Over-Generalizing, Under-Promising, and Over-Promising: Singing Sadness and Joy in the Church

Abstract

In this article, I examine the emotional content of songs sung in Christian churches. An analysis of the lyrical content of the songs that have been tracked by Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) from 1988 to 2018, shows there is a definition of the Christian life that is set before the church and in turn sung by it. The word “joy” appears 37 times and the word “praise” is used 152 times in the 133 songs that comprise the contemporary praise and worship hymnody in the defined time period. In the same time frame, the word sad or any of its derivatives (sadly, sadness, etc.) never occurs in the group of songs that are being discussed. Nor is the word “sorrow” ever used. There are two conclusions that can be drawn from the lack of the use of the word sad. The first is that sadness is undervalued. The second conclusion is that the word “sad” is not a good song word, meaning that it is awkward to sing and fit in the rhythm or meter of a song. The first conclusion relates to the lexical value of a word and the second to the semantic value. To understand the emotional content of music, the texts which provide a lexical meaning need to be examined. Secondly, the semantic meaning, which is composed of the cultural connotations, needs to be considered. The first part, the lexical, is considered by looking at only the text. The second, the semantic, involves looking at how the words and music (both apart and together) conceal and reveal meanings that surpass the lexical level. Thus, the first part of the present work will look at the lyric’s words devoid of context while the second part of the essay will examine the fullness of the songs. As the semantic levels are explored, they will be brought together with the lyrics and the previous level and the question of whether there is an overpromising of joy in the songs will be answered.

1. Introduction

Since Psalms are the songbook of the church, the songs sung in the church should follow the structure of the Psalms. There should be songs about calling for justice, songs of joy, and songs of lament. Since the Psalms sing through the fullness of human emotion, there should be songs that sing against the powers and principalities of the world, calling for their overthrowing, along with songs cursing their enemies. The Church does not need to sing against Babylon or Assyria as the Psalms do but needs to sing against those that oppress the Church, in the way that the New Testament (especially Revelations) use Babylon metaphorically. Such a recommendation can sound unchristian if one does not see worship as an open and honest conversation with God and only sees worship as meant to express praise and adoration towards God. The second definition of worship, only as praise and adoration, is a truncated understanding of what worship is and can be.

Imagine being in a relationship where you can only speak positive words to the other person involved in the relationship. That relationship cannot be rich and fulfilling as it removes the fulness of human experience from the relationship. The worship of the Church, as presented in the research below, shows one of the areas that the worship of the American Protestant Church truncates the relationship between God and humanity.

As Rhodes (2021) has shown in his excellent article that the church, based on the lyrics of the Top 25 songs reported by CCLI, does not sing songs calling for justice and protesting poverty and oppression in the world. Looking further into the literature surrounding the worship of the church, it is taken as a given that that the church does not sing songs that allow for the expression of sadness. Rah (2015, p. 22). takes a cursory look at a single point in time to conclude that sad songs are not sung in the church. Pemberton (2012) and Hopkins (2002) mention the fact that sadness is missing in the church but do not provide any data to support the claim. I do not doubt that they are wrong because when I casually ask church members and those who lead worship if sadness is missing from worship, they agree with me. What I want to do in this paper is add some data to the conversation, to raise supported awareness of the issue, and to give some nuance to the claims that the church is missing expressions of sadness in its worship.

Before attempting to answer our questions, a few words must be said about methodology and the difficulties in examining the songs sung by churches. The first issue is how does one know what songs are being sung in churches? Sadly, there is no all-encompassing reporting tool to glean a data set off. There are databases of songs sung in individual churches dutifully maintained by the worship leaders, but those only tell what songs that church is and has sung. There then is a website resource such as Praise Charts (Accessed on 13 October 2022) which lists what charts and tabs (akin to sheet music) are being viewed and possibly downloaded the most. It cannot be guaranteed that these songs are being sung, nor can we say that they are the most popular due to worship leaders possibly already having the tabs or charts or having learned the song by ear. Both methods would necessitate visiting and cataloging all the songs sung at all the churches to create a viable data set.

There is another way to understand what songs are being sung, and that is reporting for the sake of copyright claims. There are many publishing houses and sites that provide churches the licensing for songs, but only one that reliably reports a list of the top songs being reported as being sung in a church and that is Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI). They have been reporting a list of either the top 25 or 100 reported songs since their inception in 1988. The lists have been maintained by a group of scholars, as the CCLI does not make past lists available, and is the best (albeit flawed in many ways) source for understanding what songs are being sung in churches. Since the CCLI is the best and most often used by other scholars, I will be using the lists for my data. I am using a thirty-year period from the founding of CCLI in 1988 to 2018, yielding 133 songs to be listened to and analyzed.

Another difficulty is that in the past taking music theologically seriously has been neglected. As Begbie (2013, p. 2) writes, “Doubtless, there are some good reasons for this neglect. One of the most obvious is the weakness of music’s powers of depiction and assertion, its struggle to ‘say’ or ‘picture’ anything with precision and consistency. Music finds it hard to articulate even something as simple as ‘There is a tree’, let alone portray a tree in a widely recognizable way. How, then, can it tell us anything of worth?” Begbie’s point is that words in music do not function the same way in a systematic dogmatics or scientific text when it is used in music. Making a theologically rich assertion, like in the current paper, is as simple as typing it out. I can assert “the Church over-promises joy in the Christian life in the songs that it sings”. However, inside of a song, the lyricist may not use the word “sad” and instead use textual metaphors to invoke a feeling of sadness. Further, the music may be functioning in a manner that invokes a feeling of sadness even if the words are not immediately recognizable as being sad. The same can be said in regards with joy. The text may not be overtly joyful, due to use of metaphors, while the accompanying music is written in a way to represent joy. If there is a difficulty in understanding how music evokes emotion, how does one analyze the music?

To understand the emotional content of music, the texts which provide a lexical meaning need to be examined. Secondly, the semantic meaning, which is composed of the cultural connotations and the music as a whole, needs to be considered. The first part, the lexical, is considered by looking at only the text. The second, the semantic, involves looking at how the words and music (both apart and together) conceal and reveal meanings that surpass the lexical level. Thus, the first part of the present work will look at the lyrics, words devoid of context while the second part of the essay will examine the fullness of the songs. As the semantic levels are explored, they will be brought together with the lyrics and the previous level and the question of whether there is an overpromising of joy in the songs will be answered.

Looking at the lexical and semantic meaning of the top sung songs will then create a data set to partially answer the question of whether the top songs, as reported by the CCLI, under-promise sadness and over-promise joy. The songs themselves will not provide the answer but will provide the ability to make the argument. After listening to what the songs say and how they say it, it will be asked if the songs over-generalize sadness by being too vague about what the Christian can express sadness about in worship. In the section on under-promising sadness, I will argue why the church needs to sing songs that allow the congregants to dwell in sadness and see sadness as a natural part of their lives. The next section will discuss the problems with over-promising joy in the Christian life, and many of the points will dovetail with the previous section. I will then conclude with a few suggestions of how the church can move forward to a place where the music of the church can sing of sadness and joy rather than being out of balance towards joy.

