“Holding me still, holding me near…”
September 21, 2006
Sarah and I were worshipping at a church where a friend is serving as a new pastor. The community was really wonderful and it was good to see where this friend serves and is setting down roots. During worship, we sang a song that I have led youth and adults in many a time, and as we were singing it, I began to see how truly horrible the song is. This song is everywhere and so this is not a comment on the church, but rather on the song itself. Many of you have probably led worship with this song and sung it yourself. Sorry Craig Musseau, but "Arms of Love" is bad. It really is.
Arms of Love
I sing a simple song of love
To my Savior, to my Jesus
I’m grateful for the things You’ve done
My loving Savior, oh precious JesusMy heart is glad that You called me Your own
There’s no place I’d rather beThan in Your arms of love
In Your arms of love
Holding me still, holding me near
In Your arms of love
If there is any song that perpetuates the "Jesus is my boyfriend"-gospel, this song would be it. Singing a cute little love song to Jesus? Oh my loving Jesus - my precious (I couldn’t get Gollum’s voice out of the back of my head during this song). And of course, there is no place I’d rather be - I want to be in your arms Jesus - I want you holding me close, holding me near…oh to feel your touch Jesus. Oh to feel your arms of love…
You get the point. Why do we sing this stuff in church? Why? Is it really because there is nothing else out there? Is it because we like the tune? Sure, I like the tune. But I can’t ever lead this song again. It’s really, really bad. And I’m not the only one out there who is a bit of a Christian music critic - check out the CCM Patrol.
Anyone else have a worship song that just grates against them whenever they hear it?
Posted in 
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
September 21st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
i’ve never liked the one that goes “in the secret, in the quiet place…i want to touch you…i want to know you more.” yick.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:37 pm
“Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, is intimate
I feel like moving to the rhythm of your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating, in our secret place
Spread wide in the arms of Christ, is the love that covers sin.
No greater love have I ever known; You considered me your friend.
Capture my heart again.”
in college chapel service, i’d never be able to stop laughing once they started with this song. it’s the intoxicating fragrance in our secret place that always gets me. gross.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:38 pm
That one that just goes on and on…”I could sing of your love forever.” Not so much because of the romantic implications as the fact that it just won’t get out of my head whenever I hear it.
Also there are a few songs that talk about God holding us next to his breast. I can’t name one of them off-hand but I can’t see how a teenager isn’t just going to have certain inappropriate images (in a place of worship) going through their head as they sing that.
September 21st, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Meghan,
Sounds like that old worship song I grew up with….
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there’s just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain.”
September 21st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
well…hm. i really love ‘arms of love.’ granted, part of that love is a nostalgic, ‘youth group was awesome’ kind of love, but i also still find the song really moving. and I admit that i’ve lead “your love is extravagant” more than once as well…and yet I feel that in general my musical taste is not too shabby (back me up, adam). so what’s the deal?
just for clarification, adam: do you find the song theologically unsound, or does the idea of cozeying up to jesus make you uncomfortable. it definitely has a mushy, dentist office vibe to it…but funny, when I remember worshipping to it time and time again, I remember feeling comforted by jesus’ closeness and protection and care for me…not anticipation of smooching.
this is in some ways a valid critique of contemporary worship music, and in some ways when I’m singing some of the more traditional hymns…”jesus is my systematic theology professor”, if you will, I wonder if we are not scared of a jesus that we can still react to in a visceral, gutteral way…similar to (but not the same as!) a boyfriend?
September 21st, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Miracles do happen.God help me, I actually agree with Adam here. Good songs of worship/prophecy/intercession are extremely rare these days.
Check this out:
therockwithwings.blogspot.com
How have ya’ll been? :-)
September 21st, 2006 at 2:37 pm
I simply hate “Famous One” for many, varied reasons.
I also have a hard time not laughing when people who are standing stock still sing this line from “I Could Sing of You’re Love Forever”:
And we’ll dance with joy like we’re dancing now…
Especially hilarious on a campus where we signed a statement that said we would not participate in social dance during our years at the institution.
September 21st, 2006 at 2:54 pm
The thing I have always hated about “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” is that by the time we finish I feel like we have.
September 21st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Ha…one of my good blogging friends has a post that was written a couple of years ago title Top 5 Worst Worship Songs. The thread has since gone a little crazy, but it is fun (though time consuming) to read through the entire thread.
