The Worship "EP" You've Never Heard Before

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I’ve been busy working on a new project this month that has me collaborating with several people across the country, and it’s been such an enriching dive back into my old publishing/editing work, plus there’s a really cool aspect of historical preservation and revitalization that I’m excited to share with you.

As I’ve shared this project with some local folks, I’ve had the opportunity to share with them the history of how the church has made music for worship, its changing trends, contentious controversies, and where we see it headed today.

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The Project

OK—for the past few months, I’ve been working with a group of folks who are transcribing and re-editing an older hymnal (of sorts), called The Psalter.

Originally published by the United Presbyterian Church in North America in 1912, it has been used by a handful of mostly Reformed, English-speaking denominations over the course of the 20th century. However, it fell out of print and entered into the public domain in the early 2000s.

For those of you wondering what a psalter is: A psalter is a hymnbook of psalms set to music (or metre, if you want to get fancy). Largely used in Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and historical Puritan groups, worshippers are taken directly through “God’s songbook” with familiar melodies and harmonies to those from Western European cultural descent.

Because of the rise of non-psalm songs (spiritual songs and hymns), especially in the wave of songs that spoke more of personal testimony, capturing particular theology/doctrine, and other topics, psalmody has mostly gone to the wayside, save for the efforts of a handful of denominations.

In fact, the majority of these church groups practice what is called exclusive psalmody (often referred to as “EP”), which as the name suggests, indicates that they sing ONLY psalms. (This stance derives from holding to the regulative principle of worship, which is a topic for another day—but we’ll dig into the argument for EP a bit further into this article.)

Anyways—There are growing numbers of people in Protestant congregations who are increasingly attracted to more historic ways of worship. I’m only speculating, but it seems to fall in line with the growing trend of younger generations joining churches with a more traditional bent, with “higher” liturgy and a more formal feel, as opposed to the “modern evangelical” model of the last 40 or so years.

Aside from preferences and trends, many of us in this project simply want to see historic sacred music preserved and encourage the use of psalms in singing as a norm for the modern worshipper.

For my part, I’m acting as an editor, which is pretty tedious work. My spare time is filled with poring over original sources, transcriptions, music notation files… but to be honest, it’s been a blast! Here’s a photo of some editing action at the breakfast table with my family (or rather, their “stuff”) surrounding:

The Appeal of Psalmody

Going back to why some churches are EP—I would summarize their position with the old saying:

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

The idea (from my understanding) is this:

• God gave us psalms that we know were used in musical settings.

• We have the ability to create and arrange music to fit these texts.

• We see the command and example in Scripture to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.”

• The breadth and depth of topics covered in the psalms are sufficient for Christian worship, capturing all we need to address doctrine, human expression, and rightful adoration of God.

Anything else is:

• Superfluous.

• Susceptible to error.

• Susceptible to idolatry of human songwriters.

Generally, I agree with this—but I do find there is good in non-psalm songs. The ones that stand the test of time tend be in orthodox alignment with right theology, and the problematic songs (or, outright heretical) fade away. So as it stands, I’m not on the EP train.

BUT—I think there’s incredible value in giving attention to its benefits.

For a long time, I’ve observed song “diets” at churches to be shaped by what is trending in media, namely in radio and streaming. And rarely do psalm-songs “test” to the top of charts. The problem is:

• The themes don’t always fit with songs of intense testimony.

• The music sounds archaic.

• People want to appear relevant, so they must therefore use culturally relevant songs in worship.

The appeal of modern worship music gives the listener words that directly reflect what they already speak, think, and feel, and sometimes, the words in historic psalters leave them scratching their heads.

As a church music director, I have to balance the call to worship God through His Word with material that connects well with the local congregation. Sometimes, that means digging deeper (as in, with more theological/Scriptural depth), or it means choosing a series of songs that are simpler and appeal to the more visceral/expressive side of worship.

Here’s the cool thing—songwriters are taking note of the richness of the psalms, and now, they’re putting modern music stylings to them. One of my favorite examples would be duo Shane & Shane, whose work incorporates much of the psalms being sung directly. (The fullness varies, but the core spirit of each selected psalm is shown very well.) Here are some of my favorite examples:

My Takeaway

It’s been a joy to take part in a revitalization effort with this psalter project. It’s also been a great joy to sing non-psalm songs inspired by scripture, both in personal and corporate worship.

As a church music director, I’m eagerly optimistic about how the worship music diet is changing for many people throughout the global church, especially here in the US. When we recover things like psalmody, the Word of God becomes all the more entrenched in our hearts…

Seems like a worthwhile pursuit, right?

Be blessed 👊✌️