Contemporary worship music critiqued in new book by Nick Page.

A CONTROVERSIAL new book, And Now Let's Move Into A Time Of Nonsense, critiquing contemporary worship music has been published with the by-line Why Worship Songs Are Failing The Church. The author, Nick Page, is the writer and author of over 20 books. In his new work, published by Authentic Media, Page aims to encourage writers to really think about the lyrics of their songs. In his introduction Page writes about the songs sung at a friend's wedding being "lost in a sea of quasi-biblical imagery and incomprehensible language. The couple getting married had included a time of worship, they told me afterwards, to show their non-Christian families that Christian music could be contemporary and relevant. They may have been right about the music maybe we showed them that day that Christians could play a decent tune with the best of them. But as we sang songs about two-edged swords and anointing oil and lots and lots of sheep, we also showed them that, when it come to song lyrics, Christians speak an entirely different language."

The book, which originated as an article in Christianity magazine, combines humour with analysis as to how songwriters have brought into a disposable 'pop-song' model. Nick claims the book highlights the problems of using a 'semi-Biblical' code and poor technique and that worship songs are suffering from a lack of specialist lyric writers. He says songwriters need to think about whether they are really communicating the truth about God, a truth which should lead to worship.