The purpose of this research is two-fold. I am looking to solidify the data that has been taken for granted while providing a framework for understanding how and why sadness is presented in the songs of the American church. It is possible that one can ask a congregant if the songs sung in the church sing sadness, and they may correctly answer that there are little to no words sung about sadness in the popular worship songs. They can look at the lyrics and listen to the songs and reach the first conclusion that is reached in this paper. The second conclusion reached in this paper will add further layers of meaning to that answer, as sadness is treated in a redemptive manner which creates an over-generalized and over-promised understanding of sadness. The second purpose of the current research is to provide avenues for further research, taking the information provided into the embodied practices of congregations.

2. Examining the Lexical Meanings of the Top Sung Songs

An analysis of the lyrical content of the songs that have been tracked by Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) from 1988 to 2018, shows there is a definition of the Christian life that is set before the church and in turn sung by it. The word “joy” appears 37 times and the word “praise” is used 152 times in the 133 songs that comprise the contemporary praise and worship hymnody in the defined time period (Ruth and Hong 2021). In the same time frame, the word sad or any of its derivatives (sadly, sadness, etc.) never occurs in the group of songs that are being discussed. Nor is the word “sorrow” ever used. There are two conclusions that can be drawn from the lack of the use of the word sad. The first is that sadness is not sung of proportionally to the times that happiness is sung. The second conclusion is that the word “sad” is not a good song word, meaning that it is awkward to sing and fit in the rhythm or meter of a song. The word “sad” may also be considered poetically improper, as it is banal and has a rich history of metaphors standing in place of the word. Thus, instead of sticking to merely the word sad, words were considered that may fit the poetic and metaphorical conveyance.1 The first conclusion relates to the lexical value of a word and the second to the semantic value.

The lexical value of the word is its standard dictionary definition without any context or connotations added. The semantic value brings in the contextual and cultural connotations along with, in the case of music, listening to the way a word or phrase is sung and how the music surrounding it sounds (Cf. Begbie 2013). Extracting the lexical meaning in the songs is simple. I compiled the lyrics of the songs and counted the number of times the words that are being looked for are found. There is meaning to be found in such work as it shows how many times certain words are sung inside of a singular song and the complete collection of songs. Baker (2022, p. 225), in her dissertation on contemporary praise and worship music, interviewed Ross Fishburn, the former director of The Worship Initiative, who said that the artists are protective of the lyrics of the song but “did not care as much about the… arrangement and instrumentation”. This means that as other artists cover the songs or churches perform the songs, the lyrics should be the same regardless of context. A notable exception is David Crowder’s recording of McMillan (2009) “How He Loves” where Crowder replaced a phrase with McMillian’s permission. I used the original artist’s lyrics as provided through CCLI due to the consistency of recorded and performed versions of the song.

Looking at the original lyrics can show the lack or over-abundance of words that convey joy or sadness in the songs. For example, the songs “Forever” and “Great Are You Lord” have the congregation singing the word praise 18 times (Tomlin 2001; All Sons & Daughters 2014). “Forever” has 193 words, of which “praise” accounts for 9% of those words. “Great are You Lord” has the word “praise” accounting for 6% of its 276 words. The words “happy” and “joy” are used 6 and 37 times, respectively while the words sad, sorrow, or grief are never used, and weep and mourn are both used once. There are 81 words that convey sadness in the 133 songs analyzed while there are 983 words that convey happiness\joy in the same songs. The words praise (152), life (174), and love (332) are singularly used more times than all the words combined that convey sadness. Bless (60), day (62), and hallelujah (72) are close to the combined number of words that convey sadness. There is a discrepancy shown in the words used, as the number of occurrences of the words that convey sadness occupy less than a percent of the words in the songs they are used in.

The examination of the lexical meanings of the songs is short by necessity as it cannot tell the whole musical or theological story. Are the uses of the words “sad” and “sorrow” framing these concepts as a theologically negative concept? Are the songs teaching that sadness should be avoided? Is the word “joy” being used too often? Is it creating a theological dichotomy between sadness and joy with joy over and against sadness? What about the music in the songs, do they factor into how the words are employed? Does the music add meaning to the words? The questions here are asking about a deeper meaning than the data can provide. It is easier to say that the complete lack of the words “sad” or “sorrow” is problematic, but a deeper level of analysis needs to be undertaken.

3. The Semantic Meanings of the Top Sung Songs

3.1. Defining Semantic Meanings

The semantic meaning of a song opens the world of the song and shows the culture and context that congregations perform and understand it in. The question shifts from what the words in the song mean to what the combination of the words and the music and the cultural connotations of both mean. Jeremy Begbie argues that “the organization of perceptible sound patterns in music lends it particular capabilities just as it participates in meaning construction in a multimedia mix, and (we might note) in ways that can be highly instructive theologically” (Ibid., p. 193). I want to find out how the music participates, with and separately from the words, in the construction of the theology of the songs sung in churches. I want to see if there is a “faithful and fruitful ‘indwelling’ of existing theological language” (Ibid., p. 203) in the songs sung.

To understand how the language of sadness and joy are used in the songs, the context of the song needs to be examined. The meaning of a text changes due to how it is voiced and the context in which it is vocalized. The philosopher Wittgenstein (1973, p. 2) describes a builder calling out to their worker “slab!” Even if one was just passing by, they might know what the word slab means lexically, but they might not understand the semantic nuances that accompany the word. Is the builder pointing to a slab and naming it? Are they requesting a slab to be brought to them? And if they are requesting a slab, are they asking the worker or the passerby to bring it to them? The word slab needs more context. Similarly, imagine reading a message from a loved one that simply says, “Call me”. If you read it in one way, it conveys panic. If you read it in a monotone manner, it simply conveys that you need to call the person. The meaning changes depending on how you read it, and the authorial intent is hidden behind a layer of meaning that is difficult to penetrate. That difficult to penetrate layer is what the following examination is trying to get under. By looking at the various levels that account for perceptions of emotions in songs, one can understand the emotional content of the songs sung. By holding the singer’s perspective as shaped by the whole song in harmony with the authorial intent, the way that the song is perceived becomes more evident and the perceived emotional content of the songs can be commented on.

I want to make sure that the whole song is understood as best as possible thus I will be examining three additional parts of the songs on top of the lyrics. First, I will look at the key of a song and see if the worship songs in the minor key are sad and if the songs in the major key are joyful. Then, I will look at the tempo of songs to see if the slow songs are sad and if the fast songs are joyful. Lastly, I want to understand how people entrain both bodily and spiritually to songs. In the end, these factors will be considered to see if the songs sung in the churches are over-promising joy and under-promising sadness.

