239. Hyles Church Manual Examined - Part 5 - Music - Is It Worship or Manipulation?
Episode Notes
We take a deep dive into the Infallible Hyles Church Manual. We hope you enjoy.
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Transcript
Welcome back to the 4-Freedom Podcast. Man, I don't know about you, but I've had a great week, James. We've had a phenomenal week here at Rocky Point Baptist Church. We had our homecoming this past Sunday. We had a great day, House of God. We had potluck, you know, Baptist potlucks.
You know, it was, you know, a football field of food. It seemed like we had four tables of food, and then we started our revival Sunday morning. We had our executive director of treasurer, Dr. Sean Parker, with us. He's the executive treasurer director of Mississippi, and I've had him.
He's a busy man. I've had him on schedule for two years, and then we had some other guys come through Wednesday, but man, it's just been a long week, and now we can finally breathe and get back in the recording studio with my buddy James.
I'm recording another episode of the 4-Freedom Podcast, and glad to be here. That's how my week has been. What's going on in your neck of the woods? Yeah, man. Things are going well. We're staying busy. We are coming to the close of volleyball season.
Man, I can't wait. I am looking forward to volleyball being done with my daughter playing and my wife coaching and me driving the bus and everything else going on. It's just like, man, we're going 500 different directions and times and everything else. So I will be thankful here in a couple of weeks.
Our fall break is starting on the 8th here for the school, and so I'm doing a golf tournament that day for our pregnancy center, and then we're hitting the road as soon as I'm done with the golf tournament and running down to Georgia,
spending a little weekend getaway with the family and just get away for a couple nights, and then that'll kick off into I'll be preaching on the 11th at Rick Ivey's church, and then that evening I start a revival
at a friend of mine's church here in North Wilkes, and I'll be doing Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night, so four sermons there, and then turn around the next week and we have our homecoming and revival, and then I'm going to Tennessee for the cigar, Jeff Rice's conference there for his deal.
So man, I'm going to blink and turn around, and October's going to be done. It's going to be wiped out. You're going to resign your church and just preach your Bibles full time. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I hope not because I love the local church.
I love where I'm at. I love the people that I'm around. We're doing a new directory, Brett, here at the church,
and we've got a couple old ladies that are helping me. I've learned when you do a directory, grab a couple of older ladies. They love making sure all the details are right.
They're not going to miss a family. They're going to make sure every little jot, tittle is right. It's going to be perfect. And so the lady, she's in her, I think she's 81 that's helping, and she said,
Preacher, I'm not going to be here when we do the next one. Last one we did was 13 years ago, and I'm going to be dead and gone. And I said, Pat, you're only 94.
You're not going to be dead and gone. You got at least 30 more years in you. What are you talking about?
And she said, he looked at me and she said, well, are you going to be here in 30 more years? I said, unless you fire me, I'm not planning on go nowhere.
And so she got a good kick out of that. She said, I'm on the firing committee. She said, I'm on the loving committee.
Somebody's going to clip this episode and they're going to take out that clip where James says, just grab a couple old ladies. That'll be the clip that people play. I love it. Yeah.
So, but yeah, it's been good. Busy time. Uh, I mean, we're, we're looking, I mean, we're, we're a couple, a couple months away in the year. We'll be done. And we're starting 2027. The clock's going to flip over.
Um, it's hard to believe, uh, we're almost halfway through this series that we're in right now with the house church manual.
And, uh, Hey, I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in and sharing our episodes. And, uh, man, these, these last couple episodes have been a lot of work for us, uh, but rewarding.
You guys have got a lot out of it and lots of messages that we've gotten received, um, and good feedback.
And so thank you for tuning in, uh, without you tuning in and listening. Uh, we're just two guys sitting in a room talking on the microphone, um, and doing nothing. And so we appreciate you guys tuning in and listening and sharing with your friends.
Um, and you know, always, if you have the opportunity to like, comment, subscribe, um,
leave us a rating, uh, a five-star or one-star rating, whatever you want to do. Um, and, uh, let us know how we're doing. Uh, that just helps with the algorithms of people wanting to hear about us and hear what's going on. So. Yeah.
And if we're, we're talking about something that you personally have experience with, or you have a story or testimony, drop us a line, maybe we can make it into an episode. We love to hear from our listeners. Uh, we like to hear people tell their stories.
So if, if, if we're talking about something that you've got some experience with, let us know, drop us a line. Uh, we definitely talk to you about, uh, record an episode. We're always looking for, uh, people tell their stories. So don't forget about that as well. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, Brett, um, as we say, every episode, we try to remind you, uh, we have a cigar company.
We have, uh, four cigars there and a great way for you to support the podcast. And then also the, uh, two books that I've put out from brokenness to freedom and freedom from depression. Those are available on Amazon or wherever you get your books that, um, they're online.
I've got them out and you can go and check those out. Very affordable, uh, good resources to have to help you or others, uh, in your life and in your journey.
And, uh, I think we've got that conference coming up in, in October, uh, just a couple of weeks, the 22nd, third and fourth, uh, be there in Tennessee. I'll be in about an hour South of Nashville.
If anyone will be in the area, you want to swing up or swing by, um, shoot me a message.
I know a couple of people have already messaged me, Lee Elder and Andrew Maddox, a couple of other guys have reached out and said, Hey, we're going to, we try to swing up for a day. And so just let me know.
We'd love to hang out with you for a little bit and, uh, be around for that. Um, as far as any other housekeeping business, Brett, is there anything else, um, that, that we need to announce, uh, for the podcast?
I don't think so. I think that pretty much covers everything on our calendar, but I wanted to ask you what is, what is considered the fall?
