I grew up on old school church music– we sang hymns, and nothing else for most of my childhood. I remember in high school some contemporary worship began to work itself in– not bands like we have today, but what we’d call “worship choruses” sung to a cassette tape (remember “Give Thanks?” that was pretty contemporary departure from “Notin’ But The Blood”, as I recall). These “contemporary” worship choruses that slowly worked their way in eventually led to a part of Sunday morning worship called “special music” which was usually someone signing Thank You For Giving To The Lord by Ray Boltz- a song I’d heard 800 times by the 8th grade and was commonly sung at the Fundamentalist “Bible School” I went to when I graduated high school. (If you’re watching, the jokes on you now, isn’t it?)
In the 25 or so years since then, worship music in church has changed, a lot. Today, it’s common place to have a live band performing (often, emphasis on performing), and the songs that are sung are ones that often have lyrics that would make my grandma cringe. I mean, really– there’s a popular worship song that compares the love of Jesus to a “sloppy wet kiss”, so I think it’s safe to say that anything goes for worship music these days. Personally, I love both old hymns (in part because of nostalgia, in other part because of theology in them) and I also love ever evolving contemporary worship.
To take it one step further however, I’ve never been a fan of the distinctions of “secular” or “sacred”. I think that all knowledge is God’s knowledge and all beauty is God’s beauty– which means, all beautiful songs would be God’s beautiful songs.
I think we should be open to signing “secular” songs in Church, if it’s a good fit for that time and that place– after all, the Bible does say that there’s a “time and place for everything”, right? I often connect to music in deeply spiritual ways, and the songs that do that for me are quite often songs that we’d call “secular”.
The best gift I got for Christmas this year was a pair of noise cancelling headphones. My evening tradition since, has been to dial up the volume in these beauties and sit by the fireplace in the calm of the night, and listen to music that moves my inner being. Some evenings I have profound, emotional moments when I feel closer to God through listening to “secular” music, and have realized that there are plenty of these songs that I’d love to sing in church.
Here are a few I’d love to sing– some are great the way they are, and some would make wonderful worship with a slight adjustment to a few lyrics. I hope you’ll throw on some headphones, dial up the volume, and listen to the songs as you consider the reasons why I’d love to sing these songs in church:
5. Red, Red, Wine by UB40
I’m a fan of celebrating the Eucharist every week, and what better song to sing as we consume the blood of the Lord than “Red, Red, Wine”?
In seminary I met a guy named Josh who left a hyper-charismatic tradition for one that was very liturgical. His reasoning, as he explained, was that his background was so charismatic he never knew when people were having a real connection with God, and when they were just being… well, weird. Joining a liturgical tradition that, among other things, celebrated the Eucharist each week was something he said gave him a predictable way to feel connected to God regardless of what he experienced by way of emotions.
For nearly 2000 years, Christians have realized that there’s something special about celebrating the Eucharist and that in some strange way, God is especially present as we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus- and I have grown to love it for the same reasons that Josh did.
In the song, some of the lyrics draw out spiritual emotions that I frequently have when I am feeling a connected presence to God:
“Red, red, wine,
It’s up to you.
All I can do, I’ve done.”
In this way, the song reminds me that I am in need of the presence of God, and in need of his mercy. “All I can do, I’ve done” as well as the lyrics “red, red wine, stay close to me” remind me that I’m not looking for a Jesus who can just save me in the afterlife, but a Jesus who can save me right here, and right now. The song also talks about how the red wine is the only thing that helps him forget painful memories of the past, something I connect with because I’ve got a lot of those too. But for some reason, when I consume the bread and the wine, for a brief moment in time I feel at peace… and feel the presence of God.
4. Don’t Stop Believing (Journey)
This song talks about a girl from a small town and a boy from the city, both on a journey of discovery and talks about the ups and downs of life that we all experience. Instead of a traditional worships song that makes us think we should feel happy, or that we should have it all together, this song affirms that life is full of both wonderful and suck-y moments:
“Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on”
Jesus once said something almost identical to this– he said: “In this world you will have many problems– but don’t lose heart! I have overcome this world.”
Jesus essentially reminds us that “some will win, and some will lose” but that regardless of what we experience, the important thing is that we “don’t stop believing” that a better day is coming. I don’t know about you, but for me, life is hard. Mine has been full of discouragement and doubt, and sometimes there just aren’t good answers for those difficult chapters we experience. And, when I’m stuck in the middle of one of those dark valleys, sometimes the best advice is to hold on and “don’t stop believing”.
