Customer Reviews

The Message in the Music: Studying Contemporary Praise and Worship

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I chose to purchase this book on account of the "VIEW NOW" feature on Amazon, which usually gives me a pretty fair chance to know what the book is about. The dazzling cover sure helped also. But, the majority of the content turned out to be empty stats on specific songs in Contemporary Christian Music. I was hoping for a message, as the first part of the title suggests, but it turned out to be much more geared towards the latter half of the title. For those desiring to dissect specific, popular, ACTUAL songs and lyrics in CCM, this is definitely the book for you. For instance, if a pastor isnt sure on playing specific songs like "Breathe" or "You Are My Life" in church, the book may prove of some value. But, if you are looking for a Biblical pro and con evaluating contemporary musical worship, its effects, origins and it's core value to Christians, I suggest you look elsewhere. Put it this way, the book focuses in on how a "donut" tastes, if it is sweet or sour, if it makes you cry or makes you happy, which is good to know, but fails to convince one whether or not that donut is healthy in the first place.

The Message in the Music: Studying Contemporary Praise and Worship
Brian Walrath and Robert Woods have brought together a series of essays on contemporary worship music. The ten essays are authored by knowledge-
able people from a variety of disciplines. The author of each section of the book gives a broad and honest appraisal of the history and the impact of contemporary Christian music.

The book gives the reader the feeling of attending a seminar on the subject of Christian music where the presenters deal with various aspects - both positive and negative - of contemporary Christian music and the influence of this music on the church.

The Message in the Music will be a great help to music students and to those who teach in the field of Christian music. Pastors, worship leaders, theologians, and writers and producers of Christian music will find this book a valuable resource. The book would also be very effective for small group discussion.

I found the book a very good read and most inspirational and informative.

This well edited publication put into words what I had often felt: something was missing or awry in our contemporary church music. The best part is that each author offered constructive criticism and suggestions. This should be in the hands of worship leaders and pastors across the country in all types of churches. What a gift to the Christian community!

The details are somewhat burdensome, HOWEVER they are a part of the book's strength. The 'scientific' approach lays a strong foundation for the conclusions reached vs. conclusions based on feelings and/or prejudices.
I sense that the writers were carefully chosen, so I trust that process and basically trust the writers. Thus the conclusion sections were valuable to me.
It is helpful to have the writers suggest how CWM composers could correct present deficiencies in current CWM.
John Witvliet's concluding chapter is meaty.

Written for the active church musician. I was pleased that it included music examples of good and not so good choices of worship music. I haven't finished it yet but am hoping he will evaluate choices of classical music as well as praise and worship music.