When, when does it start feeling like fall? What's the temperature? And for you, hasn't got there yet. We're getting close. Uh, for me waking up in the mornings, like almost freezing 32,
45 degrees around in there. Um, getting up to about the fifties, 55 throughout the day, almost to the point where I've got to put my pants on. That's when I consider it fall. Um, when I'm getting up and I'm, uh,
get up to the pulpit and I'm not sweating. Uh, that's, that's a good, that's a good day. That's a good fall day. Um, and so I know others are like, man, you're getting freezing. Like you're getting wintertime.
Nah, I like it. The reason I like it like that is because I know once it gets down like that, it's going to be staying cold. It's a standing cold weather in North Carolina. You get a couple of early mornings that are 40, 45, 50, 60 degrees,
man. A couple of days later, you're going to be getting some 90, a hundred degree weather. Like you're getting that false fall. But once you start getting a couple of frost that happen and you got some early cold mornings, um, fall is fall's knocking on the door real hard, man.
Things are so different down here in Mississippi down here.
It's yet when it gets 89 degrees, they, they bust out the pumpkin lattes and sweaters, um, at 89 and actually feels like fall down here because I guess that the cold weather just fall doesn't last that long. You know, it's a couple of weeks and then it's winter.
Um, and then it, it, it, it swifts, it switches fast.
It doesn't last very long, but I will have to say my favorite, uh, season is the fall weather, uh, leaves turn. Of course it's mostly pine down here, but we can go to the smokies and see the leaves.
Uh, but yeah, fall was upon us. It's right around the corner. PSL season is here, man. Pumpkin spice lattes are around.
And, uh, every time you turn, it's like, I think they started putting pumpkin spice in the gas tanks just because that that's going to drive sales up. Uh, like come get our, our, our gas. Cause we're going to add the pumpkin spice lattes to that. Um, it's, it's everywhere.
I turn, man, pumpkin spice donuts and pumpkin spice drinks and pumpkin spice flavoring in your pancakes at IHOP.
Like dude, everywhere I go, it's like, I mean, I think McDonald's is testing a pumpkin spice cheeseburger, uh, because it's everywhere. I mean, everybody's got to get pumpkin spice, a little slice of pumpkin spice going on. So absolutely.
It's it's, it is the time for it. I have you stocked up for your pumpkin spice for the year, Brett.
Uh, well, we, we, we've been, you know, we've been, you know, I've been buying the creamer. Uh, my wife likes to, you know, I like straight coffee. Just give me non-dairy creamer, some sugar, but, uh, she's got to have that, that flavored creamer. So we've been buying the, buying the pumpkin spice, uh,
coffee creamers and stuff like that. So we've been trying to get into the, into the spirit of things. We've already redecorated the auditorium, put all the leaves and the gourds out and things like that. So we're, we're trying to get into the, get into the swing of things. Brett, you just mentioned that.
And that reminded me of a time I got to share this story. Uh, we were at our Baptist convention board of directors meeting and we're sharing, you know, fun stories that happens in ministry and, uh, you know, things that can only happen in ministry that you just get a laugh out
of. And, uh, we, one year, uh, this would have been, I think 2019,
uh, it was the year before COVID we had our trunk or treat and we had it all lined up outside. And all of a sudden, like an hour before trunk or treat started, I mean, the bottom opened up, all the cars are out there. We're getting ready for trunk or treat.
The weather was like, it may, may shift North or South. You may not get it. Well, it didn't shift and it just hit. And so everyone's rushing.
We set up tables inside the old sanctuary and we're bringing everybody inside and we're lining up this way where they can walk through the old sanctuary,
go to the tables that we've got set up and then cut across to the breezeway, to the auditor or to the gym to get food. Um, because we feed them and we have some different entertainment that we do as well while we were at sulfur.
And, uh, we had, uh, a group, our young people, our college age, our worship team wanted to set up like a campfire s'mores end of it and just do some worship music because people come through. And so they're like, Oh, that's a great idea. Well, how do you bring that inside? Well, they brought their entire setup inside.
They brought their hay bales. They brought their lounge chairs. They brought the fire.
Like they brought everything inside. Um, they set up this, this somehow they were able to put this fire up on the stage without it burning. Um, and people were coming by the roast of marshmallows. Well, we get to the end of it. They get everything moved out.
They have to take these hay bales back out. They took the hay bales back out and they just like drug them along the carpet. And there was probably a total of at least a hay bale of hay left in the sanctuary of the old sanctuary.
My clean lady came in, ticked off. She's trying to clean up.
I mean, we probably vacuumed up hay off of that carpet for like a year. Like everywhere I'd turn around, all of a sudden here's another piece of hay and she's sweeping it up. Like they didn't clean up anything of it.
If they did, it was just a little bit. Um, and I'll do it.
It was one of those, like, we will never do this again. And if we do, hay is not allowed inside the church. Um, and leaving it, leaving it for the cleaning lady the next day is diabolical. Dude, it was crazy. Insane.
Diabolical, crazy work right there. It is. It is. All right. Well, Hey, let's jump into episode. I think it's part four of the house church manual. And let's get this show on the road. For freedom. He set me free.
Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released.
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For freedom. He set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom.
He set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Now here are your hosts, James Safrit and Brett Martin.
Welcome back to the 4-Freedom Podcast. Again, we are continuing our series through the House Church Manual. And today we're getting something that's probably caused more Baptist fights in churches other than the color of the church carpet, the thermostats, or the business meetings all combined. We're talking today about church music.
And just like some of the other chapters we've covered, I want to say at the beginning, there's quite a bit here that we don't have a problem with.
