Gospel Infrastructure – Worship Music

Family Songs

My family sang everything. From “This Little Light of Mine” and “Amazing Grace” to state capitals, grammar rules, and silly songs with people’s names. My family sang all the time: when we woke up, when we lay down, and when we drove along the way. Music was a first language in our home. The Lord used that singing family culture to ingrain in me the power of familiar song. Songs I knew not just because I had sung them a lot but because they came from a well-worn musical path that spoke my heart language. They were familiar and familial. You couldn’t fully understand the Hodge family without understanding our songs. People and songs go together. They come from and shape who we are. Ask devoted fans of Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber and they would say, “These are our stories. These are our songs.”

My local church loves to sing. I believe a large part of that singing culture has been supported by singing new songs, family songs, written by and for us. The members take ownership in these songs. They were written in their local undershepherd’s voice, and they know that voice. I don’t write for the church. I write for my church. I know its voice, range, musical tastes, and background. I can write a new song that our church family can sing. Churches should inspire, encourage, and equip their musicians and pastors to this task.

Songs in Missions

To reach people with the gospel, we must speak and sing their language. I believe music and language are next-door neighbors. Like the Hodge family, to fully understand a people, you need to understand their music. William Carey realized this. He wrote, “The people are very fond of singing hymns and I have been forced to commence as poet to furnish them with hymns to sing.” Carey’s first disciple, Krishna Pal, became the first indigenous hymn writer in the Bengali language. May more pastors be “forced to commence as poet.”

Indigenous songs are not the foundation but the fruit of gospel infrastructure. Such songs are a visible sign and audible sound that the gospel has taken root in a people. If our missionary work is rightly concerned with a people’s theology and ecclesiology, then it should also be concerned with their doxology. Teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded includes singing, so let’s raise up the next generation of indigenous hymn writers and give them something to sing!

Lost in Translation

Visiting our gospel partners around the world has given me a variety of musical experiences. Some encouraged me, while others concerned me. At one location, the people were passionate about corporate worship. However, the songs they sang were all imported from the West. It felt off to me. The corporate worship didn’t sound like the people. The local culture has a deep well of musical heritage, but all I heard was Western music forms. The lyrics also left something to be desired, both theologically and translationally. Ministries like Sovereign Grace Music are doing a good job translating rich songs for churches to sing in different languages. We need more of that. Many bilingual Christians and musicians tell me that the process is not always going well. Translating songs is difficult. A poor translation loses rhyme, rhythm, and poetry — and weakens truth. Translating older, wordy hymns is especially difficult. Doing it well requires both linguistic and musical skill. Words are one thing and music is another. Music has many dialects, and one genre doesn’t always speak clearly in every culture. Music may be universal, but certain melodies are not. Like my friend Neal would say, “Congregational singing is not a genre.” For a people group to clearly understand and own a text, they also need to understand and own the tune.

In the Arab world, the catalog of available songs written or translated into the local dialect is small. A local pastor told me they get most of their songs from another country and dialect. Beggars can’t be choosers, but a pastor needs to be a chooser when it comes to picking the musical theology he feeds his sheep. As a musician and a pastor, I don’t know what would be more difficult for me: to learn to preach in Arabic or to learn to write songs in the native musical dialect. This is a difficult task worthy of our attention.

A Beautiful Sound

My stop in South Africa was encouraging. I was blown away by the spontaneous, a cappella, and harmonized singing of the Zulu tribe. With no lights, sound system, or worship leader, their songs adorned their humble building and made the truth soar in my heart. These were indigenous songs: simple, repetitive, and true. They were all memorized, handed down from generation to generation. The kids sang as loud as the adults. The rhythms and melodies were so … Zulu! It felt so fitting. The corporate worship sounded like the people. It was distinctly African, and I can still hear it.

A Concerning Trend

A study done in 2023 by Worship Leader Research discovered that “from 2010-2020, 38 worship songs appeared on the CCLI and PraiseCharts Top 25 list. 37 of them were co-written or popularized by a mere 5 megachurches.”¹ The churches are Hillsong, Bethel, and others like them. The majority of songs that the majority of churches are singing come from five churches. This small group shapes the global church’s doxology and theology. We can do better.

I wonder what the globalization of Western worship music has done to weaken the gospel witness around the world. Are we missing out on what musical saints can offer in their churches, languages, and folk music? I know it’s not simple. Raising up indigenous hymnodists is a lofty goal, but so is the Great Commission! To paraphrase William Carey, expect great things from God and attempt to write great songs for God’s glory and the good of the church.

May we continue to move forward with church-centered missions and not leave songwriting and translating behind. 

Facing the Task

Is every pastor, missionary, and church planter to become a songwriter? The answer is obviously no. But why not? Many of our time-tested hymns have been written by pastors. Wesley, Watts, and Luther wanted to feed their sheep with good sermons and songs. Missionaries like William Carey knew that for the gospel to flourish in a people, it needs to be sung. I know pastors and missionaries care about what their people are singing. Let’s turn some of that care into creative writing. 

