In July of 2021, our team had the privilege to interview Rabbi Dr. Stuart Dauermann, PhD, whom some consider to be “the Father of Messianic Jewish Music.” Parts of this interview will be included in the Pioneers of Messianic Worship documentary. Other parts, although they did not make the final edit, are gems mined from years of Bible study and application. During his interview Stuart provided Scriptural basis for how to select songs to be included in a worship set, particularly for a Messianic Jewish service. Using Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 as his foundation, he offered an explanation for the three styles of songs to include in worship services.
Ephesians 5:18b-20 (TLV)
Instead, be filled with the Ruach, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your heart to the Lord—always giving thanks for everything to God the Father, in the name of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
Colossians 3:16 (TLV)
Let the word of Messiah dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratitude in your hearts to God.
Stuart Dauermann | Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs
Below is the transcript of this portion of the interview; you can also watch this portion of the interview here.
The Scripture speaks in two places of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. In my conceptualization, a healthy music ministry, whether in a Messianic synagogue or in a church, will have these three kinds of music represented. A psalm comes from the Greek word psalmos, which means to pluck. A psalm, I define as Scripture set to music. Now, in the beginning of my career writing music, I wrote a lot of psalms, not necessarily from the Book of Psalms, but I set Scripture to music. I had a great Lyricist: He’s been alive forever. And that was God. God was my Lyricist, and I wrote Scripture music. Those are categorically psalms. What’s a hymn? A hymn is good theology set to good poetry, set to good music. The Messianic movement generally is, and I would say the pop charismatic movement is, suffering from deficiency of hymns. They think of hymns as something very dusty and archaic. No, no, no, no, no. Hymns are good theology, set to good poetry, set to good music. We need hymns in our music. Thirdly, spiritual songs: Spiritual songs are more first person, they’re more about my experience with God. In a lot of church contexts, a majority of the music is what you’d call spiritual songs. It’s “me and my Jesus” songs. That’s not really healthy. It’s not a healthy diet for a worshiping community. I believe that a worshiping community needs to have Scripture songs: psalms. It needs to have hymns: good theology, set to good poetry, set to good music. And it needs to have your songs that speak about my experience with God.
So, in addition to that foundation, then in the Messianic world, what is added? What is added is that our music should in some way perpetuate and be linked to our ethnic particularity. We are Jews, we’re people of a, with a certain common history, a certain common destiny. And so I believe the music should sound Jewish in some cases, and as often as possible, really. It should sound Jewish, and even if it doesn’t “sound Jewish,” its frame of reference should be not only rooted in Scripture, but rooted in the Jewish historical experience, and in a sense of destiny as a people. So I think that if I detect the weakness in modern music practice in churches and in synagogues, Messianic synagogues, it’s individualism. It is…we don’t have community worship in many cases, we have multi-individual simultaneous worship. People go to a room where there’s a platform, which is a stage. There’s a group of musicians, which is a band. There’s a set of seats, which is an audience. And then when they worship, they close their eyes, and they have their hands in the air. Well, they may be worshiping God, but they’re not worshiping as a community.
The eyes are shut. Your awareness of the community is shut out. It becomes just “me and my Jesus” kind of songs. And with all due respect, I think that that falls short of what Scripture holds out to us: that we worship as a congregational community. You could think of it in concentric circles. I worship as an individual; as an individual within a family; as an individual within the Jewish people; as an individual within the people of God in general, etcetera, etcetera. We need to inhabit that identity. And individualism may be subjectively satisfying, but I think that it’s theologically disconnected. And it doesn’t really advance our understanding of the Word of God, or of the destiny and the calling of God’s people.
—END OF TRANSCRIPTION—
Wow! Selah (pause and calmly consider that)!
For those of you who may have read my book, Messianic Worship Leadership, or taken a course with me, Stuart is explaining psalms as what I would call Scripture Songs; simply put, these are musical settings of Bible verses. He describes hymns as good theology, framed as good poetry, set to good music, for example old Lutheran hymns. Spiritual songs are what I call testimony songs.
While it is important to sing and play music to the Lord from our own personal testimony, the other two categories or types of songs – psalms and hymns – focus more on who God is and what He has already said and done. These songs are powerful tools in a community worship setting to help bring unity among the Body of Messiah, keeping God the prime focal point of our adoration instead of our personal feelings and experiences.
Our ministry team is excited to be working on the Pioneers of Messianic Worship documentary. We have diligently been in the editing phase for months and still believe that the final may be done by the end of 2024. If so, then we’d be ready to begin to share this with you all in early 2025. You can look for updates at www.MessianicMusicDocumentary.com and by following me on social media.