Like there's some good things. Howell says that church musicians ought to prepare. He thinks the choir should practice. Instruments should be tuned. Services should start on time. Congregational singing should matter. He says that people involved in music ministry should take singing should take it seriously. They should, they should do the right thing.
And Brett, I don't think that I'm going to argue with any of that. I believe that all those things are good practical advice when it comes to the philosophy of music. And I think it deserves some attention. And Howell tells us what is almost immediately here.
He opens the chapter by talking about the emotional power of music.
He tells about a friend who managed a cafeteria and supposedly demonstrated that when the organist played a slow waltz, people moved through the food line more slowly.
And when the organist switched to a march, everyone started moving faster with the realization that the music was influencing them.
Howell then said that a music in a preaching service is either a vitamin or a tranquilizer.
Uh, it was either a stimulant or a sedative and that church musicians needed to know how to use music to prepare the congregation and the preacher for the message.
And that's an interesting way to begin a chapter on church music because before he ever tells us what songs to sing, he's telling us that music has the power to influence people, uh, to influence their behaviors, their emotions, uh, without even realizing it.
So I think that there are some questions that we need to come back to throughout this episode. And episode, one of them is, are we using music to help people worship God or are we using music to produce a particular response from people?
Exactly. You know, and I think that's, uh, I think we need to make a distinction right there because house is correct in the basic fact that music affects emotion.
I mean, anybody who's ever watched a movie understands that.
I mean, take the soundtrack out of a horror movie and half of it isn't scary anymore. You know, put the jaws music behind me as I'm going through the grocery store and people think that something terrible is about to happen. So music affects us emotionally and listen, emotion isn't bad.
God created us with emotions. There've been plenty of times I've sung a hymn or worship song and got emotional because of the truth that I'm singing. If I'm singing about the cross and thinking about what Christ did for me, I ought to be moved by that. How's also absolutely correct that music has a major place in scripture.
Israel saying David saying Mary saying the Psalms is, is the hymn book of the old Testament revelation pictures, worship around the throne, but there's a difference between truth producing emotion
and using emotion to produce a response. And that's where I start getting uncomfortable with the philosophy, with the underlining philosophy in this chapter.
If I sing amazing grace and I move because I'm thinking about God's grace, that's response to the truth. But if I know that a certain tempo,
musical progression, repetition, or atmosphere can put somebody in a particular emotional state, and then I intentionally use that emotional state to get the person to do what I want them to do, that's something different. And that's why the cafeteria story you mentioned, that's why it matters.
Hiles isn't simply saying music is beautiful. He's saying, look, music changed these people's behavior and they didn't even realize it.
And then he's going to spend the rest of the chapter telling us how music should be used in an evangelistic service. And I think churches ought to be very careful when we start intentionally trying to affect people in ways they don't consciously recognize.
And, you know, Hiles is only, we can only talk about this, Hiles using this tactic in the IFB. I mean, there are mega churches with worship pastors and bands that do that kind of do the same thing. Yep. Hey, I agree with that, Brett. I think it's great.
You know, we're going to get through the criticism here in just a moment, but I want to hit the other side before we get started that I believe maybe takes some credit as we walk through this. Hiles insists on this word that we like to use, isn't it? He uses it as well.
Preparation. Um, he said that he doesn't like sloppy church music. He wants the pianist and the organist to know what is coming. He wants to introduce, he wants introductions worked out beforehand.
He wants the choir to rehearse the congregational songs. He wants the special music rehearsed before it's presented.
He wants instruments tuned, sound working, right. Um, all the soundboard tuned, right. The, the room's comfortable and the temperature set and the service starting on time.
Now, Brett, that is one of my pet peeves. When I go into a church, uh, when I'm visiting a church and it says they're going to start at 1030 at 1030, I expect church to start. Like, why are we waiting until 1045? Like I got here on time.
And just because Joe Schmo's not here, why are we not starting on time?
And that is one of my pet peeves is when I come into the church and I'm getting ready. When it strikes 11 o'clock, I'm at the pulpit and I'm opening up the service and we are getting started. Um, so I can understand that.
I believe that timeliness is a good thing. When we went down to Nicaragua, it's like, Hey, you show up services at, uh, nine o'clock, 10 o'clock.
And it's like 11 o'clock and they're still not still half the people aren't there. Uh, different culture, different atmosphere. Um, uh, that that's, that's part of it.
Um, later he asks why the Lord's work should be done less efficiently than a television program or why a nightclub should be better prepared than a church.
Some of his language gets extreme, especially when he says that if a church is supposed to begin at 11, it should, and starts at 1103, somebody has been dishonest. Uh, but I appreciate that online idea. Again, I'm saying way there's nothing spiritual about a bit spiritual about being unprepared.
Um, also appreciate the values that he has on congregational singing. Um, I love congregational singing, Brett.
I've been to T4G and I've been to some of these other bigger conferences where we just, people just sing from their hearts. And I, when we were down in Nicaragua, that was the thing that I just loved was the church just lifting their voices and singing.
Uh, and specifically again, this book was written years ago, so he's not going to have some of the modern worship music in there. I don't think he would even put the water worship music in there anyways, but he does give some recommendations for some songs.
Um, he says, amazing grace, how firm a foundation rescue the perishing. What a friend we have in Jesus, the old rugged cross.
Um, he says that that's important because the church music isn't supposed to become a concert where a few talented people perform while everyone else watches Colossians three talks about believers teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. So there are some good instincts here. Prepare well, sing together,
take worship serious. The problem is that as you continue reading it, it becomes increasingly clear that house doesn't primarily describe the music as congregational worship of God.
He's describing according to how effectively it serves the preaching and the pastor. Right.