3.2. If Minor Key Songs Are Sad, Are There Any Sad Songs in the Top Sung Songs?

In the United States, there is a strong tendency to hear minor songs as songs that convey sadness on the semantic level. Simone Dalla Bella, a researcher in the psychology of music, writes that “happiness… are the most reliable and distinguishable musically expressed major structural determinants of the happy-sad distinction are well identified. They go on to define tempo as the basic musical mechanisms that evoke and bring about connotations of happiness and sadness. They set up experiments where they played music, modifying tempo and major\minor modes while asking the listeners “to judge whether each excerpt sounded happy or sad” (Dalla Bella et al. 2001, p. B3). The “results showed that both tempo and mode manipulations affected judgments” (Ibid.). The study found that the youngest children participating (5-year old’s) are more sensitive to tempo changes when judging whether a song is happy or sad. In older children (6–8 year old’s), tempo and mode changes had the same weight, while in adults, “mode change had even a larger impact than tempo change” (Ibid., p. B8). Gerardi and Gerken (1995), who ran a similar study, found that “it is possible the ability to associate particular contours with emotion is one that is learned with exposure to cultural norms”. They note that “the 8-year olds’ positive responses to major melodies may stem from the fact that most songs for children are in a major mode” and that “children can be presumed to have greater experience with major melodies” (Ibid.). They continue, “by adulthood, responses to major melodies become even more positive, and responses to minor melodies are no longer neutral, but move well into the negative range” (Ibid.). There is a culture training present in how emotions are understood to be represented in music. A major modality is taught, due to the context, to be happy, as is a song with an ascending pitch and contour. Often the context is music produced and marketed directly to children or music that accompanies other media such as movies and television shows directed towards children.

Moving into the world of contemporary praise and worship music, the singer\songwriter Redman (2011) looks forward to living in a heaven where the minor key is forgotten. Redman’s lyric raises the question, if the minor key disappears in Heaven, should it be used on Earth? Redman is seemingly drawing on the idea that there will be no tears or sorrow in Heaven and if one stops there, the line is not problematic. If, on the other hand, one takes the line to espouse the idea that an idealized worship in Heaven is devoid of singing sad songs in the minor key then the question of voicing sorrows and tears in worship on earth is a valid question. In 2014, the pastor, theologian, and songwriter Packiam (2014) asked the question “How many minor keys are we singing in?” Packiam’s question was trying to lead him to an answer about how many songs in the church convey sadness. In the United States, there is a strong tendency to hear minor songs as songs that convey sadness on the semantic level. 8 of the 104 songs that Packiam lists have a chorus or a verse that starts with a minor chord, with only one of them being in a minor key. All 8 of the songs appear on the current list being examined, giving a baseline to start from. Sticking with Packiam’s analysis, if major chords convey feelings of happiness and joy, then 96 songs convey happiness and or joy. Factoring in the four years of songs between 2014 and 2018, the list of minor songs expands to 14.

One must not be hasty to draw conclusions from the presence of minor chords. A minor key does not cause a song to be sad, it merely marks that the song can be sad. By examining the lyrics of the songs that have minor modes, the emotional content can be further understood in a way that examining either in isolation from each other cannot give insight into. Looking at the songs being analyzed; some songs utilize minor chords for other reasons than expressing sadness. For example, Mullins’s (1988) Awesome God has three instances of minor chords in the song, one at the beginning of the verse, one at the end of the verse, and the last at the end of the chorus. The minor chords at these points in the song give the song some heft and weight, grounding the song in a seriousness and lending a sense of majesty to the music that compliments the lyrical theme of the song. Other songs in the list that use the minor key use the key to create a contemplative and somber mood in the singer. Maranatha!’s As the Deer uses the minor key to affect a sense of yearning and longing that is hopeful (Maranatha! Singers 1984). Naida Heam’s Jesus Name Above All Names uses the minor key to facilitate a sense of reverence for the name of Jesus (Maranatha! Singers 1974). The minor key used in the chorus of Whom Shall I Fear (God of the Angel Armies) by Tomlin (2013) is meant to promote a sense of closeness between God and the singer when combined with the lyrics.

Taking the lyrics into account with the songs in the major key, it is found that they follow the trend for major keys to be happy. When there is a lyrical phrase that suggests sadness, in a major key, God is being praised for removing that sadness. Passion’s Glorious Day (2017), which sings of darkness six times, frames that darkness as recessing, due to God calling the singer out of the darkness and into the light. The same general lyrical motif is made in Hillsong Worship’s Cornerstone (Chapel 2012) where the singer affirms that Christ is Lord in the storm and holds the singer to the truth that Christ’s grace is always holding fast. In both songs, which are in the major key and use the most words that have sad connotations, are not using the words or musical mode to evoke sadness. Rather, the sad words that are sung are utilized to fuel the praise that the next lines have the singers proclaim. These songs point to an over-generalization and under-promising of sadness as they move the singer from sadness to joy quickly while correlating sadness with sin. Based on the minor\major key distinction alone, the conclusion is drawn that the songs sung in the top 25 as reported by the CCLI skew towards conveying a happy or light feeling due to the majority usage of the major mode. Bringing together the major\minor chord distinction with the lyrical analysis, it is seen that the minor mode being present does not mean that the song is meant to evoke sadness in the songs. In contemporary praise and worship, a minor mode is more likely to be an indication of reverence being present or being worked towards in the song than it means that sadness is present. The fact that the minor key is always used in parts of a song and then transitions into a major key show that the songs (music and lyrics) are composed to bring the singer through sadness and into a state of joy.

Moving outside of the world of contemporary praise and worship music, theologian Anderson (2019) argues that Bach’s Mass in B Minor tells the church that “Christ’s departure from the world frees the Christian to be sad”. Anderson argues that Bach has the ascension of Christ being a moment of sadness for the Church, for Christ has left the world while humanity still inhabits a place where sorrow and grief exist (Ibid.). Anderson writes, “It is almost as though Bach understood what we have forgotten: endless joy is an impossibility, a burden that in our fallen humanity we are not strong enough to carry” (Ibid.). It is easy to forget that the moments of joy in the Scriptures are surrounded by sadness. Christ cried in the garden, his followers cried at the foot of the cross and in the upper room and continued to feel sadness after Christ ascended. It is because the events of joy linked with salvation are enveloped by profound sadness that “we are free to sing the songs of Christ’s redemption in a minor key—we are free to be sad” (Ibid.). Anderson is arguing that to ignore the minor key and the sadness it conveys is to place a heavy burden upon oneself where they must pretend that life is always joyful, cheerful, and happy. The minor key adds emotional depth and dimension to the worship of the church as it helps tell the whole redemptive story.

If the minor key creates a mood of sadness in the singer, it must be concluded that the church does not regularly sing songs that reflect the feelings of sadness. There are only ten songs out of 133 songs that have minor keys, leaving 123 songs in the major key. The minor key motifs are often transitioned quickly into a major key. Since there are no songs that allow the singer to express sadness in the lyrics of the song nor in the key that the song is sung in, does the emotional conveyance of the songs change when tempo is added into the mix?

