring at the cross we lay,
Send the light! Send the light!
During the 80s and 90s in the Churches of Christ we experienced what many traditions call "worship reform." And a big part of that reform in our tradition was to push back on the congregation-focused singing we'd been doing to focus more on praise/worship songs, singing to God doxologically. The refrain was, "Worship is about God, not us." So a shift happened. Spiritual songs of mutual encouragement were gradually replaced with praise songs. And a lot of this involved putting the old hymnbooks away and turning to the praise songs being produced by the Christian music industry.
Lots could be said about this change, good and bad, but I'd like to just point to one little discussed aspect of the demise of the "spiritual song" in our faith tradition.
While I wholeheartedly agree that worship should primarily about the praise of God, I'd like to remind that we sing not just for God but also for ourselves. We are told by Paul (commanded, even, if you read the bible in a particular way) to sing songs for each other:
Colossians 3.16Worship songs aren't just for God. Worship songs are also for us, used to "teach and admonish" each other.
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Now I want to be clear here. I'm not suggesting that we pull out the old hymnbooks and start singing "Bringing in the Sheaves." (Though, to be honest, I'd love that, for nostalgic reasons and also for the looks of incomprehension on the faces of my college students.) I'm not recommending going back in time musically and lyrically.
But what I am trying to point out is that there is a horizontal aspect of singing--the church singing to and for each other--that has been largely lost in a lot of the contemporary Christian worship experience. And I think this is important because our almost exclusive focus on the vertical experience--singing songs to God--has meant that we've marginalized from our singing huge swaths of the human experience.
Lament in particular. Look back again, if you skipped over them earlier, some of the lyrics of those old hymns. "When sorrows like seas billows roll." "When sorrow, grief and fear are gone." "What have I to dread, what have I to fear?" To be sure, some of these songs can seem escapist, like the lyric from "I'll Fly Away": "Some glad morning when this life is o'er, I'll fly away." But the backdrop of that song is pain and suffering. Today is a sad day, a very sad say. So we wait for "some glad morning, when this life is o'er." Even a homey song like "Bringing in the Sheaves" speaks to the hardscrabble, poor, desperate, and back-breaking life experienced on farms, especially during the Depression era.
So again, while many of us might want to withdraw a bit from the other-worldly consolation in these old songs, what is clear is how these songs were speaking to pain, sorrow, loss, weariness, and longing. These songs were speaking into fatigue and hopelessness. These songs named the brokenness.
That is what songs do when they try to attend closely to the human experience. Such songs recognize and name the pain. Which is one reason why I think our worship was thinned out when we marginalized these songs. By attending almost exclusively in the praise song to the vertical dimension the horizontal aspect of human experience expressed in the spiritual song was marginalized. This unwittingly hollowed out our worship, removing much of the hymnody that expressed our lament.
And still to this day, at least in my church, when we want to express our lament we pull out one of those old spiritual songs like "When Peace Like a River."
When want to lament we don't reach toward the Christian music industry.
We open up those old hymnbooks.