And as a preacher, that's why I think pastors have to be especially careful because it's really easy for us to start thinking the whole service is building toward us. We call everything before the sermon, we call it the preliminaries and then the preacher gets up and then that's the main event.
But congregational singing isn't a preliminary. Prayer isn't a preliminary. Scripture reading isn't a preliminary. Giving isn't a preliminary. All those are acts of worship too.
It's all part of it. The sermon is an act of worship. I obviously believe that preaching would have a central place in the gathered church, but the music doesn't exist to get everybody emotionally warmed up so Brother Brett can preach.
And how else gets very explicit about the pastor's control over the music as well.
We don't want to blow past that. He says the pastor is the pastor of the music program. He says the music director should have freedom, but everything should be done with the pastor's approval. The pastor should retain veto power.
And the music director's main concern should be to please the pastor and to prepare his heart for preaching the word of God. That's a direct quote. And that phrase bothers me.
Why is the music director's main concern to please the pastor? I'm a pastor. I don't want my staff waking up every morning asking, what do I need to do today to keep Brother Brett happy? Their primary concern ought to be pleasing Christ and serving the church faithfully.
Hopefully pleasing Christ and working well with me aren't usually in conflict, but if they ever are, you know, I want Jesus to win. I don't want to compete with Jesus.
I don't want it to all be about me. I want the service to all be about Christ. Yeah.
And all throughout this book, uh, as you read it, the, the underlying theme of the pleasing of the pastor is constantly there.
Um, and we see this even in the music and this is where the chapter starts sounding like some of the other chapters that we've read. The pastor presides over the business meeting. The pastor has enormous influence over the deacons.
The pastor drives the bus ministry from the pulpit, uh, youth activities require the pastor's approval. And now the pastor is the ultimate authority over the music program. And I'm going to stop right here and say, yes, I agree. The pastor is the leader of the worship service.
His, his good job and goal is to lead and dictate the service, uh, from the beginning opening prayer to the closing invitation.
He is the primary person that is leading and directing and guiding.
And it can be as micromanaged as you want, or it can be as hands-off as you want.
You can employ a worship pastor or a worship leader that you're, you've, I got a volunteer and you can say, Hey, I want you to do all the aspect of worship and you can guide and direct.
Um, but the way that he is modeling, this is everything has to be ran back through him for approval.
He may have a choir leader, but the choir leader has got to come to him and he's got to get this approval. Pastor, can we sing this song?
Um, and if that's the structure you've got set up, that's in your own church context and that's fine. Um, but I, I, I think there may be a better way to do that as well.
Um, so now pow houses, the ultimate authority house even says that he personally goes through the hymn book and decides which songs may or may not be used for congregational singing.
Uh, the music director gets to choose the songs on a particular Sunday, but he chooses from a list that the pastor has already approved. Once again, we're not arguing that the music ministry has no accountability and the church should care about its theology that it sings. And I believe that.
And we're going to do an episode next week, a bonus episode on music on what is worship and a biblical idea of walking through that. So we're not going to go through it today, but,
uh, you now are putting words into the mouths of the congregation and the people may be remembered for a song for decades after they've forgotten the sermon. Um, and so we must understand this in a very ticky tack way.
We, you know, the, the people, uh, and the ones that are leading and the pastor, he has the responsibility to say, Hey, we're going to sing these songs or we're not going to sing these songs. Um, and I'm not saying to say that the pastor doesn't have that authority.
He absolutely has the authority in the church. What we're saying is, uh, what are the reasons behind why you're picking those songs? Is it because, um,
the song is theologically sound or is it because it's going to benefit the pastor by singing this?
Um, and so beginning to walk through some of those things are very vitally important. There's a difference here between asking as a song, biblically faithful, uh, congregational singable, or if the song is appropriate for our church and asking this question, does the pastor personally approve this song?
How's even said in his book, although he loves classical music, he does not permit it in the services.
Instrumental pieces have become a familiar gospel song and someone playing an unfamiliar musical number.
How says that the congregation should be given the page number so they can follow the words. A church is perfectly free to prefer gospel songs, hymns, contemporary music, or whatever best serves the congregation.
The problem comes when the ministry preference begins to carry the weight of the biblical principle. And that's one of the reoccurring problems throughout this book. He is giving his preference as Bible commands, not merely preferences anymore.
And all of a sudden music is the preference that the Bible is saying rather than, uh, being part or actually being a part of this actual system. Right.
You know, I, you know, I'll tell you this in my kind of church the way I have it set up. If there's a new song, if we want to sing a, bring in a new song, I want to hear it.
I want to go through the lyrics. I want to make, and I've caught songs before they were introduced into the church and the lyrics aren't biblically accurate.
I've, I've had to, you know, we had to do that a couple months ago. We had a song come in, our choir special. And as the choir's practicing, I'm listening to the lyrics and I said, Whoa, Whoa, hold up. Uh, that, that lyrics not biblically accurate.
And I brought it to the music director's attention and we made the change, but you know, if I'm busy enough, and that's the reason why we hired a music director. I mean, you run yourself ragged.
If you, you hire all these people to do these jobs at, and you know, you hire a music director and a youth director and you hire all these people and you're still doing a job for them.
You know, I mean, just as a pastor, you can run yourself ragged on this stuff. And, and, you know, and there's a distinction. I think Christians just, that's a distinct, you talking about becoming part of the system. That's a distinction. I think Christians desperately need to recover. Every church has preferences.
We have preferences here at our church. There are things that we do because we believe they work well for our church, not because there's a verse commanding them. That's okay.
Uh, the problem is when I take something brother Brett prefers and start talking about it as though God prefers it too. If I say, this is the kind of music we're going to use because we believe it best serves our congregation. That's a pastoral and ministry decision.
