Phillip Magness, a Cantor for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, parish musician, and sacred music educator in West and Central Africa, has contributed a valuable addition to Lexham Press’s ministry guide series with his book, Church Music: For the Care of Souls. This work, part of the series initiated by Harold Senkbeil (executive director of DOXOLOGY, The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel and the author of The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart [Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2019]), applies the “care of souls” to church music with impressive results.

From the very beginning of the book, readers will find Magness to be an expert guide, skillfully blending thoughtful theological reflection, historical awareness, and missionary sensibility. His extensive experience in the everyday triumphs and struggles of local church ministry lends his advice both authenticity and practicality. Even Magness’s personal call to music ministry appropriately shapes his advice to church musicians. Abandoning his aspirations for a secular musical career, he transitioned from performing for crowds to ministering to congregations, saying that he’d rather sing “Salvation Unto Us Has Come” than “Slow Boat to China” (p. 19). He points church musicians in the right direction when he chooses a ministry that involves more apostle Paul and less (please, forgive the pun) Les Paul.

The author’s central thesis is that congregational singing “should be focused on the caring of souls through the art of music” and that “the primary characteristic of Christian music is the sound of an assembly singing the praises of God” (p. 2). This Baptist found Magness’s Lutheran perspective born out of ministry in local parishes and the African mission fields to be edifying and refreshing.

Throughout the book, Magness explains various ways in which music serves the congregation in the care of souls. For instance, music aids in learning truth through “the persuasion of melody and the power of repetition” (p. 24). He also advocates for a robust tradition of music, arguing that “excellence in music” is used by God “to sing faith into people’s hearts” (p. 54).

Magness’s perspective on the selection of church music is particularly noteworthy. He criticizes the common practice of establishing different services for different tastes, viewing it as catering to nostalgia (traditional services) or popularity (contemporary services). Pastors in churches that currently bifurcate their services by musical preference would do well to hear both Magness’s concerns as well as his counsel that “each congregation should take hold of the living heritage the Lord has set before it through his word and in his people” (p. 38).

In a unique approach to song selection, Magness commends songs that the biblical authors “would want to sing were they to drop in on our worship service.” That is, rather than asking “What sounds are trending right now?” the better question is “What would Moses and Elijah want to sing?” This will help to ensure that “we choose songs that would echo the whole company of heaven as they sing the praises of the lamb before his throne” (p. 40). Such an approach offers a fresh perspective on the debate over liturgical criteria, potentially bridging gaps between practitioners of the regulative and normative principles.

Magness employs Gene Edward Veith’s paradigm of pop, folk, and art music to frame his recommendations. He warns against the limitations of popular and art music, advocating instead for “folk” music—not meaning in the style of Woody Guthrie, but music meant for “folks.” While this paradigm is helpful, Veith’s categorization may oversimplify musical diversity and override cultural differences. Not only does each musical genre have unique goals, tasks, and standards of excellence, but church musicians should choose music to serve the needs and context of their local congregation. What excels in one setting may be ineffective in another.

While Magness’s insights are invariably valuable, the book is not beyond criticism. At times, his poetic and evocative language veers into extremes, sounding fundamentalist—e.g., when describing the decline of music pedagogy as demonic—or Pentecostal—e.g., when characterizing some Christian music as “an aural Tabernacle in which God dwells” (pp. 29–30). His praise for the richness of the “harmonic vocabulary that embraces the full chromatic scale” over the pentatonic scale (p. 33) also misses the complexity of some non-Western musical forms, as gamelan or sitar players might consider twelve equally tempered tones to be rather limiting.

Additionally, his framing of the relationship between the words and music of a song may underestimate the significance of the nuanced interplay between the two. He writes, “Music driven by harmony, rhythm, or texture obscures or ignores the word and is at most mood music. It may be useful on occasion to soothe Saul, but it is not a sufficient vehicle for sounding forth the trumpet of salvation and proclaiming the triumph of our King.” This is a curious claim. For while I agree that “the song of the church is driven by the word” (p. 43), appropriately written (and skillfully played) music, be it “driven by harmony, rhythm, or texture,” will help rather than hinder the message proclaimed.

These critiques are tangential to Magness’s main burden and central claims. Church Music offers a compelling guide for church musicians and receives the warmest recommendation. It moves the conversation beyond discussions about style to helping church leaders see congregational music as a tool for pastoral care.