Earlier this year, we interviewed Keith and Kristyn Getty for an article about worship in Leadership Journal. The Getty’s are Irish songwriters that seek to write modern day hymns. Some of their more popular songs are “In Christ Alone” and Keith wrote “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” with Stuart Townend.

As outsiders, Kristyn and Keith had some interesting comments about their perception of worship in contemporary American churches and the value of remaining connected to the past. Here’s an excerpt from the conversation. You can read the whole article here.

Kristyn: In America, “new” is a positive word. The positive energy and desire to do new things in America is certainly wonderful. But the truth is life isn’t always just a blank page. The Christian life is about remembering, not just all that God has taught us through the Scriptures but also from church history. Every generation must find new expression, new color. But we’re the worse off when we disconnect ourselves from the past and are always in pursuit of a blank page. That’s true in the church and in society as a whole.

C. S. Lewis says that learning is not so much like a train going from one station to the next, so that we leave something and go on to another. Instead, in the way that a tree grows, you add rings to your understanding without leaving the old behind. We can harness all that is good and should never be forgotten from the past as we move on. We’re still moving and ebbing and trying new things, without becoming disconnected from the root.

Keith: The contemporary generation talks a lot about songs having to sound contemporary for the unchurched to listen to. In my experience of having non-Christian friends attend Christian events or church, they’re much more warmed when everyone is singing passionately and confidently, rather than somewhere somebody’s trying to do something half as well as it might be done on MTV, or where everybody in the congregation is standing around and staring. Nine times out of ten, they’re actually quite embarrassed by that.

If I’ve got non-Christian friends coming to church, I’d far rather give them four verses of comparatively heavy theology with some theological words which explains the gospel, than give them twenty repeated words that could be said about your pet horse or your girlfriend.

Video of Keith and Kristyn Getty performing “In Christ Alone.”