Worship Music for the Real World

The Porter's Gate is a music group that deserves to be better known. They make worship music, but it's worship music unlike other worship music.

Most worship music that we would sing on Sunday mornings or hear on Christian radio is relatively simple theologically and sticks to the same few themes. Most of the songs we sing are about how Jesus saved us from our sin, how God loves us, and how God is with us and will help us in our troubles. Don't get me wrong: those are all good topics to focus on and much of the popular worship music out there is great.

But the downside of almost exclusively sticking to the topics I just mentioned is that a lot of our experience as humans is left untouched (neglected) in our worship music.

That's where The Porter's Gate comes in.

They've made it their intentional goal to, as much as possible, let the bible be the inspiration for their music. And it turns out the bible covers a lot of topics that we don't often sing about! Take a look at the albums they've released:

"Neighbor Songs" - focussing on hospitality and Jesus' call to love our neighbor
"Lament Songs" - giving voice to the grief and questions we all have as humans
"Justice Songs" - highlighting the injustice in the world, crying out to God for help, and calling us to work for justice
"Work Songs" - breaking down the sacred-secular divide and reminding us that all our "mundane" work is actually worship
And most recently: "Climate Vigil Songs" - thanking God for creation, lamenting the harm we've done to creation, and calling us to work for the earth's restoration

Think about it: how often do you sing a song at church about loving your neighbor, lamenting suffering, injustice, our work and professional lives, or creation? If you're like me, almost never! But that's really unfortunate because they are not only biblical themes, but strong and common biblical themes.

Plus, these are all things that are strong and common human experiences! If we are not bringing our griefs, systemic injustices, interactions with others, work, and environment before God in worship, we're neglecting major aspects of our lives as individuals, societies, and the human race.

Now having said all that, I highly doubt The Porter's Gate will ever become as big as a Bethel or Hillsong. That's partly because of practical reasons: Porter's Gate songs aren't as easy to sing along to in a church setting. And their musical style might not be for everyone.

I also think there's some psychological reasons they won't dominate the worship charts. People just don't rush to listen to songs about racism (for example) the same way they do songs about God's love for them! Likewise, their lyrics go a touch deeper than most popular worship songs, and for that reason some people might not be in the mood to mentally engage with these topics.

But if anything I've said has peaked your curiosity - I encourage you to check them out!