Plus, everyone already knows this song and the church walls would vibrate with participation and smiles across the room the moment you get to the “don’t stop believing” part.
3. Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World (IZ)
The rendition of this song is not only beautiful, but perfectly combines a balanced theology that I think is often missed in much of the American Christian landscape. After the fundamentalist/modernist controversies in the previous century, we largely ended up with some groups of Christians hyper focused on the afterlife and getting out of this world, and a second group at an opposite extreme that becomes so focused on this world it misses the beauty of longing for what is to come.
The blend of these two songs, fixes that imbalance.
The first half of this song gives us permission to long for the next “world” whatever that looks like. In times of difficulty and grief, I have often received much comfort by longing for that new world to come where “every tear will be wiped from their eyes… there will be no more sorrow or death or crying or pain because the old things are gone”. Yet, if we become too focused on this, we miss out of the beauty found in this world, right here and right now. The latter half of the song reminds us that God created the world and everything in it, and when he looked down he said “what a wonderful world!” By combining these two, we find a healthy balance of longing, yet being present and participating in the beauty that can be found in this present reality.
2. One (U2)
There are perhaps a dozen U2 songs that would work well in church, but atop the list, is One. This song is incredibly spiritual and speaks to issues of being authentic, embracing community, healing, and the vastness of God’s love.
In the beginning, the song invites us to be real with ourselves regarding self awareness to what we’re actually searching for: “have you come here for forgiveness? Have you come to raise the dead? Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?” I think we’d get a lot more out of church if we had self awareness to the type of healing we long to experience in a church context. He goes on to remind us of the diversity found in the Church, which makes us “one” but still “not the same”– differences that he notes cause us to hurt each other repeatedly and points us to the fact that loving, is the greatest commandment:
“We’re one
But we’re not the same
Well we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law”
Finally, he goes on to remind us that even though we’re different, we share “one love”, found in Jesus. As a result, we ought to embrace authentic life in community, where we “get to carry each other”:
“One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other”
In short, I think there’s better theology in this song than 90% of the stuff we often sing in church.
1. Redemption Song (Bob Marley)
No list of great songs would be complete without Bob Marley. Since the first time I heard this song, it’s been a song of worship for me– and I’ve more than once hinted to our worship leader at church that I’d like to sing it. It is a powerful song of oppression and freedom from oppression– a theme I believe is central to the narrative found throughout the whole of scripture. The song says in part:
“But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won’t you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
‘Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs”
I think if we’re honest, those of us who have decided to follow Jesus realize that we’re being redeemed from something. Singing about this redemption and that God has now equipped us to move forward, is an act of worship to the one who has done, and is doing, the redeeming.
My prayer for us today, is that we’d break out of the old box that says “this is Christian” and “this is secular” or “this is worship” compared to “this is entertainment” and realize that God’s beauty is something that can be found in the most unexpected places… even British Reggae.
Give it a shot– set aside the weirdness factor for a minute, turn up the volume, and allow some of these songs to become worship to you– because they are to me.
So, these are the “secular” songs that I wish we’d sing in church— which songs would be your choice? Let’s continue the discussion below!
38 Responses
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article. https://www.binance.com/fr/register?ref=W0BCQMF1
I have read your article carefully and I agree with you very much. This has provided a great help for my thesis writing, and I will seriously improve it. However, I don’t know much about a certain place. Can you help me?
There are some good Coldplay songs that totally use for worship. The songs that I think match perfectly for worship are ‘Warning Sign’, ‘Something Just Like This’, ‘Amsterdam’, ‘Sky Full of Stars’, ‘A Message’, ‘Always in My Head’, ‘Magic’, ‘Yellow’, ‘God Put a Smile Upon Your Face’, ‘We Never Change’, ‘Politik’ and ‘All I Can Think About is You’.
In Warning Sign, the lyrics match up perfectly for someone who’s feeling far from God. In the beginning, it explains a time where we saw God’s love and chose to disobey Him.
