Redemptive sweep in singing

The Creation, Fall, Redemption framework can guide song selection for next week's worship service. It did not dawn on me until last summer, after reading Rhythms of Grace, an excellent book (2013) by Mike Cosper, that this basic framework applies to the selection of songs in worship.

Sometimes we add the category of Consummation to Creation, Fall, Redemption. I propose adding a few other categories as well, for planning church music:

Creation

Fall

Exile

Confession

Repentance

Pilgrimage

Redemption

Consummation

We can sing songs from every category. By tending to the entire spectrum of redemption, we meet worshipers where they are. We bring hope to people who are down and out by offering them songs that deal with their failure, sin and despair. These might be songs of exile, like “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” For songs of pilgrimage, “Lead Me, Guide” and “Wayfaring Stranger” are excellent choices.

The Psalms, which Martin Luther called “the little Bible,” offer this rich range of musical response and lament. The best way to get at the range of redemptive history in music is to sing the Psalms. I remember at boarding school how the teenagers used to choose “In Silence My Soul Is Waiting” a 1973 rendition of Psalm 62 by Michael Seward:

In silence my soul is waiting

is waiting for God alone

deliverance from him is coming,

my rescuer, fort, and rock.

In silence my soul is waiting;

secure, I shall not be moved.

But it gets darker:

Just puffs of the wind, the people,

great men are illusions, all;

as breath in the air, they’re measured,

then weightless they fade away.

Be silent, my soul, in waiting;

secure, I shall not be moved.

On dark winter nights in Iowa, the kids would sing this and many other songs, and I think it encouraged their hearts to know that there was a place (church) where they could express disillusionment. That’s what singing the whole redemptive sweep does.

Remember, though, that settling on just one area of the redemptive story impoverishes worship. For example, if you choose only songs about creation, and fail to sing about the offense of the cross, you will miss the power of the Gospel. And worship will be weakened if you only sing happy songs about heaven. Remember the whole redemptive story in congregational singing.