Lyft fokus uppåt mot Gud: Om lovsångskulturen och dess inverkan på gudstjänstfirandet inom frikyrkan

Abstract

Contemporary Worship Music (CWM) has in Swedish been named ”lovsång” (‘songs of praise’), a name with an ambiguous meaning which to this day sparkles debate. This style of worship found its way to Sweden in the 1960s inspired by various movements like the Latter rain movement, Youth for Christ, and the Jesus movement. In the periodical Mixturen CWM was met with curiosity but predominantly with criticism due to its perceived simplicity in both language and sometimes in its musical form. Moreover, its introvert theology, with relations to the prosperity gospel, was met with suspicion as a contrast to the social gospel prevalent in sacred music at the time. All the same, editors of the periodical where broad-minded enough to produce two issues, in 1982 and 1995 respectively, where the phenomenon was covered in depth, featuring both its critics and its advocates.

The later development of the worship style has shown a great deal of evolvement, not least as regards distribution, where David Media (distributor of music, scores and sing-back tracks) has played a key role. Recent years have also seen ambitions of deeper lyrics and theology which has coincided with the fact that songs have seamlessly taken over the form of pop songs and therefore feature larger amounts of text than before. Also, a wider range of musical genres have been implemented within several denominations, not least inspired by the development of internationally successful movements like Hillsong. The CWM is presently the dominant mode of music-making in the so-called Swedish free churches, whereby a re-shaping of both liturgy and the interior of church buildings can be observed to accommodate the musical practice. This is not least noticeable in the selling off or mere silencing of the organs and the growing use of smaller symbolic actions (e.g. lighting candles, placing stones etc.), as well as the re-furnishing into more café-like or, on opposite ends, arena-like venues. Liturgically, the segments of worship music, which in many congregations occupy dominant parts in church services, have been given a consistent role, including a place and function in the newest service book of Equmeniakyrkan. Material from a field excursion to a recent church conference within Equmeniakyrkan indicate that the observed trends are in fact both recognized and problematized, yet ongoing.