Our Convictions on Worship Music

We are called to worship God in spirit and in truth. This is foundational. At Grayson First Baptist Church, worship is not something we approach casually. Scripture tells us that God seeks true worshipers, those who worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24). Everything in this document flows from that verse. Worship is the highest calling of the church, and because it matters so much, we believe the source of what we sing matters too, and we believe how we sing it matters just as much.

Music Is Part of Worship, Not All of It

Music is one expression of worship among many. It is not worship by itself. We want this understood clearly before anything else in this document. Prayer is worship. The preaching of the Word is worship. Fellowship among believers is worship. Giving is worship (Romans 12:1; Hebrews 13:15–16). Singing is a beautiful and biblical part of that whole, but it is a part, not the sum. A church can sing every song perfectly and still miss worship if prayer is shallow, if the Word is not honored, if fellowship is absent, or if giving is withheld.

We do not use the titles worship team or worship leader. Worship is prayer, preaching, fellowship, giving, and singing together, so attaching the word worship to the people who lead the music is misleading. It suggests that worship is something a few people do on a platform while everyone else watches. Whoever stands at the front to lead the music is there to lead the congregation, not to perform for it.

We say all of this so no one mistakes the length of this document for where we place our priorities. We have written at length about music because music is often where a church's convictions are tested in public, one song at a time, every single Sunday. That does not make it the whole of worship. It is one part we take seriously because every part deserves to be taken seriously.

Leading the Congregation, Not Performing for Them

Worship in spirit means the congregation's hearts are engaged, not entertained. Worship gathers God's people to sing, not to watch. From the beginning of the church, believers have gathered to sing together to the Lord, not to watch a select few perform for them (Colossians 3:16; Ephesians 5:19). At FBCG, every choice we make about music, volume, arrangement, and platform positioning starts with one question: does this help the congregation sing, or does it turn them into an audience?

Those who lead the music serve, they don't showcase. Musicians and vocalists are not on stage to be admired. They are there to lead, to fade behind the melody so the congregation can find its own voice and lift it to God (Hebrews 13:15). Skill matters, but it is always in service of the room, never a display for it.

Songs should be singable by everyone in the room. A song written for a concert stage is written to be heard. A song chosen for corporate worship is written to be sung, by children, by grandparents, by the person hearing the gospel for the first time. Range, tempo, and structure should all make it easier, not harder, for the whole congregation to participate.

Production should support worship, never compete with it. Lighting, volume, and staging exist to help people focus on God, not to create an experience that could stand on its own without Him. When production becomes the point, the room has quietly shifted from worship to performance.

Real instruments are the goal. Live musicians can follow the Spirit, follow the room, and follow the pastor, something a track cannot do, and that flexibility keeps the congregation, not the production, driving the moment. We do not yet have live musicians accompanying every service at FBCG, though we are grateful for the live pianist who already leads us each week, and as a growing church still raising up musicians, we may lean on some backing tracks in the meantime. That is a season, not the standard. Live musicians, playing real instruments, remain what we are working toward.

The goal is a heart that glorifies God, not a stage that showcases man. Every choice about music comes back to this one aim.

Songs must be theologically rich, the kind that leave a believer seeing God more clearly and more highly than before. The focus must never rest on a person, whether that person is on our platform or on a screen from somewhere else. Every song we choose should point past the singer and straight to Him.

We look for strong theology and a clear focus on Christ. Every song is weighed by two questions. Is what we are singing true, and does it lead our people to see Christ more clearly? A song that stirs the room but is thin on the gospel, or that keeps pointing to the singer or the singer's experience, does not make our list.

Manufactured emotion is not the same as the Spirit's work. If a song is built to spike adrenaline or manufacture a feeling through volume, build, and repetition rather than through truth rightly sung, we have aimed at the wrong thing. Real response to God can and does stir the emotions, but the emotion should follow truth, not be engineered ahead of it.

Why the Source Matters

Worship in truth means what we sing must line up with sound doctrine. Some argue that a song can be judged on its lyrics alone, apart from where it came from. We understand that instinct, but we don't believe it holds up under Scripture. Paul warned that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9). When a church regularly platforms music from a ministry, it does more than borrow a melody. It builds familiarity, trust, and often financial support for that ministry, and it can quietly open the door for members to explore its teaching, books, and conferences. That is why, after careful thought and prayer, FBCG has chosen not to use music produced by Hillsong, Bethel Music, Elevation Worship, Jesus Music, or Maverick City, or by similar organizations that share their theological stances or viewpoints, in our services.

This standard also covers secondary association. A song may sound theologically sound on its own, and the person who wrote it may not be a member of any of these organizations, but if that person co-wrote the specific song together with someone who is, we treat the song the same way. Co-creation is still a partnership, and it is not one we are willing to build our worship on, even when the lyrics themselves would otherwise pass.

What Concerns Us

Our concern is not with individual song lyrics that may, on their own, sound biblically accurate. Our concern is with the theology and practices of the ministries behind the music.

Bethel Church (Redding, CA) teaches and practices things that depart significantly from historic, biblical Christianity, including claims of visits to heaven, face-to-face conversations with Jesus apart from Scripture, and other charismatic practices that cannot be verified or tested against God's revealed Word.

