Mark is married to Jo and is a 23 year old youth and schools worker based in South Cave (near Hull). Mark spent 4 years as a youth worker in Peterborough whilst studying for a degree in youth work & ministry with Oasis.
In the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the church and how trapped the majority of it has become. The format of church hasn’t changed majorly in the last 25 years at least…it certainly hasn’t changed in the 15 years of church I actually remember.
Alongside this I’ve been pondering the topic of worship…I love music but more and more I find myself feeling unsatisfied by ‘worship songs’ that the likes of Tim Hughes, Matt Redman and Stuart Townsend have to offer. In the case of Tim and Matt there’s some nice upbeat stuff but nothing ground breaking when it comes to lyrics and where Townsend makes up for this with lyrics they tend to be pretty traditional and jargon sounding and the tunes sound exactly the same as pretty much every hymn ever written.
The church has adopted a fairly standard pop-rock sound about it’s worship and I’m sure we’re missing something!
Someone said at a day I was on a while ago that ‘when you turn your mind back to God it’s an act of worship‘ yet the church is trapped in this attitude of worship meaning ‘to sing a few jargon filled pop-rock songs’.
Why is it that God has made us all very different yet we all have to fit the same worship mould? When was the last time you were in a church service with ‘different’ sounding sung worship or perhaps even a service with no songs at all?
In my thoughts on worship I’ve been thinking about songs which I find really help me connect with God so I thought I’d post a couple of youtube videos of them for your viewing pleasure.
In the meantime comment this post with your experience of church worship and ways which you connect with God and I shall continue these thoughts soon!
Five Iron Frenzy – Suckerpunch – Lyrics
Paramore – We Are Broken - lyrics
The Gentlemen’s first album is good: “Smile Back At Me”, they’re a Christian band, but at first listen it’s not 100% clear that it is, it’s more about the interpretation of the lyrics methinks.
I shall have a listen to them on spotify.
I like bands like that, largely because they encourage you to think about the songs…often I find with worship songs I just sing along the way I would with a CD in the car and forget the song meanings!