On Singing Lies to God ...

Nick Page, in his book And Now Let's Move Into a Time of Nonsense: Why Worship Songs are Failing the Church, writes:

"Someone once wrote, 'When I became a Christian I stopped telling lies and started singing them.' We make much more outrageous statements in song than we would in speech. Whom among us has not vowed to make history? Who has promised to build with silver and gold? Or stated that our problems all disappear in Jesus' presence? Or that we want to give everything we have to the Lord? These are all laudable statements, but I can't help thinking if we were asked to say them, rather than sing them, we might thing a little more carefully about what we were actually promising."

On his website, Page writes:
"I wrote this out of sheer frustration with the quality of the words we sing in church. The book argues that we have bought into a pop-song model of worship songs, where the words are secondary to beat and melody. The result is songs which are filled with a strange semi-Biblical code and which suffer from poor technique. Above all it encourages writers to really think about the words of their songs and whether they really communicate truth about God."

I think Page is onto something good here, and I am enjoying the book. Singing truth about God stands in contrast to lies we sing about ourselves in God's presence. Let's be careful to worship in SPIRIT, yes, but also in TRUTH. These are the worshipers that the Father is seeking.