[This post is part of a series on Leading Your Team & Congregation Through Worship Tensions. Check out the rest here.]
It’s becoming increasingly popular for worship teams to cover secular music in their services.
I thought I’d bring up the tension so we can talk about it. I realize that there are spirited opinions on both sides but it can be helpful for us to discuss our views… in love.
Shall we?
Should worship teams play secular cover songs? Allow me to give you both sides of the spectrum.
Yes, Absolutely!
- Since so many unchurched people are entering our doors, we should speak their language as a means to open their hearts.
- Almost everyone listens to secular music. Utilizing it will capture people’s attention for the sharing of the Gospel.
- There are some great secular songs that can really communicate the main idea of the sermon.
No, Are you kidding me?
- The things of the Spirit should be foolishness to unbelievers. We don’t need to play their music to attract them. They are coming expecting something different anyway.
- Church is supposed to be spiritual and our goal shouldn’t be to compete with the world’s entertainment.
- The purpose of our gathering is the glory of God and the edification of the church. Secular music just doesn’t have its place.
Question: What is your answer to the question? Should worship teams play secular cover songs? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
For further reading, check out Bob Kauflin’s post: “Should We Use Secular Songs on Sunday?”
To me, using a secular song in a worship service is no different than the pastor telling a personal story in a sermon or showing some type of video clip. It’s merely an illustrative tool to engage the congregation further and drive home Biblical truths.
It depends what you mean by the use of a secular song in a worship service. If simply used to illustrate something during a point in a service, I don’t see any problem with. If you mean covering it during a time of worship, it doesn’t have a place there in my opinion. Worship is supposed to be just that…”worship.” I don’t know of any secular song that is worshipful or that is directed toward God. Doing this is selling God short of our revering him in order to cater to the masses.
Yeah, I would say no if it is apart of the worship part of the service…
Agree. Used to help a sermon or lesson, ok. But not as worship.
I know I’m chiming in a little late, but, what part of a service shouldn’t be worship? I’m just adding something for thought. I’m starting to think we’ve put so many boundaries on ourselves when connecting with God and connecting others to Him, that I wonder if we are limiting what Jesus can do through our narrow field of vision. Great discussion.
Jason, very well said. Thanks for chiming in!
Good analogy, Chuck. Makes sense.
I would say absolutely not…
This is a great tension builder and great one to discuss. I think a lot of us, including myself, sometimes get caught up in believing that worship consist only of the music. The whole worship service is our worship to and for Jesus. So, to break up the service saying that this section (or songs) is worship but this secular song (or story) is not worship, I believe, is wrong…period. We see in scripture that Jesus met everyone where they were which I believe is what we are suppose to do. Therefore, I believe that when we use Secular Cover songs to meet people where they are to lead and bring them into the presence of Jesus is considered worship. However, if that is never our intentions with the secular song and we are playing it just to please people then it should never be played in the first place. I believe that is where the worship leader and pastor need to really be careful to explain and make sense of the secular song for the believers and non-believers. I know this sounds funny but if God can use a Donkey to speak for him then he can use a secular song….no doubt.
I like your heart, Andrew. You’re determined to see everything in the service as an act of worship. That’s awesome. I think some people would argue that a secular song doesn’t provide ministry, it only detracts from Jesus being the center.
I agree!
I believe it all depends on the motive. Our Pastor preached a message a few months ago called “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” and he used a clip for the old Stevie Wonder song. I guess when it comes down to it its like this. If you say “Absolutly Not” your being religious and no one wants to hear what you have to say any way, but also you should never sacrifice Revelation for Relevance. At the end of the day, just point to Jesus in all that you do, and if your secular song helps, more power to ya!
Worship teams on the other hand, which was the original question, absolutely not! Their assignment is to lead the body into the presence of God not play cute little songs that “worldly” people can connect with. Unless of course it connects them with God, which I guess if you do that cheesy little thing where you change the lyrics to make it “Jesusy” thats ok… i think??…God help us… Just sing worship songs 😀
David! Thanks for chiming in, bro. So you’re saying it’s OK for the pastor to use a secular song but not the worship team?
