Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament

by Mark Vroegop

The music of our churches both reflects and shapes the hearts of our people. Unfortunately, lament is virtually absent in most of our singing. This is not a new problem. The trend is concerning. Soong-Chan Rah, in his book Prophetic Lament, cites a study of hymnals and their use of lament. It revealed that lament makes up less than 20 percent of Presbyterian and Baptist hymnals.5 When one looks at the contemporary songs reflected through the copyright licenses (CCLI), the tracking of songs most frequently sung by churches, the trend is even more concerning. I surveyed recent songs in 2016 and 2017. The number of lament-oriented songs was well below 5 percent. Despite the fact that at least a third of the Psalms are in a minor key, it seems that “the American church avoids lament.”6 Now I don’t mean to lay the blame solely on worship pastors and musicians. The absence of lament is not entirely their fault. But as I’ve talked with our worship leaders about this, we’ve wondered together what it would look like to recapture the balance of the Psalms in the songs we write today. I’m not arguing for one out of every three songs, but I do hope that some creative musicians will take up this challenge to bring balance to our corporate worship diet. We need good, substantive songs of lament. My guess, however, is that contemporary songs of lament may not be sung frequently until the American church feels the full weight of our exile. But maybe we could start writing songs with lamen...