3.3. If Slow Tempo Songs Are Sad, Are There Any Sad Songs in the Top Sung Songs?

Dalla Bella et al. (2001) point those researching music and emotion to examine “more indirect behavioral measures” to ascertain if the ones engaged with the musical piece are feeling a certain way rather than only looking at the lyrics and mode of the song. One must consider how one moves to a song, called entrainment, changes based on tempo and feeling of the song and the research can use them to know how people feel about the emotional content of the music. Certain musical tempos are more conducive to standing still, swaying back and forth, or vigorous dance. How one feels the tempo and beat of a song ties directly into how one feels the emotion of a song. Yet, conveying sadness is not the only reason for a song to be sad. In Christian contemporary praise and worship music, the other reason songs are slow is to give a feeling of reverence. There is a connection between slow leading to contemplation and intimacy in the music wherein the lyrics to the faster songs focus on celebration and action.

Using the original recordings of the songs that are present on the list, there are sixty songs in the Andante tempo, around 70–80 beats per minute (bpm). Eighty-nine of the songs are under 80 bpm, which leaves forty-four songs at a tempo faster than 80 bpm. Hillsong Young & Free (2013)’s Alive and Jesus Culture’s (2008) Happy Day are the most up-tempo songs at 132 bpm, with Hillsong’s Oceans slightly slower at 130 bpm. Baloche (1998)’s Open the Eyes of My Heart is the most downtempo at 58 bpm. Even with a large gap in beats per minute between the fastest and slowest songs, the average tempo of the songs is 79 bpm which is slow to mid-tempo, around the tempo that one would call it a ballad. Baker (2022, p. 114) found that “the average of all the tempos is 79.895 bpm” and that “only one song with a bpm of 120+ was written after 2010, and six songs with a bpm of 100+ were written after 2010”. She concludes that there is “a small decline in up-tempo songs written since 2010” (Ibid.) and that “writing songs with slower tempos has become the prevailing practice for chart-topping CWS”(Ibid., p. 116). Baker’s insight shows that there is a trend to write slower songs, even if the slower songs still “contain driving lead lines and strong drum grooves that push the song forward”(Ibid., p. 115). The slower songs should not then be seen always as contemplative as they can contain the driving rhythms that the faster songs contain.

There is a question, however, of what version of the song is the definitive version. I have chosen to list the original recording by the original artist, but that may not be the version of the song that worship leaders are playing in church. The song leaders or band may have a favorite rendition by another artist than the original. Maranatha! Singers’ Lord (Maranatha! Singers 1989), I Lift Your Name on High, which has been ranked in the CCLI top ten thirty-seven times and the number one song fifteen times which is the most for both categories, has been recorded by Paul Baloche, Petra, Lincoln Brewster, Shane & Shane, Sonicflood, Hillsong, and many other recognizable names in the genre. Baker (2022, p. 273), in her research, asked worship leaders how they selected the version of the song that they use in corporate worship. Her survey reported that “37% of worship directors indicated that they start with a recording but usually make a few adjustments”. Baker also found that some, “instead of trying to alter a high-energy version of a popular worship song” will find a slower version that another artist already released and follow the slower version (Ibid., p. 275).The worship leader Baker interviewed stated that they try to find slower versions of songs for the “softer moments” of the service, such as times when the congregation is “encouraged to go to the front of the stage to pray” (Ibid.). The alteration of the tempo then alters the feel of the song, and changes where in the service the song is placed.

Inside of these different versions, there are tempo differences which present a unique experience of the song. If worship leaders slowed down a song to Adagio (55–65 bpm), the singer could feel the song as more pensive and reverent, as a way for the singer to think over the praise happening in the song. If the performers sped up the song to Allegro (109–32 bpm) it would have a bright and fast feeling, transforming the affirmations of praise into shouts of joy. The same non-uniformity is likely to happen when the songs are performed in the worship service or liturgy. The one planning or leading worship can decide the tempo of a song to suit the mood that they are trying to convey at that moment in the rhythm of the service. Slowing down a praise song can make the lyrics seem more intimately sung than joyfully shouted, while speeding up a slow song can change the feel of the lyrics, taking the feel from contemplative praise to boisterous praise. There are no indications that slowing the tempo will change the song from joyous to sorrowful as the lyrics and key do not change. The whole song needs to conform to itself, and the listener needs to understand the song as a unity and more than one variable would need to change to make the song move from joyous to sad.

3.4. Rhythmic and Emotional Entrainment

One can take an analysis of tempo further and observe how people entrain to the songs. Entrainment is how people feel the music and how they express that feeling through moving. Entrainment can be a subtle sway, the tapping of the foot or the hands to the beat, practiced or spontaneous dancing, or any other way of moving. The way someone moves to the music can grant insight into how the music is making them feel. To analyze entrainment, it would require observation\participation which is outside of the scope of this paper. Thankfully, others have made comments from their observation\participant that are helpful in answering the questions I am asking about contemporary praise and worship music. Myrick (2017), in his work on entrainment and Christian worship experiences, notes that during his field studies, he would see the crowd start to sway between songs and without music at roughly 70–73 bpm. Myrick then noticed that when the next song started, the swaying synchronized to the beat of the song. What is important for Myrick is not the tempo that the crowd swayed in unison to but that the crowd showed that they “have been thoroughly enculturated to the activity of congregational singing”(Ibid., p. 86). Myrick has found that “it is the moments of entrainment within that familiar ritual context that provide the most profoundly meaningful experiences” (Ibid.). Myrick’s work suggests that it is not the lyrics, mode, or tempo that provides the emotional content of the song inside of contemporary praise and worship.

Collins (2005, p. 42), a cultural sociologist, argues that “occasions that combine a high degree of mutual focus of attention… together with a high degree of emotional entrainment… result in feelings of membership,: That is, when people come together to sing contemporary praise and worship songs, focused on the worship of the Christian God, they emotionally entrain to each other, “through bodily synchronization, mutual stimulation” (Ibid.) in the act of singing. As people sing together, they move together, and as they move together, they feel together. Collins states that “Where these moments have a high degree of focused awareness and a peak of shared emotion, these personal experiences… can be crystalized in personal symbols, and kept alive in symbolic replays for greater or lesser expanses of one’s life” (Ibid.). To understand the emotional context of the songs, if Collins is correct, as they are sung corporately, it is more important to understand the shared emotion of the congregation engaged in the singing rather than focusing on the emotional content of the song itself. The lyrics, mode, and tempo matter less than how the congregation tells other members in the congregation to feel. The telling can be explicit through the words used by the leaders or implicit through the bodily movements, postures, and gestures that accompany the songs.

Musical scholar Becker’s study (Becker 2004) on emotion in music is helpful here. Their study is on the “emotions aroused in deep listeners or performers, not necessarily those (emotions) the listener believes are expressed by the music” (Ibid., pp. 51–52.). Becker is drawing a distinction between what emotion the songwriter wants the song to express through lyrics, mode, and tempo and what emotion the ones participating in musicking are finding (Small 1998). Becker (2004, p. 52) argues that those who find themselves trancing with the music, being taken in and over by the music, are usually finding “high-energy, high-arousal emotions” such as “joy, fear, and rage”. Becker contends that “musical emotions tend to be positive” (Ibid.) focusing on joy and happiness rather than sadness or sorrow, as sadness is categorized as a “low arousal and unpleasant emotion” (Ibid., p. 54.). Becker is being read here as saying that those who sing deeply will embody the songs that they consider to be capable of producing happiness and joy. The lyrics, mode, and tempo still do not matter as much, as the singer(s) provides the emotional content.

