Someone at my church doesn’t like the theology of the songs we sing. How should I respond?
Question:
Got someone at our church that loves to give his opinion on the songs we praise the Lord with. He is over the top theologically and often tries turning his opinions into biblical truth. He often creates these little gossip groups to infect them with those opinions.
We are a good sized Hispanic Pentecostal church and I am capitalized SICK AND TIRED of him continuing on with this. He discourages me and my team and even made me change songs on a Sunday morning because he didn't think it was theologically correct.
No, I'm not asking him to help me pick out songs and ask him to give me a list of songs he approves of.
We make our programs with God in mind having him lead us. I'm not concerned about his or anyone else's opinion on anything we do. I'd rather please God over any man every single day of my life.
Answer:
So basically, this person is disagreeing with the theology in the songs.
First of all, I just want to give a warning because I heard it in that answer of, and I understand where it comes from, but to say "I don't care about what anybody thinks in my church," let's reign that back a little bit, right? Let's just show a little bit of humility.
I understand that you're like, "I just want to please God," which of course, but God has put the Holy Spirit in the people of your church. So, you aren't the sole arbiter of truth. People are encouraged in Scripture to think about the things being taught, the doctrine being taught in the church.
So, I understand the frustration though, and I understand sometimes we exaggerate in these situations. So, just consider counsel from people in your church.
But let's talk about the real problem that this guy does it every single week. You said he made me change my songs on Sunday.
Unless this person is my pastor, I'm not changing my songs on Sunday because some person in my church told me that they didn't like the songs. How would they know that in the first place? I don't know how would they know what songs you're doing?
Escalating to Pastoral Leadership
If you have addressed this problem with this person, this now becomes a pastoral issue.
I've heard these questions before from people, not this one specifically, but I've heard questions before where these people ask questions and it's like this is clearly a pastoral issue and you need to take this to your pastor and they need to be the ones who deal with it. That is the role of the pastor and the elders in your churches to deal with things like this.
So, if you haven't told your pastor about this yet, take it to him and tell him like this is going on and it needs to stop. And hear what your pastor says about it.
Your pastor needs to support you in this. Or you need to get your pastor's opinions on the songs.
Seeking Pastoral Support
I've had it before where somebody's come up to me, usually like, "We don't want to do Bethel or Hillsong songs." I'm sure you've got your own opinions on that, leave them in the comments below if you like.
But I do Bethel and Hillsong songs at my church, and there's people who disagree with that. But at the end of the day, I know that my pastor doesn't have a problem with it, and so I will honor my pastor because he has been called to lead the church. And it's easy for me to honor him when I agree with him
And so, I know that my pastor and I are in agreement. So, you need to have your pastor on your side.
*UPDATE 2025: I no longer sing Bethel/Hillsong songs at my church.
And then you can just say, "Listen, I talked to the other leaders in the church. We believe that these songs are fine and so we are going to continue to do them. And you're welcome to disagree, but I'm just telling you that we will continue to do them because that's what we've decided on as the leaders in this church."
And that is sufficient. And if you need to talk about specific points, then you can talk about specific points, but I'm not going to talk about the specific theological points over and over and over again every single Sunday if you aren't listening.
I will tell you my opinion once or my thoughts once with the support of the other leaders in my church, and then from there you've heard my position and that's that.
Standing Firm with Leadership Support
So, just stand firm in your convictions as long as you have the support from other leaders in your church. And other than that, this needs to be dealt with, but probably not by you at this point. It needs to be dealt with by your pastor or other leaders in your church.