David Crowder even left a comment.
September 21st, 2006 at 7:09 pm
“Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord…”
That’s powerful stuff!
September 21st, 2006 at 9:08 pm
It’s pretty much all relative.
Everyone has songs they hate that others love. I have songs that I personally love that others hate.
September 21st, 2006 at 11:21 pm
I think for many of us, growing up in church youth groups, Jesus was sort of a boyfriend figure…he was supposed to be more important than anyone else, and as dating was often not encouraged, he sort of filled that (emotional) role. I remember having a good experience with the song “Lord I Give You My Heart” at a summer camp one time, but for many years now the line “have your way in me” has kind of irked me.
September 22nd, 2006 at 12:36 am
When I think of a song that gets on my nerves it would be most Hillsong songs. How boring can those songs be! There are more than 4 chords available and the song “Lord I Give You My Heart” is one that has some very dodgy words.
But then again there was a discussion recently had recently about the song “I Surrender All”.
September 22nd, 2006 at 12:40 am
Some great comments here…including Chris P., who agrees with me??
Tim, to answer your question, I do have problems with the individualist-focus of the song - it’s a little over the top, and that’s a theological concern for me.
And I think you’re also right - there needs to be room for understanding God as a passionate lover, one who is close to us and who will be with us, who will be ‘near’ us in times of trial and throughout our lives.
I just think there are better ways to say it.
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:10 am
worship songs that grate against us?
Well…you said it. Instead of being drawn to worship, I often check out. This might be my perfect moment to say ‘that’s why I prefer hymns’.The language is beautiful, classic and comforting. Worshipful. Prayerful. Reflective. Emotive.
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:30 am
I have been having this conversation with some friends lately. I have lot’s of songs that bother me now. I used to lead a song where the chorus literally said, “Jesus you are my best friend, and you wil always be, and nothing will ever change that.” (Hillsongs , My Best Friend) Just thinking about it makes me cringe.
I too have some real theological problems with how often worship songs are focussed on words like I, me, my etc. I really think the church needs a new breed of songwriter. We need songwriters who are willing to write more music that we can sing as a community of faith. Lyrics that use words like we and us and songs that don’t just talk about our relationship with God but exalt God are what we need more of.
I honestly feel that the latest worship music trend (both in focus of singing being the same as worship in peoples minds and lack of theologically meaningful lyrics) may be one of the most dysfunctional and detramental issues the church has seen in some time. Just my opinion…
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:55 am
“Ancient Words - ever true
Changing me, changing you
We have come with open hearts
O let the ancient words impart”
My pastor BEGGED me to teach this song to the church, and I told him point blank, “I can’t sing this song with a straight face.”
It sounds like something you would hear a bunch of men sing at a Masons meeting or some secret society. All I can think of is the “Stone Cutters” episode of the Simpsons. Let sit around and asing a song about a holy book. How strange does that sound? Honestly.
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:15 am
Adam: I’d have to say that one of the worst worship songs that I could never bring myself to lead is True Love by David Ruis. I love Ruis’ stuff, but that was one song that never made it on my “to lead” list, mainly because of one line: “Let me know the kisses of Your mouth” (you can see the full lyric here: here). But I’d have to say that the funniest worship we ever had was when one of our worship leaders lead the song with the words, “let me lay my head upon your breast”. During worship, he sang, “let me lay my breast upon your head”! We lost it. Everyone lost it. Worship stopped dead in its tracks. Thus spoke churchpundit!
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:16 am
I have a hard time with how the focus with most worship songs focuses on the self. Yes, we all talk about a personal relationship with God, but when the focus becomes about me and Jesus all the time, I feel as though it takes away from the communal aspect of worship as well as the greater call on our lives beyond our personal relationship. “God you’re so good to me…” but the goodness we are to show others from God’s love is less expressed.
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:23 pm
To be part of acommunity of Faith requires people within that community to have Faith. So for me when I praise God from an individual standpoint and asa congregation thosesame words we do get that same affect. I just don’t understand in light of the importance of individual aka “Except A MAN be Born Again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Jesus doesn’t say except a community be Born Again it cannot see the Kingdom of God. If you get my drift.
