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The aim of this paper is to explore the place of sadness in contemporary praise and worship music by examining three questions: Is there a place for sadness in contemporary praise and worship music? Should there be a place for sadness in contemporary praise and worship music? How can pastors, church leaders, and songwriters create a place for sadness in a contemporary worship service? These questions will surface throughout the paper, though not sequentially. Method The method used in this paper is Heintink’s Triangle, which consists of three separate cycles: the ‘hermeneutical perspective’, the ‘empirical perspective’, and the ‘strategic perspective’. The hermeneutical perspective moves from ‘prejudgment to observation to interpretation to providing meaning and, finally, to action. 1 The empirical perspective moves from observation to induction/supposition to deduction/prediction to testing and then to evaluation.2 The strategic perspective (or ‘Regulative Cylce’ by van Strien)3 begins with defining the problem and moves to diagnosis, then to a plan, and to intervention, and finally with evaluation. My use of this method will not rely on in-depth movements through each cycle. Instead, each cycle will be a set of lenses through which to explore another facet of this research. Each perspective is designed with different aims: the hermeneutical perspective to help us understand what is going on; the empirical perspective to explain what is going on; and the strategic perspective to create change. The first section of this paper employs the hermeneutical perspective to understand the pastoral situation of a grieving parishioner in a contemporary worship 1 Gerben Heitink, Practical Theology: History. Theory. Action Domains., trans. by Reinder Bruinsma
(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), p. 197. 2 Heitink, p. 231. 3 Heitink, p. 212.