If I say that this is the right kind of Christian music and church is doing something different, they're, they're compromising.
Now I'd better have more than my preference to back that up. And that's where legalism sneaks in so easily. Legalism isn't simply having standards.
It's when our standards and preferences begin to carry divine authority that scripture never gave them.
House clearly has strong opinions about what church music ought to sound like. The first Baptist Hammond was free to organize its music that way, but we need to be able to say that's Jack House philosophy of music without automatically saying that's God's philosophy of church music.
And those two things are, those are two very different things. Yeah.
And oftentimes, I mean, Brett, you've been a part of this, you know, House would never sing that or so-and-so would never sing that. So why would we sing that here in our church?
Or, uh, you know, even Tony Hudson getting up and preaching on what, uh, his daddy used to sing and what this person used to sing and how blessed God, I tell you what, we're not going to sing that
here. Um, why does it matter what they sing or what they would allow? What does the Bible allow? What does the Bible preach?
Um, we were at our board meeting just the other day, uh, for the convention, the state convention, they were talking about something.
And one of the guys on the board stood up and said, cause they were talking about being efficient. And he said, I have yet to find efficiency as part of a biblical virtue.
Um, if you can show me in scripture where efficiency is a virtue, we can talk about efficiency, but if we're here talking about the board of directors and how the ministry should run, uh, let's talk about some actual biblical virtues that the board needs to have. Uh, it's the same thing here, right?
If, if it's not found in scripture of what we should do and how we should do, we shouldn't impose our own preferences on other people.
So now we get to the most important part of this chapter. Um, he gets to what we call the invitation and we're going to do a whole bonus episode on the invitation. We have not covered this before. Uh, this is that cafeteria story from the beginning.
Suddenly now becomes a little bit more relevant to what he is talking about. How says that the pastor is in complete control of the invitation. The organist isn't even supposed to begin playing softly unless the pastor requests it. They begin invitations with the same song, just as I am.
So the choir already knows what's coming. The congregation doesn't reach for the hymn books because how believes that every, that even the movement might distract a lost person from responding. The choir remains behind the preacher during the sermon so that the moment the invitation begins, they're already in position.
It's a highly controlled environment. And then how said something that makes the connection to his opening illustration, even stronger. He says that the invitation should be sung in an upbeat tempo. And he criticizes churches for singing invitations too slowly.
He actually says, and this is the quote from the book. It is no wonder that people don't respond quickly to the invitation. And think about that logic at the beginning of the chapter.
He tells us, as I began talking about the beginning, that when the cafeteria played slow music, people moved slowly. And when they played fast music, people moved faster during the invitation, he said that he didn't sing slowly because people wanted to respond quickly.
He wanted, he, he didn't, he doesn't think that the, we're reading into, I'm sorry, I don't think we're reading into something in the chapter that isn't there. How's is clearly saying and clearly believes that the tempo of the music can affect the physical response of the congregation.
And Brent, I believe that he is intentionally using this principle during his invitation time. James, I wasn't aware Jack House was the Holy Spirit. We were reading a book written by the Holy Spirit this whole time. Did you know that? That's actually his middle name. It's Jack, the Holy Spirit House.
If you didn't know, you know, it's part of what he gave. Now, now listen, I, I believe in invitations. I, I give invitations. I believe preachers should call people to respond to the gospel. That's what I see after the first sermon in Acts two,
that looked at Peter and said, what do we need to do? He said, repent, be baptized. You know, he, he wanted them to make a decision.
That's he didn't, you know, Peter didn't say, well, that's some information for you to consider. No, he, he wanted them to repent. He wanted them, he called for a response.
The gospel demands a response. So this isn't me saying churches shouldn't invite people to trust Christ or even invite somebody to come forward if they need counseling or prayer. My concern is the difference between calling for response and manufacturing of response.
Now, if I've preached Christ clearly and the Holy Spirit convicts somebody of sin and that person trusts Jesus, praise God.
But if I start thinking, man, if I speed this, if I speed this song up, they'll move a little faster. You know, if I keep the choir singing, they'll keep coming.
If we just sing another verse, people keep coming down the aisle. If I change songs at the right moment, maybe I'll get another person to step out. I've moved from proclaiming truth into trying to engineer behavior.
And the danger is that we can produce something that looks exactly like a spiritual response without genuine conversion ever taking place.
A person can walk an aisle because he's emotional. He can cry because the music moved him. He can repeat a prayer because somebody told him what to say. None of those things saves anybody. We're saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Let me tell you a quick story. I was at a youth teenage rally maybe a couple of years ago. And we got, I mean, it was good. It was great. Music was great.
There were some other things that happened there. The preaching was great. They had a little play. The play was great. Everything was great.
But when we got to the invitations, when it got awkward, because the preacher, he would play the invitation song and people weren't, you know, the teenagers would come down and they would just keep playing and playing and they weren't coming down. And so then the, as you know, like the preacher warned.
So the preacher would go out, walk down the aisle and grab someone and bring them up and have them give a testimony and start the invitation all over again. And he played the invitation song so much.
I mean, this one for an hour and he played it so much that people were coming down just because they were like, man, this is not going to end until we come down to the altar.
And then that was, when it was over, the preacher called his successful invitation when he had just basically emotionally browbeat people to come down. And I think I see a lot of that same philosophy in this chapter.
Yeah. I've been to many, many youth conferences and youth rallies where that is the exact prescription that is used, where the songs get louder and the, the manipulation to come down, get stronger.
And man, you see the same church group, you see the same people going down five, six, seven times, um,
repenting and praying. I'm like, dude, how much, how much more do you have to repent of? Like, did, did you do something wrong since the last time you went down?