“A warning sign I missed the good part,” the good part is God, the greatest part of life, “then I realized I started looking and the bubble burst”. A bubble burst sounds like a metaphor of the passing earth. A bubble looks cool but it is over faster than you can think. “I started looking for excuses”, we can make excuses to sin or waste time, but in the end, it’s all disobeying God -Psalm 119:37, Romans 12:2, Mark 4:19, Jonah 2:8, Matthew 6:19-21,24. The chorus is “but the truth is I miss you and I’m tired I should not have let you go”. The truth is, that we will be missing God when we leave Him, missing the love and peace that we once had. The end of the song is “so I craw back into your open arms”. God will always be willing to take you back, all you have to do is humble yourself in front of Him like bowing your head or crawling, and accept His love again.
There are also some great songs by Owl City that sound Christian, and some of them really are because the singer is a Christian. These songs that I have are ‘Meteor Shower’, ‘Angels’, ‘You’re Not Alone’, ‘Thunderstruck’, ‘Galaxies’ + ‘January 28, 1986’, ‘Can’t Live Without You’, ‘Tidal Wave’, ‘Hospital Flowers’, ‘I Found Love’ and ‘My Everything’. He also has worship cover songs; ‘In Christ Alone (I Stand)’, ‘Untitled Hymn’, ‘If I Stand’, ‘How Deep The Father’s Love For Us’ and ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’.
Some Christian U2 songs are “Yahweh’, ’40’ (Look at Psalm 40:1-3, it has the same lyrics), ‘Pride (In The Name of Love), ‘With Or Without You’, ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’, and ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’.
From The Cold – Cody Fry, How To Save a Life – The Fray, and Give A Little love – Noah and The Whale are some good ones too.
Way late on this one, but check out “Sometimes” by Pearl Jam. I don’t know if it’s good for church worship, but it’s great for solo listening in front of a fireplace.
Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty is one of my personal “hymns.” I have never sung it at church, but I do sing Sunday. Hmmmm…
There’s a song out that reminds me of my spiritual warfare and dependency on God. It’s called “My Demons” by Starset. It’s a secular song by a secular band, but I’ve unintentionally made it connect to my spiritual life.
I pretty much go along with everything on here, but wanted to point out something. You mention the following above: I mean, really– there’s a popular worship song that compares the love of Jesus to a “sloppy wet kiss”, so I think it’s safe to say that anything goes for worship music these days.
The tune you’re referring to is called, “How He Loves”. The song writer is from the south and is using imagery that’s pretty familiar to me. Have you seen the video of the story behind this song? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axpgjJzfl54
I haven’t seen the story behind it, but I’ll check it out. I actually love this song– my point was, that lines like this are less than “traditional”, so why not a “secular” song too?
I get it :-). We probably share a very similar background. I was brought up in an independent fundy baptist church. Not as far out as Bob Jones..but close enough. Went to Liberty back in the early days of the moral majority
I like the idea. Of course, you have to know your people. I recently wrote new lyrics to a secular song, intending to use it in church, but as I researched the web, it appears it is illegal to “cover” a song using your own lyrics. Hmmm. Really? I’m disappointed. Not sure all these would fit under a legal “parody” or for “educational purposes.” Anybody know for sure?
“Don’t stop believing?” Gaaaag! Here are two non secular II would like to hear but for some reason don’t seem to get used: “Jacob’s Ladder” and “Help Somebody” by Susan Werner.
This isn’t exactly what is being discussed here, but I always thought Van Halen’s “Right Now” would have made an interesting ‘alter call’ song in a fundamentalist church (possibly for all the wrong reasons).
We consider the Symphony of Science to be sacred music in our house. Our children have the words memorized on many of them!
youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk
Our church sings an edited version of “Hallelujah” which I really love though I find myself “accidentally” singing Leonard Cohen’s version too.
In the right setting I could really get behind singing John Mayer’s “Something’s Missing” or Florence and the Machines “Shake it Out”
I’d add “It’s Been A While” by Staind
Dear Ben, the early Church has inherited the psalms of the OT. She neither replaced them by new hymns, nor refused new hymns. She rather kept the psalms in traditional parts of the liturgy, while explaining a new meaning thereof through antiphons, and allowing hymns elsewhere in the liturgy. When the Church was well accustomed with hymns and antiphons too (while still keeping the psalms), there appeared some “spiritual songs”, less theological and less sober than the hymns, but more pietistic and more individualistic. And she gave the spiritual songs other places in some other – rather marginal – parts of the worship. Now we have “secular” music. The logical procedure would be to give them some more marginal room, but still to admit them somewhere.
