In recent years, the issue of what music style should be adopted for worship and praise has become an outstandingly controversial topic in Chinese churches.
A few days ago, a Christian Times, a Chinese Christian newspaper covering the house church, invited Aaron (pseudonym), a young pastor, to share his views on this topic. As a young pastor who was born in the 1980s in East China, Aaron has been in the field of worship and praise since he started serving in his 20s for more than ten years. He has helped to lead worship and praise of various styles in different areas and engaged in education in praising. More than a year ago, he started ministry in a church in a medium-sized city.
A said that with “tradition” and “modernity” as the dividing standard, there were probably four ways to worship and praise in Chinese churches:
1. The traditional church choir - worship and praise contents conform to traditional hymns (usually in red covers).
2. Xiao Min’s style - mainly the works of the Canaan Hymns Collection, a hymnal created by Min for rural Christians
3. The style popular among Gen Z. Usually a worshiper sings few lines of lyrics and repetition of the lyrics and the representative band is the Joshua Band, a Taiwanese worship team for young generations.
4. The “house of prayer” style which has much impromptu. Controversial in churches, the style of “harp and bowl” is greatly favored by the Charismatics.
“At present, the actual situation of worship and praise in Chinese churches is often a mixture of four ways, with old people and young people sitting together to worship.” Aaron said, “But objectively, believers of different ages have different choices and preferences for worship. Some church pastors want to attract young people, so they attract them in a way that is favored by young people. However, such a praise style is probably not approved by old people, and the praise style that old people generally like is too serious or even ‘lifeless’ in the eyes of many young people. That really can’t lift their spirits.”
He continued, “In what way should the church worship? Should it be traditional or impromptu? The big problem in Chinese churches now is that they still don’t know how to grasp this and how to balance it. Old people insist on using a quiet style whereas the young like an electric guitar. So, what should we do? The churches need to give it serious consideration.”
In his opinion, both traditional church choirs and modern bands were needed. Moreover, the churches needed to find music styles that were acceptable to both young people and the elderly, and those who served in the praise team also needed the ability to rearrange worship songs. For instance, songs that were too fast could be played slower so that the elderly could keep up as much as possible. If the rhythm was too slow, it could be played a little faster so that young believers could participate in it. It was necessary to find a rhythm that was acceptable to different groups.
As far as Aaron was concerned, all four ways of worship and praise were acceptable, but as a leader of worship or pastoral ministry, one only needed to pay attention to choosing the appropriate ways of worship and praise for the right people.
“For example, the impromptu singing style of Harp and Bowl can help people to calm down and help them to enter the inner world of worship deeply. However, we can’t say that this is the best because it is not suitable for occasions like Sunday worship and it is not suitable for seekers and new believers. It is because the lyrics are not fully clear, which may cause some misunderstanding for new believers.”
Interested young people could learn to play some musical instruments and gain worship experiences.
He said that he came into contact with many traditional churches with a large number of middle-aged and elderly people, hoping to change the worship and praise style of churches so as to attract and welcome more young people. He was also invited by these churches to do similar training, such as giving worship courses to church members under 35 who were interested in worship and praise. In the course, he found a very characteristic phenomenon: “Their ideas about worship began to change throughout the courses and several members were burdened with worship. But when I left, no one would continue to lead my training.”
Therefore, he suggested that if there was a burden for young people to worship and praise in the church, they should accumulate relevant experiences. For example, one had to learn to play musical instruments like electric guitar and bass. So after accepting his advice, some people in some traditional churches began to prepare and learn guitar or keyboard, which was very good in his opinion.
He also suggested that people should go to some worship and praise occasions to gain personal experiences, which was very important.
“Worship is a wonderful thing. It’s useless to just discuss, listen to lectures, or watch videos. You must attend and experience it in person before you get familiar with the atmosphere of worship you hope to form. After you understand and experience it, you can think about how to lead your church’s worship. Worship must be done collectively.”
Finally, the pastor also reminded us that no matter what the external forms and techniques were, worship actually should be learned and understood.
“All these practices had a premise, that is, what our hearts were. We must worship God in spirit and honesty because the Father wanted us to worship him in this way.”
He also shared a story about worship that touched him. It was an elderly woman who cooked and washed dishes at home every day. She put up a poster in the kitchen that read, “God, I worship you here three times a day.” This was her worship to God.
“This elderly woman worships God in this way. I think her worship was pleasing to God,” he ended.
