It's time to stop singing Hillsong music

We now know too much to act as if all that matters is how it makes us feel.

Sometime in the late 1990s, my church started singing “Shout to the Lord.” I remember it vividly because there was this one woman who would raise her hands when we got to the big key change. (You know the one…) I had theretofore not seen many people throw their hands up at our church, but it seemed authentic and powerful and like something you would want to have happen to you.

Courtesy of YouTube.

We were a Methodist megachurch-hopeful that was seeker-sensitive, and boring hymns were perceived to turn seekers off. So contemporary songs like “Shout to the Lord,” “Better Is One Day” (Matt Redman), “Open the Eyes of My Heart” (Michael W. Smith), and “The Heart of Worship” (Matt Redman) — a song ostensibly about how worship is about God and not us, even though a lot of the lines start with the word I — were added to the mix.

CCM worship music was the soundtrack to my evangelical upbringing. Of cou…