Here are a few possible paths forward:

1. Training Wheels

Until those songwriters and songs exist, sing what is true, good, beautiful, and intelligible for your people. Here are some training wheels you could try on:

Write a new verse to an old song. Use the meter and rhyming scheme given to you by the original author and write a new verse. An example from my church is “We Sing the Mighty Power of God” by Isaac Watts. It is a wonderful hymn about God’s power, wisdom, and goodness in creation. But the song never gets to Jesus, so we wrote a new verse in the same lyrical style.

(Original Verse 1)

We sing the mighty power of God

that made the mountains rise,

that spread the flowing seas abroad

and built the lofty skies.

We sing the wisdom that ordained

the sun to rule the day;

the moon shines full at his command,

and all the stars obey.

(New Additional Verse)

We sing Thy mighty power to save

From our rebellious fall

When from the woman’s seed You gave

A tree of life for all

We sing the wisdom that ordained

The Son to come and die

And through His loss Your people gained

A garden by Your side

Write new words for an old melody. Think of the song “All Glory Be to Christ”² written to the melody of “Auld Lang Syne”. The melody is the template.

Write a new melody for old words. You or a member of your church may be better with melodies than words. Find good words that you want your people to sing and set them to a more fitting, familiar, or familial melody.

2. Simple Songs

Less words are easier to translate and remember. Instead of trying to write the next “In Christ Alone”³ in your language, try writing the next “Jesus Loves Me.” Simple, less wordy songs will allow for more people to participate in their heart language faster. Start with simple psalms.

3. Translate and Transplant  

We sing songs born out of many cultures. That is good for my church! There are songs that are worth translating and transporting from everywhere to everywhere! Many of our beloved hymns we sing in English were written in a different language (e.g., “Be Thou My Vision,” “A Mighty Fortress”). They were translated beautifully and fit into traditional melodies. Other hymns, in order to be fully imported, need to be adapted to a new melody or musical setting. I want to see more old songs sung in new, indigenous ways. Put songs in a local musical dialect, by the people, for the people, so they can really sing, “This is my song!” A deeper, lasting connection is made when the word of Christ is dwelling in us richly in the key of our hearts’ native tongue.

4. It Takes a Village

Songwriting is better done in community. Use the gifts of the many working as one to produce something edifying for the whole church. Missionaries, pastors, and church leaders need to leverage the varied grace in their churches and communities to build songs for every tribe. Find a poet, a pastor, and an instrumentalist from the local community. Put them in a room with a Bible and a love for the flock among them and watch the magic happen.

Practice Makes Perfect

Here is a summary of my aim in the most Baptist-preacher-alliterated way possible:

• Pick the best songs and translate their words and music beautifully.
• Pray the Lord would raise up indigenous songwriters. Encourage and enable them!
• Pastors, see yourselves as song curators and public theologians.
• Partner with writers, musicians, and translators in your networks.
• Plan for the future by singing songs you will want to hand down to your children.
• Peruse the indigenous music and learn to love it.
• Psalms are your template. Set them to melodies your people can sing.

Generational Wealth

My family sings everything. I have carried on the practice of family songs handed down by my parents, and I hope my kids will do the same in their families. There’s something distinctly Hodge about it. But there’s also something distinctly Christian about it. It’s as if God has designed us to have a special connection to songs, and he uses that for his praise and purposes. Read the psalms and ask, “How does the psalmist think that the good news of what God has done is preserved and passed down to the next generation?” You won’t read long before you see that singing the songs of the redeemed is the great heirloom of the saints. We trust the promise of Psalm 22 that,

All the ends of the earth will remember
and turn to the Lord.
All the families of the nations
will bow down before you,
for kingship belongs to the Lord;
he rules the nations.

Their descendants will serve him;
the next generation will be told about the Lord.
They will come and declare his righteousness;
to a people yet to be born
they will declare what he has done.

(Ps 22:27-28, 30-31 CSB)

Building gospel infrastructure will help us ensure to include a grand music room for the church in generations to come. A place where new songs will be written for as long as the Lord tarries. Where the true, good, and beautiful will resound in every tribe, tongue, and timbre. To God be the glory.

Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
    sing to the Lord, all the earth!

(Ps 96:1 ESV, emphasis added)

1. WLR Team, “(Almost) 100% of the Top 25 Worship Songs are Associated with Just a Handful of Megachurches.,” WorshipLeaderResearch.com, last modified March 30, 2023, https://worshipleaderresearch.com/100-of-the-top-25-worship-songs-are-associated-with-just-a-handful-of-megachurches/.
2. “All Glory Be to Christ,” arranged by Kings Kaleidoscope, lyrics by Dustin Kensrue, track #5 on Joy Has Dawned, Mars Hill Music, 2012, EP.
3. “In Christ Alone,” composed by Keith Getty, lyrics by Stuart Townend, track #4 on In Christ Alone, Getty Music, 2006, compact disc.