In church music ministry we are regularly forced to face a horse/cart issue. What's more important, the words...or perhaps I should say the Word...or the music? As an art form the two are inextricably linked, but as a leader the proportional balance is an ongoing set of decisions.
I don't have any hard and fast rule to give you. But as I often say, if I didn't believe that the words Word was important, I could have followed my training into the calling of being an orchestral director. Now that I think about it, I do have a rule: you have to make an intentional decision about what the proportion is in every piece of music, and you have to work hard (or exert leverage) to make that proportion work.
Whatever the proportion, though, there is nothing more important, in my opinion, than for the church to hear its own voice
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