Returning to Myrick’s observations (Myrick 2017, p. 90) of worship at a youth conference, one can see the practical implementation of what Collins is discussing. Myrick argues that there are multiple factors to understand “the generation of emotional meaning in ritual practice”. One of the factors is “the posture, dress, and gestures of worship leaders”. The leaders give a visual cue to how the singers should feel while singing the song. If their posture is relaxed, clothing is casual, and gestures are open, the worshippers joining in are being told to engage in a manner that is open and relaxed. Second, the relationship between the worship leader and the worshipper’s matter. The more comfortable and familiar the worshippers are with the worship leaders, the more likely they are to entrain to the emotional context that the song and the leaders are creating.

Pulling in Dalla Bella and her fellow researchers concluding remarks, there are a couple of interesting recommendations for further study that should help shape the way that people thinking about contemporary praise and worship music think about how the songs (Dalla Bella et al. 2001, p. B9). Dalla Bella and the team of researchers wondered if people pick up on the mood of a song more easily if they are already familiar with the song and the context of the song. It is easier to find oneself trancing, which is Becker’s term for embodying and embracing the power of the song, if one is familiar with the song. Myrick, bringing Becker into the context of contemporary praise and worship studies, states that “the experiences of such ritual practices become connected to one another, and when an aspect of powerful ritual experience in the past is indexed by a later ritual experience, the second may then possess greater emotional efficacy” (Ibid., p. 87). The efficacy will continue to grow as the ritual singing of both contemporary praise and worship songs in general and specific songs are sung.

The research done by others points to entrainment occurring in moments of either joy or reverence (or both happening simultaneously) and that entrainment occurs within a framework of familiarity. The examination of entrainment points to there not being songs of sadness in the church, but an ethnomusicologist needs to do more study. It is unlikely though that songs that do not have a mode or tempo or lyrics that convey sadness would make someone move or move someone in a way is connected to expressing sadness. The songs sung in the church are variations on the theme of joy. I trust that an ethnomusicological study around entrainment would confirm that. Monique Ingalls’ ethnomusicological work on contemporary praise and worship music is informative as she describes a 2007 Chris Tomlin concert. She observed that during the higher tempo songs, “nearly all participants join in enthusiastically with the worship songs, often raising their hands toward the ceiling as they sway or jump in time to the music” (Ingalls 2018, p. 2). Ingalls describes the entrainment naturally occurring during the up-tempo songs and then states that “as the final song of the concert begins… the mood becomes hushed and reverent”. Tomlin starts playing “a slow-tempo worship ballad” which changes the interaction between the concert goers and the music. The song Tomlin plays, “How Great Is our God” (Tomlin 2004) has been in the top twenty-five sung songs in the church twenty-eight times since its release in 2004. Nine of those times it was the most sung song according to the CCLI, including in the era Ingalls is describing. The slowing of the tempo (along with the dimming of the lights) created a feeling of reverence that is singing the praises of God in a different emotional space than the previous songs, yet it is still a joyful space. Ingalls describes a more subdued feeling in the space that would feel out of place to call “sad”.

Ingalls describes a similar experience at a Tim Hughes concert, where “participants… are singing animatedly and raising their hands” (Ibid., p. 39) during the more up-tempo songs while the mood shifts when Hughes switches to a down-tempo worship song, Matt Redman’s “The Heart of Worship”, which has a tempo of 72 bpm, approximately the same as Tomlin’s song referenced above. Again, with the way Ingalls describes the scene, it would be odd to assign “sad” as a feeling or mood that is the crowd is expressing. The posture, gestures, and general vibe of the congregation would suggest reverence and adoration, forms of praise accompanied with joy instead of sadness or sorrow.

The musicologists Peter Althouse and Michael Wilkinson describe charismatic worship at Catch the Fire Toronto as a “two-stage progression” which “begins with fast-paced music to encourage praise through bodily excitement, accelerating until it reaches a crescendo, and then quiets down in a calming manner for worship” (Althouse and Wilkinson 2015, pg. 30). Althouse and Wilkinson are again describing a scene similar to those that Ingalls discusses. With the down-tempo songs, people stop dancing and slow their bodily movements, as the “swaying and dancing and the body’s natural rhythm of breathing are attuned to the music and to other bodies as emotional entrainment is produced, expressed, and stored”. Their field interviews reveal that it is in the time where the tempo slows and the music grows quieter that people feel to be intimately in God’s presence. (Ibid., pg. 39.) Although they are describing the sound dynamics along with the tempo change in the worship service, their work points to the mood being akin to closeness and not a description of sadness. Borrowing their research to help form a conclusion about the rhythmic and emotional entrainment that occurs during worship, it makes sense to conclude that the congregation is not emotionally entraining to sadness in the singing of contemporary praise and worship music.

4. Major Keyed and Mid-Tempo Musicking

In trying to understand how songs invite those musicking into feeling an emotion, I examined a four key factors. The first factor is the lexical, as it is the text\lyrics itself. The text can give cues but the tone of how a song sings a word can determine meaning. Thus, I focused on whether the songs are in a major or minor key, as the key provides something akin to a tone of voice. I found there that even though there are songs in the contemporary praise and worship repertoire that are in the minor key, the key coupled with the lyrics provided an insight that the primary emotion expressed was not sadness. I then wondered if the tempo of a song mattered, thinking that the slower a song is, the more likely the song would be sad. However, the songs usually used tempo to modulate whether the praise and joy expressed was more reverent and formal or more spontaneous and boisterous.

Taking the lyrics into account with the songs in the major key, it is found that they follow the trend for major keys to be happy. When there is a lyrical phrase that suggests sadness, in a major key, God is being praised for removing that sadness. Passion’s Glorious Day (Passion 2017), which sings of darkness six times, frames that darkness as recessing, due to God calling the singer out of the darkness and into the light. The same general lyrical motif is made in Hillsong Worship’s Cornerstone (Chapel 2012),where the singer affirms that Christ is Lord in the storm and holds the singer to the truth that Christ’s grace is always holding fast. In both songs, which are in the major key and use the most words that have sad connotations, are not using the words or musical mode to evoke sadness. Rather, the sad words that are sung are utilized to fuel the praise that the next lines have the singers proclaim.

Based on the minor\major key distinction alone, the conclusion is drawn that the songs sung in the top 25 as reported by the CCLI skew towards conveying a happy or light feeling due to the majority usage of the major mode. Bringing together the major\minor chord distinction with the lyrical analysis, it is seen that the minor mode being present does not mean that the song is meant to evoke sadness in the songs. In contemporary praise and worship, a minor mode is more likely to be an indication of reverence being present or being worked towards in the song than it means that sadness is present. The fact that the minor key is always used in parts of a song and then transitions into a major key show that the songs (music and lyrics) are composed to bring the singer through sadness and into a state of joy.