Um, and I think the Holy spirit can work in some of those areas, but man, there's a, there's a big, fine line there between manipulating people to come down to say that the entire group came down, uh, versus actually letting the Holy spirit work in that situation.
And this is where house goes even further. He says that the choir should, uh, continue singing the same invitation hymn.
As long as people responding, the verses are repeated over and over again. And when people stop coming forward, then the pastor can, can,
can consider changing the song when the pastor can change the song and only the pastor can change the invitation number because in house words, it is the pastor who feels the upbeat heartbeat of the invitation.
So think about how much this has been engineered. The pastor controls what the organ plays. The choir knows the songs in advance. The congregation doesn't use hymnals because the movement might be create distraction. The song is intentionally sung at a tempo designed to encourage a quick response from the people.
And as long as people are coming, the choir keeps repeating it. And when people stop coming, the pastor then changes the music to see whether the response continues.
And this is where the emphasis on numbers from the previous chapters becomes very important. If the culture is measured by successful evangelism, by visible decisions, then there's an enormous incentive to develop techniques that produce visible decisions.
If everyone asks on Monday morning, how many people walked the aisle yesterday, then eventually the number of people walking an aisle becomes the measurement of whether somebody's invitation worked. And at that point, the temptation is always going to be one more verse, one more song,
one more emotional appeal, one more story, because maybe there's still one more out there.
Brett, this was the hardest thing for me when I began preaching, because when I moved to Idaho, the invitation was not a big thing. And I went to our pastor and I was like, man, I'm giving the invitation. I'm doing everything they tell me to do. But no one's really responding.
And he said, that's not how we measure success. And even though he's an independent Baptist, that was like, he taught me well, when it came to that, he said, we don't preach for the response. We preach for the Holy Spirit to work in their life. There may be a response.
He said, but the value of your preaching is not determined by how many people come to the altar, but the opposite was taught to us. If you preached a good message, you can grade that by the amount of people that came down and responded.
Exactly. I'll tell you, I've just said this before, my pastors,
what his little saying to get people down the aisle was, there's two reasons to come to the altar.
One, because God spoke to you. Two, because he didn't. And that was a blanket way of saying everybody in church should be down here at the altar doing the invitation. Now, let me say this, because you mentioned something about it a while ago. When I am doing an invitation,
if there's somebody at the altar praying, or people are still coming to the altar, we're going to keep going.
We're not going to stop. Somebody down there praying, we're going to keep the song going. But as soon as they go back to their seat, as soon as there's nobody coming, then we're going to end it. I'm not going to keep it going to get more people down there.
And listen, what we're talking about here, everybody in Baptist circles know what me and you are talking about right now. We've all heard the invitation. It's about to end. And the preacher says, oh, I just believe there's one more. I think there's one more out there.
And, you know, and, you know, maybe sometimes there was, I'm not, I'm not claiming that God can't burden a preacher to continue an invitation ever. I'm not saying that.
I've felt strongly at times that I, I shouldn't close yet. That's happened to me. But we have to be careful that we're not taking something subjective to put pressure on people.
The person sitting there starts thinking, is he talking about me? Is everybody waiting on me? Is God telling me I'm supposed to go forward? Now we've created tremendous psychological pressure. Second Corinthians 4.2 gives us a much healthier confidence.
Paul talks about refusing underhanded ways and refusing to tamper with God's word, but instead openly stating truth.
See, our confidence is in the gospel. We preach Christ clearly, tell people they need to repent and believe, invite them to respond, be available to counsel them, but then trust the Holy Spirit with the result. I don't have to emotionally maneuver somebody into the kingdom of God.
If I have to do that, it's not real anyway. In fact, I can't do that. I can produce an aisle walker, but I can't produce regeneration. That's something that only God can do.
And these preachers that do this kind of underhanded invitation stuff, they put themselves in the place of God and the place of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
And, you know, you were speaking on how you do your invitation. Um, I I've even changed the way I do my invitation now.
Um, you know, my, my piano starts playing during my, during my closing, I call them up. And then when I finish, we stand and the altars are open. Uh, no one sings. It's just the piano playing.
And if people want to respond and come down, they can come down. I'll pray with them or other people will pray with them. Um, and then one verse is what I give. If no one responds in one verse, my pianist knows, close it down. We're done.
Uh, but if someone responds, uh, I'm not going to get there and belabor and, and beg people to come to the altar. I, if I can beg someone, uh, and manipulate someone into, um,
believing in Jesus, uh, someone else can manipulate them into not believe in Jesus. Um, and so, and then I'll tell everybody I'm the last one to leave the building.
If, if the Lord's been dealing with you and you don't want to come forward, come to me after the service. Um, and, and I'll have people afterwards.
Hey pastor, I just need you to pray with me. Uh, I didn't really want to come down. It wasn't a big issue.
I just need you to, to come and work with me and talk with me some, some things. Um, so I, I think those, that's how I do mine. It's effective for me.
It's how I do it. Um, and, uh, I'm not, I'm not one that's going to manipulate and push people and prompt people to come down. Uh, and this emotion, uh, that we're talking about makes this especially tricky because emotion itself, isn't the evidence that something supernatural is happening.
A movie can make you cry. Um, a song can give you chills. A powerful speaker can make you feel guilty,
hopeful, angry, patriotic, frightened, or inspired. I mean, I don't know if many people who haven't watched Braveheart, they're like, give me a horse and a sword and I'm going to go fight for my country. Like that is, that is the idea behind it is this building up this patriotic emotion behind it.
And none of those emotional responses necessarily mean that the Holy spirit is doing something. Uh, house himself starts the chapter by acknowledging that music can influence people subconsciously.