- Translated by Charlie Li
近年来，到底该用什么风格的音乐风格敬拜赞美，已经成为中国教会内部一个明显存在的争议话题。
日前，基督时报同工邀请了华东一位80后青年牧者A老师对此话题分享了他的看见。A老师在十多年来自己20多岁开始服事时，就进入的是敬拜赞美领域，曾在不同的地区帮助带领过多种风格的敬拜会、赞美会等，同时从事这方面的教育。一年多以前他开始牧养一个中小型的城市教会，对敬拜和牧养都有直接的实践经验。
中国教会当下的四种敬拜赞美风格和张力
A老师介绍说，以“传统”和“现代”作为划分标准的话，中国教会敬拜赞美现在大概有以下四种方式：
1，传统诗班型，敬拜赞美内容以传统红皮赞美诗为主。
2，小敏诗歌型，内容以迦南诗选等诗歌为主。
3，00后年轻人喜欢的风格是歌词特别简单，基本就是几句话一直反复的方式，比如们很喜欢的约书亚敬拜团。
4，祷告殿类型，这种敬拜方式是有很多即兴的敬拜，在教会里面有比较大的争议。比如不少灵恩色彩的教会喜欢的“琴与炉”风格。
“中国教会目前在敬拜赞美方面实际情形常常是四种方式混杂的，年老的人和年轻的人坐在一起敬拜。”A老师说，“但是客观来说，不同年龄段的信徒对敬拜的选择和偏好是不一样的。有的教会牧者希望吸引年轻人来，所以想用一种年轻人喜欢的赞美方式带，但是这样的赞美方式年老的人很可能不太喜欢，而老年人所普遍喜欢的赞美方式在很多年轻人看来又太过严肃甚至是‘死气沉沉’，实在让人提不起精神。”
“教会到底要以什么样的方式来敬拜？是传统还是即兴？”安老师直言不讳地总结说，“中国教会现在的很大的问题是对于这个还不知道应该怎么把握、不知道怎么平衡。老年人坚持用安静的风格，年轻人喜欢电吉他，那么怎么办？教会需要做这方面的思考。”
A老师说，在他看来，传统的诗班和现代的乐队，这两者都需要。并且，教会需要寻找年轻人和年长者都可以接受的音乐风格，而且做赞美的人也需要有能力重新编曲，比如歌曲节奏太快的可以慢一点，让老年人也能够尽可能跟上；节奏太慢的可以稍微快一点，让年轻信徒也能够参与到其中，需要找到让不同群体都可以接受的节奏。
就对A弟兄个人而言，他认为四种敬拜赞美的方式都可以，而作为敬拜带领者或者牧会带领者只是需要留意面向正确的人群选择合适的敬拜赞美方式。
A弟兄说：“比如‘琴与炉’这种即兴吟唱的风格可以帮助人安静下来，能够帮助让人很深进入到敬拜的内面世界。但是，我们并不能说这个就是最好的，因为它不适合主日礼拜这样的场合，对慕道友、初信的人来说也是不合适的，因为在歌词上不太全备，有可能引起初信人群对于信仰的一些误解。”
有兴趣的年轻人可以学习一些乐器逐渐积累
他谈到，他接触到不少中老年人居多的传统教会希望改变教会的敬拜赞美风格，以可以吸引和欢迎更多的年轻人群。他也曾经被这些教会邀请去做类似的培训，比如给教会35岁以下对敬拜赞美有兴趣的会友上关于敬拜的课程，在这个过程中，他发现一个很有特点的现象：“通过课程他们关于敬拜的想法开始改变，有好几个人有对敬拜的负担。但是我走了，就没有人带了。”
所以他建议如果有年轻人对教会的敬拜赞美有负担的话，要开始需要一点点积累，比如各种乐器电吉他、贝斯等都可以学习以下。所以听了他的建议，一些传统教会里面有些人就开始预备，学习吉他或者键盘，在在他看来是很好的。
他也建议有兴趣的人可以去一些敬拜赞美现场体验以下，这个很重要。“敬拜这是个很奇妙的事情，只是讲只是听课、只是看视频是没有用的，必须亲自参加体会一下你才有可能知道敬拜希望形成的氛围是怎样的，领会到了、体验到了之后才能思考自己回去怎么带领自己教会的敬拜。必须一起敬拜。”
敬拜最根本的在于我们的心灵和诚实
他最后也提醒说，敬拜其实不管外在的形式怎样，技术怎样，学习这些了解这“所有的这一切都是有前提的，那就是我们的心究竟如何。我们必须要用心灵和诚实拜他，因为父要这样的人拜他。”
A弟兄最后分享了一个让他很感动的关于敬拜的故事：有一位老奶奶她在家里每天做饭和洗碗，她在厨房里面贴了一句话：“神啊，我一日三次在这里敬拜你。”这就是她向神献上的敬拜。
“这位老奶奶通过这样的方式来敬拜神，我想，这位老奶奶的敬拜是神所喜悦的。”A弟兄希望大家在日常生活中也有这样美好的敬拜姿态。
访谈|青年牧者：中国教会目前存在的关于敬拜赞美的争议及出路
In recent years, the issue of what music style should be adopted for worship and praise has become an outstandingly controversial topic in Chinese churches.