From tempo and key, I asked if the way one moves to the music offers a clue to the emotional content of a song. In lieu of participation and observation for data, I turned to the research of others to and gave a start of an answer. I found that emotions in the songs are not in the song itself but in the emotional context of the song. Through the work of Myrick, Collins, and Becker I put forth that the leaders of the song, the singer’s familiarity and comfort with the song, and the energy that the song lived in determined the emotions that the singers felt. As the researchers reported, the participants reported that they felt a sense of joy and praise during the song and the researchers reported no feelings of sadness during the events they reported on.

The lexical and semantic analysis leads to a conclusion that there are more songs of joy than songs of sadness. Out of the 133 songs that I analyzed, spanning 30 years of church worship, there was not a single song that had a semantic meaning of sadness. There were songs that had words that might mean sad things in them, that were in the minor key, and that were slow. The analysis showed that when you listen to the song, putting together all the layers of meaning, there was not a song that was sad. The mode, tempo, and entrainment associated with the songs whether it is fast or slow, major or minor, dancing or standing still, convey joy.

5. Do the Songs Sung in the American Protestant Churches Under-Promise Sadness and Over-Promise Joy?

After listening to and analyzing the songs in the CCLI Top 25, the question of whether or not joy is over-promised, or sadness is under-promised in the worship of the church can be answered. The songs themselves have said that joy is valued over sadness, however sadness is not absent. It is my contention that the songs present sadness as a part of the journey to joy and as such, sadness is made to be redemptive. Redemptive sadness works by over-generalizing sadness as sin, under-promising sadness after salvation, and over-promising joy in the Christian life.

5.1. Over-Generalizing Sadness

Writing on Pentecostal worship music, McCoy (2015, p. 45) argues that “Pentecostal theology is showing signs of renewed interest in issues of human suffering and the expression of suffering through lament”. He is writing to affirm that there is a recognition of suffering in Pentecostal worship, even though “emerging scholarship tends to note the lack of suffering expressed in Pentecostal liturgical practice” and that this “lack… had not always gone unnoticed by those who write and perform Pentecostal music, as it has grown increasingly influential on much Christian worship throughout the world” (Ibid.). What McCoy writes here helps confirm what the research has said, which is that the songs sung in churches lack the voicing of sadness. That is, they are devoid of moments to allow the singers to indwell, embody, and emotionally entrain with sadness.

Against that statement, McCoy writes that “for much of Pentecostalism… worship of God amid suffering remains a crucial, if not the crucial means of dealing with the persistence of suffering” (Ibid., 53) Pentecostal worship, according to McCoy, serves “to facilitate experiences of God’s response to suffering, even while healing is in process or when harsh realities of everyday life remain”(Ibid.). McCoy quotes other researchers who describe the voicing of sadness in Pentecostal worship in order for sadness and the suffering that caused it to be removed by God’s mercy and grace (Ibid.) showing that there is a difference in definition happening. There is a hope for a relational event to be given in the singing of songs, where the faith of the singer and the grace of God meet. The possibility of an encounter with God can “make the context for confession and repentance all the more joyful” (Ibid.). The singers desire for joy then subsumes their voicing of sadness. Further, the equating of sadness to confession and repentance of sin over-generalizes sadness.

McCoy writes that the “common Pentecostal modes of response to suffering through worship” are “confrontation with evil, confession and repentance of sin, and affirmation of faith amid suffering” (Ibid., pp. 45–46). “Throughout Christian Scripture and tradition” (Ibid.) these principles are found, and I am not arguing against them. What I am arguing against is only seeing suffering and sadness through the lens of evil and sin. There is a presumption of prelapsarian perfectionism that equates sin and sadness (Cf. Ricoeur 1986). The presupposition states that if something causes me to be sad and\or suffering, then the one feeling sad must link their sadness to sin, as sadness and suffering did not exist until sin entered the world. If the singer links sadness to sin, then the existence of sin must be the cause of their sadness. Since the existence of sin is the cause, I should sorrow over that instead of the particular instance that first caused me to think about being sad. If worship follows the previous logic, the particular instances of sadness cannot be lived through. Instead of mourning the death of a loved one, I have to mourn the existence of Death due to Sin being in the world.

None of the songs in the list explicitly connect sin to sadness in the above manner. However, all the words used by the songwriters to convey sadness convey sin. It shows up in Passion’s “Glorious Day” (Passion 2017), where the first line has the singer express sadness over the shame they felt for their sin, Jesus Culture’s (2012) “Holy Spirit” that has almost an identical line, Tim Hughes’ (2007) “Happy Day” where pain is said to cease due to Christ’s conquering of sin, Baloche’s (2006) “Hosanna (Praise is Rising)” sings that all fear has been removed after salvation. The list of songs that follow the trope of Christ removing sadness when removing sin, thus equating, or at least correlating the two, continues throughout the CCLI Top 25. Ethnomusicologist would need to confirm that the singers are making the connection while the prevalence of connections in the lyrics makes it likely that the singers are connecting the two.

The diversity of words in the songs in the CCLI Top 25 that are meant to convey sadness also point to the over-generalization of sadness. The songwriters use words like lost, storm, desert, night, dark, and alone to signify sadness. These words are rich metaphors for a feeling of sadness but do not ground the feelings into a particular lived experience. For example, Redman’s (2002) “Blessed Be Your Name” has the congregation sing about being in the desert and the wilderness yet the songwriter does not define what these words mean, which has the disadvantage of being over-generalized but fits with the way the songwriter uses poetic language in the song. The vagueness can help the singer insert what they are feeling into the song avoiding being too particular. To have a congregation sing a song that mourns the loss of a job or a loved one for one member seems too particular for a worship service. By going particular, even in the theme of the service, the congregation can mourn with the one who is mourning and bear their burden with them.

An example of the particularness of a worship service are the Blue Christmas services which have emerged where those who are mourning and find the Christmas season to be a time of sadness and not joy can gather and lament together over shared experiences. Kan (2001) suggests that worship leaders “cannot, of course, plan for each and every individual case, but if we are privileged to know some background stories, we can make appropriate decisions in advance” to avoid language that is harmful and to speak into the particular life circumstances of the congregants. It is important to not sing songs that extol the virtues of parenthood to those who just suffered a miscarriage or learned about their infertility. It is equally important to speak into the pain, acknowledge the struggle, and provide a language to speak in sadness. Kan names that communal singing of the emotions “can provide an encounter with our own reality” while also encountering the reality of those others who are singing (Ibid., p. 6). Singing songs that open space for sadness, vulnerability, and lament communally creates a congregation that is empathetic and connected in a way that knows the whole person. Instead of only knowing the celebrations occurring in the church, the particular sadness’s in the congregation can be made known through the songs sung.

Sadness, instead of being associated with particular instances of loss or frustration, is equated with sin in the worship of the church. The connection can convey the sense that sadness is an evil or unwanted emotion in the Christian life. The generalization of sadness then underscores the biblical witness of lament, the voicing of sadness, which occurs throughout the whole narrative. Due to the richness and vastness of biblical expressions, there are verses that give voice to every particular circumstance. The book of Genesis has God expressing sadness that Adam is alone while Jesus expressed loneliness in the Garden. Sarai and Hannah expressed sadness at their infertility, Rachel at the death of her children, Jeremiah at the loss of the city, and the list continues. The songs of the church need to reflect the situated way the scriptures present sadness as part of life and not connected directly to sin. The stories above do not fault the people for feeling sadness over their circumstances, rather the stories present a way to express sadness in a genuine faithful manner.