And that's why churches should be especially cautious about interpreting emotional responses as a spiritual response.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to remove emotion from the worship. Uh, it's that you want to, that you would be equally artificial. Um, so if you're singing about the resurrection of Jesus, and you're filled with joy, sing joyfully, if you're singing about the cross and you're overwhelmed with gratitude, that's beautiful.
Uh, the, the issue is the direction of the relationship. Truth should produce the emotion. We shouldn't use emotion to manufacture the acceptance of the truth.
And I believe if, if Christ died for us, that that truth should make you weep. That truth should bring a tear to your eye when you see a lost person come to know Jesus, but making someone weep doesn't cause them to believe Jesus died for them.
It should be them realizing that they are a sinner and in need of a savior.
Exactly. And that's the distinction. Pixar can make me cry over an imaginary cowboy, but that doesn't mean the Holy spirit showed up in toy story. Music is powerful because God designed human beings to respond to it, but because it's powerful pastors and worship leaders have a responsibility not to abuse that power.
I want somebody to be moved by amazing grace because he's thinking about grace, not because I figured out how exactly many times to repeat the final chorus before his emotions finally break.
And this is where how statement that music is a means to an end deserves some pushback here. Okay.
He says music shouldn't take the place of preaching and that its role is to prepare people's hearts for the preaching of the word. I appreciate the high view of preaching, but worship isn't merely a tool to get people ready for the sermon.
If the only reason we're singing amazing grace is so everybody is emotionally warmed up and prepared for when I walk into the pulpit, then we've missed something. We've missed the whole point. Okay. We're singing because God's grace is actually amazing. We're singing to God.
We're singing truth to one another. The song has value as worship, even if I never preach afterward.
And that's what that's what this philosophy does is it takes all the these wonderful songs and degrades them by, Oh, they're not, you know, we're not worshiping.
We're, we're, we're juicing people up. We're getting people ready for the main course when actually the music is actually part of the meal. Yeah.
I believe Brett, this is part of the biggest theological weakness of this entire chapter. He says repeatedly that music should be evaluated according to whether it helps produce the desired service. Um, how says in the opening music should establish an evangelistic atmosphere.
It should be upbeat because a slower hymn doesn't create the right atmosphere. The choir should set the pace. The invitation music should encourage a response. The postlude should send people home joyfully in one sense.
That's just thoughtful service planning. And there's nothing wrong with considering how music flows. I do this as I pick music, but taking it all together, you begin to get the impression that music's primarily purpose is to manage the emotional temperature of the room.
Biblically singing has a much richer purpose than that. We praise God. The Bible says that we proclaim his character. We remember his works. Uh, if you read through the Psalms, we teach and admonish one another, we confess truth. We express thanksgiving. We lament over our sins and over what we've done. We rejoice.
Sometimes biblical worship gives language to grief, confusion, fear, and even feeling that God is distant.
So if our entire philosophy of music is built around creating the correct atmosphere for an evangelical service, we've narrowed biblical worship very, very considerably. Right.
And, and you will agree with me, James, that sometimes when you're, you know, in a service, all the songs can't be slow.
You know, we gotta, we gotta have some upbeat songs in there. Um, and then all the songs can always be upbeat all the time. You know, we've got to have some slower songs.
We have to slow down and we're thinking about what we're singing. Um, so, you know, we're not saying that you can't vary things like that at all, but, but I think that pastors can accidentally become the center of worship when they think that way. The choir prepares everybody for me.
The music director's main concern is me. The songs are chosen according to what I approve. The invitation operates according to my signals. The organist plays when I say play and stops when I say stop. I determine when the song changes because I supposedly feel the heartbeat of the invitation. At some point, even if nobody intended it,
everything is orbiting around the preacher. And as a pastor, I don't want that. I'm important to the service because the preaching of the word is important, but I am not the center of the service. Christ is. The worship team isn't opening my act.
Okay. The, the congregation isn't my audience. We're the church gathered to worship Jesus.
I'm one part of the body with a particular responsibility to preach the word of God. That's a high calling, but it doesn't make the entire service an apparatus designed to prepare everybody for brother breath. Yeah.
There's also a connection here with the youth chapter that we covered last week because house is extremely interested in training people to function properly inside the system.
Uh, in the graded choir program, children are taught how to dress, how to line up, how to march into the room, how to sit, how to stand, how to hold their song books, how to follow instructions,
how specifically even says that before the child ever taught music, he is taught how to dress properly through discipline, uh, taught discipline and taught how to follow the orders because those are important to any organization.
Then he says this line, he says, by the time those children reach the adult choir, those habits will have become part of them subconsciously. Once again, discipline is not bad.
Rules is not bad. Teaching children how to behave is not bad. A children's choir where everybody's running around and throwing hymn books at each other probably isn't going to accomplish much in a worship service, but it's interesting that the emphasis keeps returning to the institution and how people function inside of that institution.
Uh, in the youth chapter, the teenager was compared to something nearing the end of an assembly line. Here, the children are being trained from an early age to expect behaviors that eventually become subconsciously in their mind. It raises the same question.
Are we primarily forming worshipers of Christ or reform people who know how to perform in our system correctly, know how to say the right words and know how to do the right things.
Right. Are we making little jack houses essentially? Yeah. And that's where I want to keep the good part while rejecting the unhealthy part. Teach children discipline, of course.
Teach them to respect worship. Teach them to sing. Teach them that serving God deserves preparation.
I'm all for all of that. But don't teach them that spirituality is measured by how perfectly they conform to the culture we've built.