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:25 pm
It is balance and 100% equal focus on individual and community that is required. Wemust never reject oneover the other but embrace equally 100% both individual and community and what it takes to be within that Community which is Faith in Christ alone for Salvation.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Adam, I hear you. However, maybe I grew up in a different place from some of the dissafected evangelicals on this blog. I grew up in a church where everyone said Jesus loved me and them, but I doubted anyone really believed that. I never grew up with contemporary worship or with anything emotive connected to my faith. Yes, I too dread some of the theology in these songs, the I me my of their verses and choruses, but God used them in my life. They taught me something about God that I had never understood in any real way before. Is that so bad? I think we need to lighten up and go easy. Its funny how we bash the stuff WE used to be into when it becomes uncool. Anybody know if someone out there is writing anything better these days???
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:38 pm
“Anybody know if someone out there is writing anything better these days???”
John Michael Talbot.
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:37 am
Heh, nice on Tim.
“Jesus is my Systematic Theology Professor” is exactly the tone of many, many hymns. Intellectually correct, devoid of emotion.
Not that sappy is better, it’s just the opposite end of the spectrum.
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:38 am
This is just one of the reasons I resigned as worship leader in a contemporary church and headed East.
Caldonia Sun
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:38 am
3. I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever
2. Famous One
1. Lord I Lift Your Name
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:04 am
i actually like arms of love … cuz I remember translating it in spanish and singing it when we were in peru/ecuacor… people loved it. I remember one politician at a karaoke was really touched by it… But nowadays i can’t even hear praise and worship music.. cuz it gives me nausea.
September 23rd, 2006 at 4:46 pm
We could consider the “jesus-is-my-boyfriend” motif in worship music as a recovery, one of the few contemporary ones, of the tradition of erotic imagery that pervades the classic texts of Christian spirituality: Origen, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Bernard, John of the Cross, Teresa, Cloud of Unknowing, etc. Even C.S. Lewis!
For these, beauty is a fundamental attribute of God and the cosmos, and desire is the appropriate human response. The line that someone mentioned about ‘kissing with the kisses of his mouth’ is straight out of Song of Songs, a central text to mystical theology. I know that eroticism has been stigmatized in our post-Victorian society and cheapened in an era of cable and internet porn, but I’m all for a recovery of the erotic in spirituality and worship, as challenging as that may be. Many of the mystical theologians treated Jesus as bridegroom of both the church and the soul, so individuality is appropriately recognized, but in the ecclesial context.
September 24th, 2006 at 12:24 am
Um, wow, your cynicism makes me sad.
September 24th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
I actually had fond memories of this song… that is until you just ruined it for me. Thanks. Another friend ruined “Can He Still Feel the Nails.” That song has some serious theological/atonement issues. The funny part is that we’re actually talking about singing as though its normal. Sometimes I like to imagine my co-workers, the ones who I go to meetings with, eat lunch with at Chipotle, argue with on occasion and share office space with sitting next to me when I sing. On occasion a few of them have visited church with me. It’s hilarious when you think about it… grown people singing really loud. We are odd.
I was reading a dissertation recently about Buddhist’s (Thai) views of Christianity and one of their repeated comments was, “Why do they always sing?” It seems very odd to them. So, yes, some of our songs have ridiculous lyrics, but I think the form itself lends itself to the peculiar.
September 24th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
So we are odd? I wonder… why is all scripture filled with songs, singing, music? Why are most of the Psalms real love-song to a super-creative Creator? Who, by the way, loves it when his people ‘enter his gates with praise’…
So what’s your point? Isn’t it completely biblical to sing (love-)songs to a wonderful savior?
September 25th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Arms of Love was written in an era where most Christians’ view of God was an angry old man in the sky with a hammer poised to pound us for not being perfect.
As such, Craig Musseau’s song was one of several that helped Christians recognize and celebrate that God is a loving Father, not a hangin’ Judge with an itchy trigger-finger.
Cheezy boy-band-ish boyfriend songs — no, thanks. Honest, heart-felt songs of adoration of the Father — fine by me.
September 26th, 2006 at 3:19 am
Paul Renner - I love ‘Ancient Words’, and it’s a fave in my community, which will barely sing anything. It’s one of my fave of all times - I actually think it’s got a pretty sophisticated approach to scripture!!