5.2. Under-Promising Sadness

The overgeneralization of sadness leads to an under-promising of sadness in the Christian life. In the acts of justification and sanctification, the songs present sadness as something for Christ to remove due to the connection of sadness and sin. The thought that Christians should remove sadness from the Christian life is present in the songs that the church sings. In the analysis of the Top 25 songs, I found that none of the songs had a pervasive and sustained sadness or conveyed sadness as the primary emotion of the song. There were hints at sadness, such as the songs that had a minor mode or a slow tempo, but those continued to be songs of praise as was found in the lyrical content. It is relevant to say that there are a total of 983 words used to convey joy or happiness in the songs while there are only 81 instances of words used to convey sadness in the songs. The most used word to convey happiness\joy, ‘love’, is used 332 times while the most used word to convey sadness, ‘dark’, is only used 14 times.

What might prove to be more indicative of the under-promising of sadness is that of the 206 words that may convey sadness, only eighty-one lean towards connoting sadness. The word ‘cry’ is used twenty-five times with zero instances of conveying sadness, as all the instances are references to speaking loudly and forcefully. The word ‘alone’ is similar, with only one use to convey sadness while occurring forty-two times, as it usually is confessing faith in Christ alone. The words the singers give voice do not convey sadness, and as such it can seem that sadness is not part of the Christian life because it is not part of Christian worship.

The times that sadness is present in the lyrics, it is there in a functional way. Sadness occurs in the songs to remind the singer about their past and to make their present feel more joyful. North Point Worship’s (2018) “Death Was Arrested” illustrates the phenomenon well. The song starts with singing about how the singer was alone and sorrowful, dead due to their sin, and lost without hope or a starting place, orphaned, and mourning and then when Christ granted grace and mercy, Christ transformed sadness into joy. The singer is now with, alive in, released by, found in, belonging to Christ which produces joy. The songs present sadness as being in the past, connected to sin, and removed by Christ’s mercy and grace. Implicit in the structure is the idea that sadness, due to it being connected to sin, is removed and has no place in the Christian life. Hillsong’s “Alive”, Chris Tomlin’s “Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) (Hillsong Young & Free 2013), Kari Jobe’s (2014) “Forever (We Sing Hallelujah), Passion’s (2017) “Glorious Day”, Bethel’s “No Longer Slaves” (Bethel Music 2015), Elevation’s “O Come to the Altar”(Elevation Worship 2016), and all of the songs that have words of sadness in them follow the same pattern. They all start with the singer giving voice to the fact that they were once in a state of shame and sorrow and then that Christ removed shame and sadness. Usually by the second verse or chorus, the singer is now singing about the joy that Christ has now granted them, leaving the sadness in the past.

Songs that follow the pattern described above under-promise sadness in the Christian life. Or to put it more abruptly, they sing as if sadness will never be part of the life of those who follow Christ. Other songs sing that there are failures in the life of the Christian, however Christ’s mercy and the joy of the Lord is always there. There is no need to feel or dwell in sadness. Again, that line of thought connects failure to sin and connects sin and sadness by juxtaposing success and joy with it. The issue is that such an attitude towards sadness is not found in Scripture. O’Connor (2015), in her work on the book of Lamentations, writes that “for readers who begin from a place of suffering, Lamentations is a book of comfort … wherein readers recognize their lives, symbolically or more literally, and in that recognition, they are no longer alone in their pain”. She continues, “but for readers who live with denial… Lamentations makes difficult reading” because it brings “our despair into consciousness” which “would reveal our exhausted spirits, our broken communities, and our violent relationships at home and abroad”(Ibid., pp. 3–4). Like the book of Lamentations, the songs sung in the church can “help us see our pain, and, by reflecting it back to us, however indirectly, it has the potential to affirm our human dignity”(Ibid., pg. 9). Expressing the fullness of experience is to worship God with the whole heart. It is also indicative of a healthy relationship. Imagine not being able to share your sadness and sorrow with those closest to you. By holding back intimate feelings from loved ones, the relationship is not full and open.

Why do the songs sung in churches hold back sadness during worship? It is because they define worship in a way that is incompatible with sadness. O’Connor continues that “although laments appear disruptive of God’s world, they are acts of fidelity. In vulnerability and honesty, they cling obstinately to God and demand for God to see, hear, and act”. Expressing sadness in worship can feel the opposite of what O’Connor says lament does. The songs themselves define worship as the opposite of lament by presenting worship as properly being engaged out of a spirit of praise. Redman’s (2011) “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)” has the singer sing that they are worshiping because of God’s love, goodness, and renewal of the world, and in the same way Wickham’s (2018) “Great Things” highlights God’s faithfulness in conquering the grave. Both songs, as their titles imply, leave room for additional reasons to worship God while starting the singer with joyous reasons to worship. Mark’s (1997) “Days of Elijah” gives the reason God is worshiped because of God’s faithfulness shown through sacrificial love and Hughes’ (2001) “Here I am to Worship” names the reason one is to worship God is because God is wonderful to them. There is a different definition of worship in the songs, and they approach God in a separate way than lament does.

As hinted at in the opening paragraphs, there are songs that the church sings that are not in the current analysis and that is because the church does not report singing them as often as the songs I have been examining. There are churches that sing songs of sadness alongside songs of joy and there are sad songs in the hymnody of the Church. The issue is that the top sung songs, as reported by the CCLI, do not balance sadness and joy. Instead, they prioritize joy and only speak of sadness in a passing fashion, as if sadness is not meant to be part of the Christian life. The church instead of promising that Christians will encounter and have to dwell in sadness, it over-promises joy in the Christian life.

5.3. Over-Promising Joy

Joy is the dominant emotion in the songs sung in the church in the thirty-year period that I examined. The average song has a major key, a mid- to upbeat tempo and words that encourage praise and love. The words “joy”, “happy”, and “glad” are used in the songs sixty-nine times while there are 81 instances of words that may convey sadness used in the songs. Baker (2022, p. 246), in her research, reports that the vast majority of respondents to her survey “indicated that the lyrics” were “a reason that” a “song was their favorite”. Baker continues that respondents reported that the lyrics reflect the gospel (Ibid.) and that they experienced the gospel while singing the song (Ibid., p. 250). Others reported that they were reminded about God’s grace and their hope for eternity through the song (Ibid.). Baker writes that, “While not every song mentions Jesus’ sacrifice, it is notable that the reminders often referenced God’s character instead of his actions… the comfort the worshiper feels in God’s presence is related to His character” (Ibid., p. 251). Baker interprets the responses as being about God’s mercy and grace, and the respondents Baker quotes speak of joy and love in regard to the emotional content of the songs.