A few days ago, a Christian Times, a Chinese Christian newspaper covering the house church, invited Aaron (pseudonym), a young pastor, to share his views on this topic. As a young pastor who was born in the 1980s in East China, Aaron has been in the field of worship and praise since he started serving in his 20s for more than ten years. He has helped to lead worship and praise of various styles in different areas and engaged in education in praising. More than a year ago, he started ministry in a church in a medium-sized city.
A said that with “tradition” and “modernity” as the dividing standard, there were probably four ways to worship and praise in Chinese churches:
1. The traditional church choir - worship and praise contents conform to traditional hymns (usually in red covers).
2. Xiao Min’s style - mainly the works of the Canaan Hymns Collection, a hymnal created by Min for rural Christians
3. The style popular among Gen Z. Usually a worshiper sings few lines of lyrics and repetition of the lyrics and the representative band is the Joshua Band, a Taiwanese worship team for young generations.
4. The “house of prayer” style which has much impromptu. Controversial in churches, the style of “harp and bowl” is greatly favored by the Charismatics.
“At present, the actual situation of worship and praise in Chinese churches is often a mixture of four ways, with old people and young people sitting together to worship.” Aaron said, “But objectively, believers of different ages have different choices and preferences for worship. Some church pastors want to attract young people, so they attract them in a way that is favored by young people. However, such a praise style is probably not approved by old people, and the praise style that old people generally like is too serious or even ‘lifeless’ in the eyes of many young people. That really can’t lift their spirits.”
He continued, “In what way should the church worship? Should it be traditional or impromptu? The big problem in Chinese churches now is that they still don’t know how to grasp this and how to balance it. Old people insist on using a quiet style whereas the young like an electric guitar. So, what should we do? The churches need to give it serious consideration.”
In his opinion, both traditional church choirs and modern bands were needed. Moreover, the churches needed to find music styles that were acceptable to both young people and the elderly, and those who served in the praise team also needed the ability to rearrange worship songs. For instance, songs that were too fast could be played slower so that the elderly could keep up as much as possible. If the rhythm was too slow, it could be played a little faster so that young believers could participate in it. It was necessary to find a rhythm that was acceptable to different groups.
As far as Aaron was concerned, all four ways of worship and praise were acceptable, but as a leader of worship or pastoral ministry, one only needed to pay attention to choosing the appropriate ways of worship and praise for the right people.
“For example, the impromptu singing style of Harp and Bowl can help people to calm down and help them to enter the inner world of worship deeply. However, we can’t say that this is the best because it is not suitable for occasions like Sunday worship and it is not suitable for seekers and new believers. It is because the lyrics are not fully clear, which may cause some misunderstanding for new believers.”
Interested young people could learn to play some musical instruments and gain worship experiences.
He said that he came into contact with many traditional churches with a large number of middle-aged and elderly people, hoping to change the worship and praise style of churches so as to attract and welcome more young people. He was also invited by these churches to do similar training, such as giving worship courses to church members under 35 who were interested in worship and praise. In the course, he found a very characteristic phenomenon: “Their ideas about worship began to change throughout the courses and several members were burdened with worship. But when I left, no one would continue to lead my training.”
Therefore, he suggested that if there was a burden for young people to worship and praise in the church, they should accumulate relevant experiences. For example, one had to learn to play musical instruments like electric guitar and bass. So after accepting his advice, some people in some traditional churches began to prepare and learn guitar or keyboard, which was very good in his opinion.
He also suggested that people should go to some worship and praise occasions to gain personal experiences, which was very important.
“Worship is a wonderful thing. It’s useless to just discuss, listen to lectures, or watch videos. You must attend and experience it in person before you get familiar with the atmosphere of worship you hope to form. After you understand and experience it, you can think about how to lead your church’s worship. Worship must be done collectively.”
Finally, the pastor also reminded us that no matter what the external forms and techniques were, worship actually should be learned and understood.
“All these practices had a premise, that is, what our hearts were. We must worship God in spirit and honesty because the Father wanted us to worship him in this way.”
He also shared a story about worship that touched him. It was an elderly woman who cooked and washed dishes at home every day. She put up a poster in the kitchen that read, “God, I worship you here three times a day.” This was her worship to God.
“This elderly woman worships God in this way. I think her worship was pleasing to God,” he ended.
- Translated by Charlie Li
Young Pastor: The Controversies, Way Out of 'Worship and Praise Style' in Chinese Church
