Repeating the Chorus

 

When we talk to people about contemporary worship music, one complaint we hear frequently is that the choruses are repeated too many times.  You know, the 7-11 songs:  seven words repeated 11 times!  How many minutes must we stand here with our hands raised, singing the same two lines over and over again?  Congregants long for songs like the old classics, with deeper theological meaning.

There is reason behind the method, of course.  In a day and age when we are constantly doing new music, people don't know all the songs we are singing, and the average worshipper cannot read music, the praise team repeats sections over and over so that the audience can learn them and sing along.

I must confess, however, that I am one of the people who does not enjoy the repetition.  I'd like to shorten the song or find some new words!

Then I read Revelation 4:8.  Here we have John seeing a vision in heaven of four creatures which are the same or similar creatures to those Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6:3.  They are calling out, 

Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,

who was, and is, and is to come.

In Isaiah the last line was "the whole earth is full of his glory" (in the NIV), so maybe there was a little variation over the 500 years between Isaiah and John, or in the translation.  But John tells us that "Day and night they never stop saying" these words!  That's some repetition for you!

This gave me a new appreciation for the repetitive choruses.  Apparently, God does not get tired of us praising him in this way!

In his 1908 book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton writes:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

I will probably never enjoy choruses that repeat the same lines more than two times.  But this morning as you go to worship the Lord in community with your church, have a little patience for the repetition.  Sing out with joy.  Sing those words the way you sang "Jesus Loves Me" as a child.  Your Heavenly Father never tires of hearing your praise coming from a joyful heart!

Happy Sunday!