Song Review: How Great is Our God

The splendor of a King,

Clothed in majesty

Let all the earth rejoice,

All the earth rejoice

He wraps himself in light,

And darkness tries to hide

And trembles at his voice,

And trembles at his voice

How great is our God,

sing with me

How great is our God,

and all will see

How great, How great

Is our God

Age to age he stands

And time is in His Hands

Beginning and the End,

Beginning and the End

The Godhead, Three in one

Father, Spirit, Son

The Lion and the Lamb,

The Lion and the Lamb

How great is our God,

sing with me

How great is our God,

and all will see

How great, How great

Is our God

Name above all names

You are Worthy of all praise

and My heart will sing how great

Is our God

How great is our God,

Sing with me

How great is our God,

and all will see

How great, How great

Is our God

Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves, Ed Cash. 2004.

I'm going to say right up front that I don't love it.

It ticks a few boxes musically - it has that anthemic feel in the chorus that makes you really want to belt it out. The verse chords sound quite nice if you play it slow enough, and you can really hammer it in the bridge. It's not that interesting musically, but it's solid and doesn't make me physically cringe, which I suspect is the most you can hope for from a congregational song.

So what's the problem? I think that the song has theological issues. This might not be readily apparent - most of the song seems lifted straight from the Bible. And after all, it doesn't 'say anything wrong'. But this is where I think we run into issues. When we use material generated by ministries with a different style and a different theological approach, we often want to check over songs to see if they are dodgy. And this one seems to check out - no 'Jesus is a bit like Buddha but slightly less cool', no 'Jesus wants to hook me up with a Hummer and some grillz', no 'Jesus, I bet you feel pretty lucky to have a follower like me'. But questionable theology can lie behind seemingly innocuous phrases too.

Take 'sing with me'. (Now perhaps you're already thinking, 'here we go for a churlish evangelical quibbling over a reference to singing - wouldn't that be appropriate when singing is what we are actually doing?' I'm kind of thinking that too, but I think this holds up anyway). Singing to God is a perfectly appropriate response to his greatness - I take it that's why all those guys in the Bible sing and why we ought to sing too. But take another quick scan over the song - what are Christians encouraged to do other than singing? Nothing.

I think that 'How great is our God', therefore 'sing with me', is symptomatic of a theology that subsumes virtually all of our response to God (our 'worship') under the activity of singing (i.e. 'worship music'). That is, it teaches that worship is primarily an experience of God in singing (that's why church music gets called 'worship'). Now singing is worship. But worship isn't just singing.

Interestingly the singing activity does seem to have something of an evangelistic bent - when we sing then 'all will see/How great is our God'. Again, we should hope that our singing leads those around us to glorify God, but I wonder if our godly lives and verbal proclamation of the gospel might be more essential to mission than just having pagans witness us sing (especially if this leads us to working hard to push our 'worship' albums up the secular charts - it seems to me that this could potentially lead to the impulse to make a buck overpowering the impulse to make Christ known).

So to conclude an overly lengthy review, this song doesn't contain explicit error, but I think it has implicit theological emphases that are less than helpful - in its restriction of the activity of worship (and perhaps mission). So sing it at your church. But be aware that each time you do, it will slightly strengthen the message that our worship of God is singing to him (rather than every facet of our lives, of which singing is one). So don't put it on high rotation. And make sure that your song list also contains songs which counter the influence of this one by giving a more helpful and well-rounded picture of worship.

And when something better comes along, ditch it.

Rule #5: Encourage your band, even if they suck.

Perhaps especially if they suck.

Playing in the band can be one of the more visible ministries involved in a Christian meeting. For many people it involves dealing with the nervousness of standing up in front of everyone, playing music that they may or may not feel comfortable playing (perhaps because they are highly classically trained but are now a bit flummoxed by just being told 'here are the chords, you'll figure it out'), having nowhere to hide if you hit a wrong note (or the ultimate nightmare - a complete trainwreck - which often has more to do with limited practise time, last-minute changes in song list or band-line up than with error on the part of the musos).

And chances are, especially if they suck, some 'helpful' individual has already let them know how lousy the music was.

Everyone has an opinion on music in church. Sometimes these opinions are expressed less than helpfully. The band members are Christian brothers and sisters, trying to serve the assembly of Christ's people by using whatever gifts and abilities that God has given them in the place he has put them in. This often involves turning up 1 1/2 hours before everyone else, lugging heavy gear to and from cars, stress in practising, 'performance' anxiety, then rolling cables afterwards while everyone else has a chat and a cuppa.

So maybe just let your brothers and sisters in the band know you appreciate their service.

Even if they suck.

Cheap Guitar Trick #1: Capo (pt 2)

Not to mention that once you have capo'd up, you can shift it back down a couple of frets just in case you aren't like every single 'worship artist' out there with a high girlyboy voice that's happy cruising around above middle C for bars at a time.

By the way, someone once told me that when it comes to congregational music, 'D' is for 'danger'. That is, once you hit 'D' one and a bit octaves above middle C, most of your congregation are going to have issues with that note (think 'on Christ the solid rock I stand'). Let's keep it where we can all sing it, people.

Capo up to put it in a guitar-friendly key, then shift the capo back down to shift the key a tone or so lower. Your blokes will thank you.