Keith Getty on dangers of modern worship, tells pastors: 'Love your people enough to care about what they sing'

Getty is hitting on something I’ve been learning over the past decade; there is a reason God chose to put so much of His Word in lyric form, suitable for use as poetry or music. To draw the picture, think of that commercial jingle you heard as a child that you can still sing—”WLS all day is the very best way to hear the sports, music and song, weather reports, all day long. Mommy and Daddy know it’s good radio all the time…all the TIME….the happiest spot on the dial, is WLS WHEE.” Alternatively, having never called or shopped at Empire Carpets, I know their phone number 40 years after I stopped watching the Cubs game every afternoon during the summer.

In other words, lyric form can communicate words to memory in a way that prose simply cannot. Hence those who choose songs ought to pay attention to first the content of the words, and then also the lyric/poetic quality, and finally the musical quality. There is a lot of instruction that can be done if we simply pay attention.

The one criticism I have of the Gettys is that there’s not as much musical variety as I’d like to see, to which I’m sure Mr. Getty would say “if you know a genre, get cracking with it!”. Or something like that.