Have a Valid Critique of your Church’s Worship Music?

Hello all!

A few weeks ago a popular blogger was frustrated with the song selection and performance at her parish.  She was distracted by the song’s theology, and found that it didn’t really align with the theology of her denomination.  The song had somehow passed through the theology-gatekeepers at the publishing company, and neither they nor the music ministers at her parish had seen any problems inherent in the song itself.

It wasn’t just the theology of the song’s lyrics.  It was the banal melody of the song itself.  On top of this, the music ministry was made up of non-paid volunteers who were not full-time accomplished musicians.  Whatever problems the song had at its root were exasperated by these other factors.

Therefore, it distracted her from the liturgy greatly.

So she took matters into her own hands.  She took a photo of the worship team, and posted it on her platform.  She wrote about how bad the music was, and–look at them!–they look dorky!

Immediately afterward all the anti-contemporary music adherents populated her comments page with derisive and mocking sentiments, lamenting the awful state of Catholic music in the last four decades.

Here’s the irony: she had lamented that Catholic music was so bad that newcomers/seekers and those considering returning to the faith would be turned off from by the music itself; but I foresaw that the haughty, mocking attitudes on her blog post to be an even greater impediment towards evangelization. If it is true that “They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love”, then this group did not pass the test.

On top of this, had I been that music minister, I would have my feelings hurt by this person, and would forever close off any further criticism from this person, valid or not.  Every performer is going to have their detractors, and once you have become labelled as such, every criticism you have–valid or not–will be roundly ignored.

She had made the problem worse.

So, what to do?  Be quiet and silently suffer, allowing bad theology and banal melodies to rue the day?  I don’t think so.  Music ministers are to give their best at the service of God, but they are poor judges as to how well they are doing.  They need outsider constructive criticism to be able to gauge how well they are doing; and yet they are human, they get their feelings hurt just like everybody else.

This was the question I had posed to a number of forums of other worship leaders.  Namely, suppose a congregant had a criticism about one of your song choices; furthermore, suppose for the sake of argument, that the criticism–whatever it would be–was valid.  What would be the ideal circumstance for which a worship leader can take to heart this critique and implement change?

This question brought about quite lively discussions.  I was grateful for the participants.  From this, I came to a series of points.

1. Like it or not, these musicians are not accountable to you.  They are accountable to the needs of the pastor, their boss.  Any request a congregant can say to them, directly, could be taken with a grain of salt.  Any request coming from their pastor must be taken seriously.  Approach their pastor instead (indeed, some of the song choices might solely be from the pastor’s request, not them).  Indeed, if you were a tithing congregant, your request may score even greater validity.
2. Do not approach such criticism directly after a church service.  Some musicians spend an entire Sunday morning, six hours straight, playing for many services, repeatedly playing the same songs. They become tired, hungry and spent afterwards, sometimes relying upon a protein bar in-between breaks.  Whatever exhaustion they have after performing a number of these services in a row would lead to hard feelings of resentment if this exhaustion is not recognized.
3. Find the positive things to say about the performance first, and thank them.  These volunteers have stepped up and provided a service your church needs, and not every offering they share will be looked upon with disdain.  If ever they pull off something that pleases you from an aesthetical or theological level, be sure to let them know you’re grateful.
4. Recognize the bigger picture.  The days of professional-quality music programs have subsided even before the emergence of contemporary music, because of the proliferation of churches into the suburbs.  When there were less churches, there were less church musicians, and the caliber of music was much higher; but the cost was that it was a greater distance to go to a church.  The tradeoff of having a parish within a short driving distance is that the need for musicians is greater, and some parishes can only work with what they have.  But what these musicians may lack in the years of experience and professionalism, they gain by their servants’ heart.

If you were to make this a pastoral issue, and not one directly to the musicians themselves, bring about this critique couched in a positive framework, and do so at a time when they are not likely to be spent from the morning activities, you would be more likely to see your request heeded and followed.

What do you think?