No. 🙂
No. GOD is not creative. HE is creativity. HE is the essence of it. Think of all HE has created. HE gives the gift of creativity, and some use it to glorify GOD and others don’t. As Christians we should not have to use nonChristian songs. We should depend on the gifts HE has given us and be able to come up with original worship music. Let that be an outreach and testimony of HIS greatness. Now, I am not saying all secular songs are bad, but worship teams should not have to utilize them when they have access to pure creative power from GOD. We are to be a light in the darkness. Leading the way, not following the crowd.
Great thoughts, Amy. So you’re saying the church should lead the way in creativity?
Yes. Jesus was not seeker friendly. He loved all, especially the poor and wretched. But He never changed who He was so people would accept Him.
In the end it obviously comes down to each persons heart/motivation, but If i am worshiping with a group of believers, there should be no need for us to be trying to accommodate the unchurched with secular songs. In Acts, the early believers constantly fellowshipped and learned together and the Bible says ” their numbers were added to daily” we just have to honor God and people should be drawn in by our love and excitement about GOD.
Good post bud. You know how I feel about this one. I think all truth is Gods truth so a redemptive secular song could totally have it’s place in church. The day we do not do anything for the unchurched to have an entry point to Jesus, we are missing the point of church.
There is a line in being “unchurched friendly” Jesus used parables so that only those who really had a heart to learn would. I think we have lost our ‘awe’ for GOD. We should be able to do more that copy those that have sung without the purpose of glorifying HIM. ( see my comment earlier)
Absolutly! If a Pastor wants to use a secular song that’s helps bring a message to a point of challenge/encouragement in Christ I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. But the worship teams purpose is to bring the body into the presence of God. If you can do that with a secular song wonderful! But If not stay away… I encountered a band that in their worship set they covered Hoobastank’s “The Reason”, and it was powerful when used as a worship song. So YES it can be done!
We need to change our vernacular. Calling the band the worship team is the main reason why people associate worship with music. Are they a part of worship? Yes! But if we say God is with us always through His Spirit, then there is no “ushering into the presence of God.” Everything we do is worship. Included in that is the preaching. Have you ever been challenged by a song you heard from the band? Have you ever been challenged by the words of a pastor? You can’t say it’s ok for a pastor to use a “secular” analogy and tell the band they can’t. If we were created to worship (and we were) then everything we do should be filtered through the question “Is this honoring God?” You can’t tell me that singing the song “No One” by Alicia Keys to our Heavenly Father doesn’t move you! The purpose of our weekly gatherings is 1)to encourage and challenge the called out ones and 2)to offer an opportunity for those who haven’t received the grace of God to do so. Worship is a lifestyle, not something we do once per week.
Great thoughts, Chris. I really like your two purpose statements about our weekly gatherings. I may have to borrow that sometime 🙂
Alright….I’m in.
St. Augustine said “All truth is God’s truth.” I tend to agree.
If it’s true, it’s of God. If it’s not…it’s not. It really doesn’t matter how you categorize it….or label it.
Case and point:
One of the ways that I’ve been challenged to “worship” God over the last few years is loving my wife and family well. Some might say…”that’s not worship…that’s just loving your wife and family well.” I disagree. Worship can’t be categorized and sub-categorized…it’s all inclusive.
Are there songs in the mainstream written by non-believers that hammer home the importance of a covenant relationship….ABSOLUTELY. Should they be played in a church setting….ABSOLUTELY. God is bigger than we think.
If a buddhist man in….oh, I don’t know….India is faithfully loving his wife, he is doing so because he is baring the image of God, who is love and is the KING OF COVENANT RELATIONSHIP. Does this man need the redemption that only Christ can give. Yes…so does his wife. But he still bares the image of God…and his entire being was still formed in HIS likeness.