Personally, I am a fan of death metal, Gothic metal, and punk music. Both Christian and secular. If I were in a special space/time like the Freakstock, I would find reasonable to have Christian punk or metal songs for worship. But I would certainly not terrorize my brethren and sisters in Christ, with my metal or punk Christian songs, at a common Eucharist or evensong.
I may say to God, following Crematory band, «You are the blood flowing through my veins, / You are the water which I drink», or, with the old Sepultura, «Forgive me, Father; forgive me, God; I know I’ve sinned With no remorse». But I would in no way force-feed therewith my brethren and sisters in Christ. No. For Eucharist and evensong, we’ll have only traditional hymns, and
psalms in Gregorian chant. Because there we must be one in Christ.
I went twice to a so-called Evangelical worship, and there they had tasteless pop music saying that Jesus was great. That didn’t help. Even Jehova’s so-called witnesses do agree that Jesus is great. That’s not the point of the liturgy.
I also think The Fray’s song, “You Found Me” is another. I call it “the modern day Job song”
At our Quaker meeting, we recently sang Let It Be by The Beatles. Seemed appropriate.
That’s a great one– that would totally work.
Outstanding!
Our church, thank God, doesn’t mind the occasional “secular” song, so we have done a few over the years. With a slight tweak, the Monkeys’ “I’m A Believer” made for a fun change of pace. (Then I felt His grace…) On a more serious note, we have done Stand By Me, and Switchfoot’s “Your Love is a Song.”
My choice for a U2 song, though, is Gloria.
The door is open
You’re standing there
You let me in
Ripple, by the Grateful Dead. The most popular song in the homegrown song book of my former church.
definitely
We sing it ever pentecost
Went to a church recently that sang Joan Osbourne’s ‘What if G*d was one of us’ – I thought that was pretty cool.
They also sang a butchered version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ which decided wasn’t.
yep. changing the lyrics is lame, indeed.
The next U2 song I’d do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWueEST0kqo
This would probably have been my first choice (of U2 songs) although I was in a service that had an incredible band that started worship one Sunday with “Where the Streets Have No Name” and I was blown away.
It wasn’t at Vineyard Nashville was it?
Unconditional by Katy Perry
Love it! I did “Where the Streets Have No Name” in a service once. That was fun. Most loved it, but there were some who felt it was inappropriate. But lately I’ve been in more of a lamenting mood. Listening to songs like “Run” by one of my all time favorite bands King’s X. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t fly in church, but it’s very honest and I can relate! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIt86-hfr3o
How could anybody “find fault” with this U2 song?:
“I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I want to reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name
I want to feel, sunlight on my face
See that dust cloud disappear without a trace
I want to take shelter from the poison rain”
What about Foo Fighters, “Times Like These”?
I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and i think its one of the most generous and grace-filled filled post-evangelical blogs out there – honest without being too harsh or bitter. i sympathise with your experiences a great deal – I felt forced out of a conservative evangelical church in the UK for reasons of conscience and theology and eventually ended up helping to found a church based in a skate park under the auspices of the church of england and its liturgical tradition. Anyway, just wanted to say that we’ve used U2’s One during the Eucharist many times and it never fails to bring people to tears/to their knees in worship; likewise we’ve used Redemption Song during Easter and Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World during corporate worship. We’ve also used everything from Evanescence to Fat Boy Slim to Kylie Minogue. All the beautiful songs are God’s beautiful songs, and of His own we give to Him.
Jon– thanks! That’s super encouraging. I often get mail that says the opposite– that I’m harsh/bitter, even though I try not to be, so I appreciate your words. I’m just trying to explore my own faith, publicly, in a way that is true and authentic to my inner process. Glad to have you as a reader!
Great choices! that would be nice to hear in church.
I’ve often wondered how the church would react to a song like REM “Losing My Religion”. It certainly would be an interesting service.
And completely off topic: What is it about that version of “Somewhere over the rainbow” that it shows up on Pandora no matter what channel you put it on? I swear I’ve heard it on various stations while at home, at the gym, at the dentist. When I hear that song in a public space, I go to the front desk and ask them if they have their music on Pandora. Never fails! Must be a great song!
We have done REM’s losing my religion as an opening song on more than one occasion. At some point in the discussion after the music the point was usually made that we are here to call people to religion, but to a meaningful, life-changing relationship…