Joyful praise, according to these songs, is the default emotion that the church should feel as the worship songs of the church present emotion. If joy were the average or slightly main emotion, one could not say that joy is overpromised. The problem arises when the Christian finds that joy is more than the dominant emotion; it is the only emotion. For the time that the congregation participates in singing, joy is the only emotion and emotional response that the church is teaching is appropriate in the Christian life. Songs ought to sing of God’s mercy and grace while also giving opportunity to sing of the congregation’s sadness and sorrow.

Just as sadness is under-promised, joy is over-promised in worship. Joy is part of the Christian life, and the church should sing songs of joy. The church should be glad and rejoice in the wonderful things that God has done in their personal and communal lives. Joy is not, however, the only emotion in the Christian life. The over-emphasis on joy can make it difficult for members to worship if they are not feeling joyous. It may feel like to worship at church you have to be bursting with joy rather than being content or sad. It may feel like everyone is putting on a happy face for the time that they are singing. Worship that is emotionally one-dimensional can feel flat and inauthentic while also feeling discouraging and uninviting. One can also begin to doubt that their faith is authentic because they are not constantly experiencing the joy of the Lord in the way the worship presents it. They might wonder if they are singing songs of sadness instead of songs of joy in their heart if they are truly following Christ and belong in the church.

Joy is, along with being the default emotion, promised to be the only emotion that the Christian feels in these songs. As previously mentioned, the word “joy” is used 37 times in the songs, with another 32 mentions of “happy” or “glad”. These three words account for more usage than the words that can convey sadness combine for. I would suggest that the songs then promise that Christ will only give joy to the singers and that the singers should already be feeling that promised joy. Delirious?’s “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” encapsulates the promise and nowness of joy in one line when the singer sings that they will always be joyfully dancing just like they are already dancing now Delirious? (1994). Lanny Wolfe’s “Surely the Presence of the Lord” teaches that when one is in the presence of the Lord, their hearts will be overflowing with joy (Trio 1977). Darrell Evans’ (1998) “Trading My Sorrow” sings that during worship, the singers trade their sorrows for the joy of the Lord. Elevation Worship’s (2016) “O Come to the Altar” echoes Evans’ song, singing that at the altar sorrow is traded for joy. There are 30 years of songs that sing the idea of joy being the proper emotion to be present during worship. These same songs sing that Christ has, or is, removed sorrow from their lives.

These songs sing as if the Scriptures have promised the life of the Christian to be joyful, yet I am wondering if the biblical witness does promise a life of joy on this side of the Eschaton. The Psalmist sings that joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5) and is harvested (Ps. 126:5). Those two passages also sing that weeping comes at night and sows the seeds that joy is grown from. Psalm 126 sings of joy and weeping similarly, that “Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Ps. 125:5–6). The Psalmist does not sing that God will banish sorrow and sadness or that sadness will not be part of the singer’s life. Joy is a tempered promise balanced with the admission that sadness and sorrow are part of life. The song book of Scripture sings songs of sadness, lament, frustration, and doubt, while also singing songs of joy. The Psalmists promise joy and so do the songs that are in the CCLI Top 25. The issue is that the songs in the CCLI over-emphasize and over-promise joy by making the Christian life into a life that only has joy in it.

Pembroke (2010) writes that “it is not surprising, therefore, that most of our congregations fail to offer people an opportunity to lament. The psalms of lament hardly ever see the light of day. There is an unrelenting positive tonality in virtually all of our worship services. It doesn’t seem to occur to many worship leaders” that lament has a place in their liturgy. Because the worship space does not make room for the voicing of sadness, those who are experiencing sadness “feel cut off and disenfranchised because the message that they get is that their feelings are not acceptable—or at least not acceptable in this place” (Ibid.). It can be discouraging to walk into church and be greeted by up-tempo music (which most of the calls to worship are according to the research) and lyrics about feeling the joy of the Lord if the person does not feel that way. The reality that sadness is missing from a church that only sings songs of joy, like those that the CCLI top twenty-five represent.

The worship of the church “must also verbalize question, seeking, longing, fear, lament, not-understanding and woundedness” (Calitz 2017). Cilliers (2009) asks if the worship services can “also create spaces where we can lament over experiences of contingency, refusing to gloss over the conflict and suffering in this world (thus acknowledging that we are still in a process of ‘becoming’)” instead of being focused on joy. Cilliers continues that when there is no tension between celebration and lament, “celebration ironically enough becomes just another consumerist activity in a market-driven society in which weakness and failure, and therefore lament, can have no place” (Ibid.). Where there is only celebration being sung in the church, celebration and joy become the only concepts that the church wants to sing about. The congregation will feel like the church does not give them permission to lament or express sadness because the songs that they sing do not lament or express sadness.

6. Promising Joy and Sadness in the Worship of the Church

Throughout my current work, I have been leaning on other people’s work to give meaning to the research I performed, thus it makes sense that I continue to lean on others. Shannan Baker (2022, p. 275) ends her chapter recounting survey results with the thought that “the lyrics are the aspect of a song that resonates most with people. While the music and experience accompany the lyrics, a majority of people in the church gravitate toward a specific song because of its words and meaning”. Since music is not only what is sung but what is formative in belief (Wolterstorff 2018), churches need to be careful about how they are forming the beliefs and lives of their congregations. Baker continues that the CLLI Top 25 lists “acts more as a barometer for what the church is providing for people to sing than necessarily what worshippers are resonating with the most (Baker 2022, p. 277)”. It is possible that the congregations would resonate as much with the songs of sadness as they do with the songs of joy, but they are not given the opportunity to sing those songs. There are no opportunities to entrain with sadness emotionally and culturally through singing in the church that uses the CCLI’s top 25 songs as their hymnody. The congregants cannot learn how to move and feel with others who are in sadness or connect with their sadness in worship if it the church is not singing songs of sadness.

To correct the over and under-promising, my modest suggestion is that the church sings songs that are emotionally diverse so that those who are feeling emotions other than joy can have a voice and a language to express their emotions in. There are songwriters who are writing congregational songs that are undertaking the work currently. Songwriters have written and are writing songs that allow for the indwelling of sadness, but the churches are not singing these songs to the same degree as the songs that were examined here. The tradition of the church is ripe with songs that express sadness due to the practice of putting the Psalms to music, of singing during times of oppression, and of suffering loss. There are songs that express sadness in sacred music’s repertoire. The study above does not reflect the vast richness of songs the church sings. It makes no mention of the liturgical sacred songs of Paul Mealor, John McMillian, and other contemporary composers who give voice to sadness in their works. Nor does it speak of the gospel tradition of continuing to sing songs of lament corporately or the songs that are the radio or albums make available that express sadness such as the work of Wilhelm (2017), Cardiphonia (2020), The Porter’s Gate (2020), Bifrost Arts (2016), and more. The acoustic space that has I have written about here is only one part of the life of the church. It just happens to be the popular, well-documented part that is most heard. The songs that the church sings like these that allow for sadness to be lived in need to be re-discovered, re-tuned, and expanded upon. Until songs of sadness find their way into balanced rotation in worship, the acoustic spaces in a church will be filled with songs of joy while the hearts of parishioners will be silently singing songs of sadness.