It’s a moment I recall vividly – the sheer surprise on our musician’s face when I proposed incorporating an Iron + Wine piece into our worship service. “Walking Far From Home,” beautiful as it is, wasn’t crafted for Sunday service, yet its resonance with that week’s scripture was uncanny, almost as if Sam Beam penned it specifically for us. A few lyrical tweaks later, and it became deeply our own.
This initial shock wasn’t rooted in disbelief, but in a learned separation. Like many church musicians, my colleague had been taught that worship music existed in its own bubble, distinct from mainstream music, underpinned by a notion that the divine only communicates through a specific musical vocabulary. This perceived chasm kept worship music confined within the ‘sanctified’ space of the church. Consequently, a song as theologically rich and spiritually evocative as Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” despite its profound impact during a solitary drive, seemed unthinkable within a church setting. Dylan, the quintessential rebel, whose career is interwoven with the counter-culture movements that often unsettle established institutions like the church, felt… inappropriate. This apprehension, I believe, stems from a fear of inadvertently signaling endorsement of Dylan’s entire persona and oeuvre, simply by playing one of his songs in church.
This cautious approach, however, inadvertently patronizes worshippers and weakens our capacity to articulate the gospel using the very language of the culture that surrounds us. It’s a complex issue deserving of deeper exploration, but I contend that our tendency to lean towards homogenous, often shallow, contemporary Christian music in worship stems from a fear of appearing heretical or insufficiently spiritual in our worship leadership.
At Downtown Church, we’ve discovered this fear to be unfounded. Music, alongside laughter, serves as a powerful bridge to connect with people. Whether we choose to play Iron + Wine in church or not, the subtle yet undeniable presence of the divine in music remains, even when experienced outside the confines of Sunday service. To ignore this truth is, quite simply, to be out of touch.
The impetus behind this reflection is to introduce a new segment on our blog. Periodically, Kelley and I will spotlight a song we’ve integrated into our worship services, sharing our rationale and any adaptations made to suit our context. We hope this sharing of insights will be a valuable resource for the broader church community and encourage fellow Dylan enthusiasts to recognize those solitary moments of spiritual yearning, those times when you feel you are “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” in your car, as genuine extensions of worship.
Stay tuned for our upcoming piece on Laura Marling’s “Devine Bell,” a song we recently featured in our Sunday worship.