September 26th, 2006 at 5:49 am
Mike,
So, what is the point? Good question. In hindsight I think the point was to reframe the discussion outside of our Christian perspective and bring in another view point. Like you, I enjoy singing worship (and playing percussion in worship) and feel it is a crucial mode of worship, facilitating the expression of deep emotion to our Father. And yes it is biblical in the sense that we see lyrical poetry extensively in scripture and God enjoys it. However, the emphasis on singing as a part of worship has changed a lot throughout history and culture. Currently singing holds a prominent focus in our worship assemblies, to the point that many people immediately think ‚Äúsinging/music‚Äù when we say ‚Äúworship or praise.‚Äù That has not always been the case. So, I find it helpful when we are discussing song lyrics (per Adam) to consider how our friends who are not Christians (at the office, neighborhood, coffee shop, bar, wherever) look at singing. They may see us as ‘odd or peculiar’ (no matter what the lyrics), which is also a strong biblical theme. I guess that was my point.
One song I really do like right now, because it expresses the sovereignty of God, is “Blessed Be the Name.” I think the lyrics are taken from Job.
-Russ
September 27th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I find it ironic that churches that would otherwise shun homosexuality play stuff like this ALL THE TIME. There’s gotta be some sort of Freudian slip involved don’t ya think!
Maybe we should rechristen the genre ‘Brokenback Worship’?
matt
eclectic itchings
September 28th, 2006 at 10:20 am
‘Brokeback Worship.’ Classic.
September 30th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Jesus Is Your Boyfriend?
Fine By Me.
March 17th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
The song is beautiful. It makes me think of God as my parent comforting me. I think people who take this a boyfriend or interpret any nasty or low or wrong thing from it are unemotional cold and dirty minded. Yes God holds men. It hasn’t always been homosexual for a man to be held by a man or kissed by a man. Feeling the kisses of Gods mouth is from the song of solomon. His kisses are pure and clean and Holy and on the cheek. I for one would love to kissed by God. Dirty minds pervert and ruin everything that is pure and good.
July 21st, 2007 at 11:21 am
I love the song, Ancient Words. This is not a song about some ancient book, but about, the Word of the Living God. The scriptures teach that these ancient words are, ” quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword”. “I love Thy word, Thy word is truth”, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Jesus taught us to quote scripture when we are tempted, so that we would have victory. We had better be changed by these ancient words which are ever true, we cannot change ourselves. We are to be “washed by the words of scripture. I love the song as it reminds me that God’s word will stand forever, and it is the only truth about God and life. Your pastor is 100% right on this one and you need to recognize what the song is saying.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I don’t want to sound judgmental or insensitive, but I feel like many of you who have such an issue with these songs and are so critical of them, have become utterly cynical. I think you guys have lost sight of what worship is. If you have taken some of these words offensive or that Jesus is your boyfriend…. then you need to really ask yourself if you have any underlying issues of your own because when i sing these songs… not once have the things mentioned in the critiques above popped into my head when singing these songs unless my heart is in a place of resentment or cynicism. I will agree that “True Love” by David Ruis is weird, that one I can’t deny, but the other songs mentioned like “I could sing of your love forever”, “Arms of Love”, “Famous One”, “Lord I give you my heart”, “Your Love is extravagant”… come on? These are songs of Love to our God who made the decision to come down from heaven to be beaten, ridiculed, and MURDERED so that we could know the truth and one day enter the gates of Heaven. What is so wrong with singing songs of love to a God who loved us before some of us even knew Him. You guys need to check your hearts because it just doesn’t seem like they’re in the right place.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I grew up in a tradition that sings “Jesus is Coming Soon”
Troublesome times are here
Filling men’s hearts with fear
Freedom we all hold dear
Now is at stake (now is at stake)
Humble your hearts to God
Save from the chastening rod
Seek the way pilgrims trod
Christians, awake!
And my favorite, the chorus:
Jesus is coming soon
Morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom
Trumpets will sound!
All of the dead shall rise
Righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies
Heavenward bound!
The worst part is that this is an upbeat, peppy song. Hooray, many will meet their doom! I find it very disturbing. At a family reunion people wanted to sing it (we always sing hymns together), and I took the time to get up for more water. When they finished, I said, “I just don’t think the tone of the lyrics matches the tone of the music.” Surprisingly, they could see my point.