I’m challenged to push myself outside of what I’m comfortable with to find God there. Chances are, if He loves the world as much as He says he does….He’s already there working to redeem people back to Himself in ways I may never even recognize.
So, yes let’s look for God’s truth in culture, AND in the church…and by all means, let’s include it in our services.
Thanks for listening.
Michael, welcome.
I think your response deserves a post of its own. Well said. Super challenging and encouraging. I think when we look for “God’s truth” in the culture around us it gives us humility as we minister. God is moving in ways beyond our understanding.
Dave,
This is my first time reading your blog. I don’t really feel to strongly either way. I just want to ask a few questions:
What do you mean by a secular song, the melody, the lyrics or the combination? If just the melody, we can look to Martin Luther. He “reappropriated” melodies from popular bar songs and put “holy” lyrics to them. If it’s the lyrics, I’d look to the New Testament. St. Paul seems to quote a few hymns to Zeus. I’m pretty sure we’re OK with that or should we take those parts out of the Bible? Of course, if I showed up to a service and the worship leader was in a meat suit and singing “Poker Face”, I’d probably leave.
Hey Will, welcome. I’m referring to any song that is not specified as a worship song or as part of the Christian music subculture. Yea, the meat suit might be taking it a little too far 🙂
Even if it was a BACON suit? 😀
We use secular songs regularly in our services as a means of connecting biblical truths with what we feel God wants to accomplish in the service. Of course the content of the songs are good and giving opportunity for non-believers to see the connection between the truth of the song with the truth of the Gospel is pretty awesome.
Paul used culturally relevant material in his sermons, and Christ, the greatest communicator of all time, used culturally relevant stories in his preaching of biblical truths. A song is simply a story put to music, so if it can be done in a way that is God-honoring and in a way that isn’t a distraction, I think using secular songs can be a great tool for ministry and should be welcome in any New Testament church.
Much to my chagrin, I still haven’t found the church willing to have the band play Metallica’s “Creeping Death” to tell the story of the plagues God visited upon the Egyptians in the time of Moses.
This weekend, bro. You’re in luck 🙂
Just my luck when I’m not gonna be there. Let me know when Pastor Jeff does a message on materialism. I have the perfect one-two punch of a Toad the Wet Sprocket song and a scene from “Fight Club” for illustrative purposes.
So what if you play an Elton John song for instance (i don’t know if he has any material that would relate to any sermons or not, but just as an example). So you play the song and then one of the congregation asks you who sings it. I would be scared of that person starting to listen to his music and think homosexuality is ok. The one think I am fearful of is leading people astray from the truth.
This has been a topic that I have struggled with for a while now. Not necessarily secular music in church, but worship bands that even play secular music outside of chuch……
I think the reason a lot of churches do secular songs is because their congregations are listening to them anyway. I don’t think there’s a fear they’d adopt the lifestyle choices of the singer, but it’s simply to illustrate a point. I hear where you’re coming from though for sure!
Early on in my time at Innovation Church, we would take time before or after a “secular” song to explain why we did it and how it fit into the message. It’s no different than explaining a “worship” song to an unbeliever. Now days, while we don’t explain every song, our congregation knows why we do “secular” songs in the service. If a new person comes and comments on the fact that we’re playing “secular” music (they wouldn’t call it that by the way, only Christians call it “secular”), they will most likely hear an explanation from one of our members.
Chris, that’s cool how you’re congregation knows why you do secular songs. Everyone seems to agree (or at least understands) the mission.
Honestly, I think about what would I play and sing in heaven? The same thing I should sing here, while we prepare for heaven. As for attracting people, God knows best how to bring people to himself. I should concentrate on worshipping Him.
Actually Elton John is on record as referring to Jesus Christ as a “gay man”
This is a post I wrote recently that deals with this topic:
http://evenifministries.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/do-lyrics-to-songs-matter/
It depends…….does the Bible tell us anything about this subject? If it does the we should follow it.IMO
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