Hillsong Church has faced repeated leadership scandal and moral failure at the highest levels, and its broader theological framework leans heavily toward prosperity and experience-driven worship rather than the sober, Word-centered worship Scripture calls us to.

Elevation Worship, tied closely to Pastor Steven Furtick, has promoted teaching that blurs the line between the believer and the divine and has leaned into a personality-driven ministry model that we believe distorts what healthy, biblical church leadership looks like.

Jesus Music, Maverick City, and similar organizations share close relational, financial, or theological ties to the ministries above. Where a group's roots, leadership, or teaching line up with the same concerns we hold about Hillsong, Bethel, or Elevation, we apply the same conviction, regardless of how the group brands itself.

In each case, the concern is the same. These are ministries whose theology, in significant ways, does not align with the gospel we are called to guard and pass on faithfully (2 Timothy 1:13–14).

A Matter of Conscience and Love, Not Musical Taste

This is not about musical style or preference. We are not opposed to contemporary worship music, and we are not opposed to modern hymn music either, and we are grateful for many gifted, doctrinally sound songwriters serving the church well today. This is about the responsibility every church has for what it puts in the mouths of its people. Paul's teaching on food offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8–10 gives us a helpful framework. Some believers may feel a liberty of conscience here that others do not, and we want to be gracious toward those still working through this issue. But love for the flock means we will not knowingly platform music that could confuse a young believer, validate a ministry we believe teaches error, or quietly draw someone toward teaching that departs from Scripture.

Why We Still Sing Hymns from Flawed Authors

Someone may reasonably ask if this stance is inconsistent. Many older hymn writers held theology that was also flawed in places. Why draw a line at Hillsong or Bethel and not at them?

The difference is not the writer's perfection. It is ongoing influence. No writer, living or dead, has ever gotten every doctrine right. A hymn writer who has been in the ground for a hundred years is not leading anyone into error today. That writer is not touring, publishing new teaching, building a platform, or shaping what a congregation expects worship to look like. The influence of that writer is finished, and the songs can be sung, weighed against Scripture, and where needed, quietly set aside, without lending momentum to anything currently active.

Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation are not finished. They are active. These ministries are still teaching, still growing their platforms, and still shaping how millions of Christians think about God. When we sing their songs, we do more than borrow a melody. We add our congregation's trust and attention to something happening right now, something we believe is actively leading people astray.

Social media makes living influence far stronger than it was 200 years ago. In the past, a living teacher's reach was limited by distance and by what could be printed. Today a single ministry reaches millions of people every day through streaming, social media, and conferences, and a song sung in our service can lead a member into that world with one tap. This is why it really does matter whether a ministry is living and active.

As elders and shepherds of this flock, our calling is not only to feed the sheep but to guard them (Acts 20:28–29). We will not knowingly hand our people something that could quietly draw them toward a ministry we believe teaches error, no matter how good the song sounds.

The Elders Shepherd Through Music

The elders choose the songs. The elders, our pastors, are the spiritual overseers and shepherds of this church (1 Peter 5:2–3). Just as they shepherd the flock through the preaching of the Word, they shepherd it through music, so the elders pick the songs each week.

The songs are usually centered on the message for that particular service, so the music and the preaching work together to point the congregation to the same truth. This is why these decisions are made by shepherds on behalf of the flock rather than left to personal preference.

Our Commitment

We want FBCG to be a church where what we sing matches what we believe and what we teach from the pulpit, and where how we sing it keeps every eye pointed at God rather than at a stage.

Christians today often learn more about theology through the songs they sing than through the messages they hear.

Music is never neutral. It shapes theology as much as any sermon does, sometimes more, because we carry it with us and sing it back to ourselves long after the service ends.

Our aim is not to be legalistic or to police every believer's personal playlist, and this is not a membership requirement. It is a conviction about what happens in our gathered worship. Our aim is simple: to be faithful stewards of what happens in our gathered worship, to lead our people into it rather than perform in front of them, and to make sure that when FBCG sings, we are singing truth, about a true God, from sources we can stand behind.

A Living Document

We want to be honest that this is a work in progress. We are working even now to bring our music into closer alignment with the convictions laid out here, and while we are not entirely there yet, we are closer every day. Some of what you read above describes where we are already, and some of it describes where we are headed — we would rather tell you plainly which is which than pretend we have arrived. We are grateful for your patience and your prayers as we keep moving toward it.

This is a living document. We will be coming back to it to add to it, refine it, and answer the questions that come up along the way. It does not answer every question, and it was never meant to. There is a much larger conversation behind these convictions than a few pages can hold, and we expect people will still have questions after reading it. We would rather sit with you and talk through those than pretend a single document could settle everything.

But short of writing a book and posting it to our website, a church still has to be able to say plainly what it believes and why. People deserve enough clarity to decide, prayerfully, whether FBCG is a church they can call home. This document is our attempt to give you that clarity now, in good conscience, while we keep thinking, keep praying, and keep refining it as the Lord leads.

"Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth." — John 17:17