Worship Is Not Music
Worship leader, Paul Baloche recently said ‘Worship is not music, but music can be worship’ (In his article ‘Seeds of Songs’, Worship Leader Magazine. Vol:23, No:1 www.worshipleader.com ). In a way, it is unfortunate that the word ‘worship’ has been used for different things within the church that quite often can lead to misunderstandings. For me, part of the problem stems from the genre of music labelled as ‘worship music’ as opposed to ‘Christian contemporary music (CCM)’ or ‘gospel’ for example. The music industry needed to call this genre of music something and labelled it ‘worship music’. Fair enough. We can now associate a particular style and sound of music to the ‘worship music’ genre and can even search for it on our favourite digital music distribution provider. However, this is where the confusion begins. Scripture gives many examples where music and song are used, and indeed when God encourages us to use them as a part of our worship to Him: ‘Be filled with