A boy wearing a tie and standing perfectly straight in the choir isn't necessarily more spiritual than the kid in jeans singing his heart out to Jesus. You know, we have to know the difference between order and holiness. And I think that really summarizes this whole chapter.
Kyle sees the power of music and he's right that music is powerful. He sees the importance of preparation and he's right that preparation matters. He sees the value of congregational singing and he's right about that, too.
But because he sees music as a tool for producing a desired atmosphere and response, everything becomes highly controlled. The danger is that eventually we're not simply facilitating worship anymore. We're engineering an experience.
Churches today need to hear the warning that even if they've never heard of Jack House, because this isn't merely an old fashioned fundamentalist problem.
We're going to talk about this next week in our bonus episode. You can do this exact same thing in contemporary worship. You can have fog machines.
You can have light. You can have paths underneath the preacher. Repeating choruses, carefully timed emotional transitions and create the exact same problem with a completely different musical style. Manipulation doesn't become biblical because there is an organ playing just as I am.
And it doesn't become biblical because there's an electric guitar and a worship pad behind the preacher as well. The question whether your church sings hymn or contemporary music isn't the actual question.
The question is whether you're using the music faithfully or using the music manipulatively. Are we presenting truth and allowing people to respond to that truth? Are we intentionally constructing an emotional environment designed to produce the response that we want? And that's a question that every tradition needs to ask themselves.
Right, because the one thing I don't want is I don't want people listening to this episode thinking we're saying, see, the old IFB invitation music was manipulative, so contemporary worship is better. No, you can manipulate people with an organ or synthesizer.
Okay, you can manipulate people in a suit or in skinny jeans, James. Brett wears them all the time. Call me out.
Listen, styles isn't the issue. The philosophy behind it is, so if I were rewriting the house chapter,
I'd keep a lot of the practical stuff. Prepare, practice, start on time, tune the piano, train the musicians,
encourage the congregational singing. Don't let somebody who hasn't practiced get up on a Sunday morning, butcher a song, and then blame it on the Holy Spirit. You know, take worship seriously. But I'd change the center of the whole chapter. The music director's primary job isn't to please the pastor.
The choir's primary job isn't to prepare everybody for the preacher. The invitation music's job isn't to get the people moving.
Christ is the center, and worship is directed toward him. Yeah, I would change the measurement of success, Brett. A successful worship service isn't one where successfully created the right emotional atmosphere.
It isn't the one where everyone cried. It isn't one where 10 people walked an aisle. It isn't even necessarily where everybody said afterwards, man, that worship experience was awesome today. The question is whether we faithfully sang truth, exalted Christ, edified the church, and ultimately, did we proclaim the gospel?
Did we give someone the hope of the gospel? That's the only thing that's going to change their life in here and in death. And if truth produces emotion,
wonderful. If Christianity should affect our emotions because the things that we believe are enormous and they are overwhelming to our senses. But emotional intensity is not evidence of spiritual authenticity. Let's say that again. Emotional intensity is not evidence of spiritual authenticity.
We don't need to manufacture what only God can produce. We sing truth.
We preach truth. We call people to Christ and we trust that God will produce the results. What did Paul say? He said, I planted, Apollos watered, and God gave the increase.
We're supposed to be faithful to what we're doing and allow him to give the increase of what we have done faithful. Right, and that's where I land on the music chapter. Howes begins by telling us music is powerful enough to influence people without them realizing it.
I agree. But I draw a different conclusion from that fact. Because music is that powerful, we ought to handle it carefully.
We ought to make sure we're not manufacturing something and then calling our manufacturer the movement of the Holy Spirit. My confidence isn't in just as I am.
My confidence isn't in the organ. It isn't in the tempo. It isn't whether I can create the perfect atmosphere. And it isn't on whether I can keep the invitation going long enough to get one more person down the aisle. My confidence is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So sing well. Prepare well.
Worship passionately. Preach Christ clearly. Call people to repent and believe. And then trust the Holy Spirit to do what only the Holy Spirit can do. And that's the difference between worship and manipulation.
And I think that this subject, James, it's not only relevant for this chapter in the House Church Manual, but it's also relevant for the modern church today.
We see so much manipulation out there. And sometimes I just get tired of it. And also, I get tired of this idea that, you know, you can't show emotion. Or if somebody shows emotion, it's not real. You know, emotion is part of it. But, you know,
trying to, the emotional manipulation does run rampant today. And I think at the end of the day, we just need to leave it in the Holy Spirit's hands and not think we can do what only the Holy Spirit can do. Did you have any final thoughts? I think it's great.
I think that we're going to do a part two to this. We're going to do our own thoughts of what is biblical worship.
And we're going to take, if you haven't seen, between now and then, it's a 10-part series by Jonathan Allen Wright on the contemporary Christian music and the evolution of that.
We're going to use that as a main source document. I've got some other documents that I put together as well.
But we're going to walk through what this idea of biblical worship is just a little bit further since we're talking through it. We did worship a long time ago on an episode a long, long, long time ago. We brought Bob Coughlin on,
had him talk about that. We may link that as well and reshare that as another episode. But I want to challenge you to go and watch that to see sort of the evolution of what has happened over the years. Maybe you haven't understood.
He goes and starts at the beginning of the history of this and walks through how John Newton was a heretic of his day because he was rhyming. So there's some things that, I mean, we sing his songs, but at the time he was outcasted.
But now he's the pinnacle of hymns. But at the time, it wasn't. So great ideas there. We want you to be encouraged by it. And we hope you'll tune in next week as well for that. But until next time, to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name.
Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you.
Thanks for listening to the 4-Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed the content of the podcast, please do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing the podcast on whatever podcast platform you listen to. There is an incredible content. There is an incredible content. There
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