03/16/10

Day 28: Contempory Music in Worship

As a musician and Christian I am lucky to be part of the few of are able to be involved in the church worship band which is probably a good thing because otherwise I suspect the music would have driven me away!

More and more often I’m finding that the Matt Redman that crops up on my iTunes or iPod when shuffling is quickly moved on before the first cliche lyric is sung…now don’t get me wrong Matt Redman (Tim Hughes and other Redman clones) are fantastic for drawing people into worship, their lyrics do help people (and on occasions myself) connect with God however on more and more occasions I’m finding myself drawn close to God by bands who either aren’t Christian or those who aren’t Christian bands but bands of Christians.

You’ll remember my post from a few months back where I referenced Paramore‘s ‘We Are Broken’ as a fantastic worship song…what better lyrics to sing to God than ‘We are broken, what must we do to restore our innocence and the promise we adored? Give us life again, we just wanna be whole‘…just before lent I looked at the concept of screaming in worship with the words of Family Force 5 who cry out ‘Desperation, needing you, every last breath I scream for you…shatter me into a million pieces make me new‘.

There is such raw, powerful, deep emotion in both the above mentioned songs…to continue this into my listening habits of the last few days Five Iron Frenzy (Every new day) write ‘dear Father, I need you, your strength my heart to mend‘, Brave Saint Saturn (Estrella) write ‘The angels wings will cover you tonight, hallelujah, press your head against the breast of Christ‘ and finally John Mark McMillan (How He loves) ‘He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His grace and mercy‘.

Contrast those lyrics with the weak ‘I am a friend of God woah’ and there’s a massive difference.

Often our church worship songs lack passion…often our congregations and churches lack passion and that is what’s missing!

The reason those lyrics I’ve quoted above connect me with God is because they’re raw and passionate…God doesn’t want us to be fluffy and apathetic in communicating to Him God wants passion…He wants people to be singing their hearts out. Perhaps the problem is that passion is personal but a crowd can unite in apathy? The things that we mean, the things that make our hearts beat are often personal things…is that why our worship music lacks passion?

I don’t have the answer but I do think there’s a place for contemporary music in worship…to be continued tomorrow!

01/4/10

Worship?

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

03/3/09

Finding God in unusual places…

The last year I’d say I’ve been on a journey, I’ve discovered that actually feelings towards sung worship change

I’ve found that worship songs don’t always hit the nail on the head for me…

I’ve found that I’m left wanting something more from worship

at the same time I acknowledge that worship thankfully isn’t about pleasing Mark but pleasing God

as a result of this I think I’ve been learning two things…

firstly learning to worship God even when I’m not in the mood…acknowledging that God is more important than grumpy Mark

SECONDLY I’M LEARNING TO FIND GOD IN UNUSUAL PLACES

(and to stop doing a Rob Bell and doing 1 line paragraphs!)

I was watching an interview with Paramore on youtube at a church in America and the very lovely lead singer Hayley Williams was talking about how when you’re on tour and you can’t get to church every Sunday you learn to find God in other places…and actually when you work for a church or find that church doesn’t always work for you or perhaps if you happen to be super-spiritual you learn to find God in unusual places too.

I’m a massive fan of music and so often the finding of God has been in songs from artists whether Christian or not….back when I was in year 10 and I bought New Found Glory’s ‘Sticks & Stones’ the song Sonny spoke to me, a while back I posted on a Five Iron Frenzy song that got me thinking about God, I wear a hoodie with the Relient K lyric ‘It’s the beauty of grace that makes life not fair’ on the back and more recently I’ve even found God in sections of Lily Allen’s new album (which is surprisingly good!).

It’s interesting to find God in places outside of church because you get a different perspective of things, you find that people who don’t talk the church-lingo often have some interesting things to say about God whether you agree or not but they get you thinking about Him and I heard someone say that ‘whenever your mind turns back to God it’s an act of worship’

So don’t rely on church to provide you with God (even if you get the manufactured lights & smoke version of the almighty one) but go fishing…or rather searching for Him…you never know God may be behind the sofa all along…or in that new CD from Blink 182 when they release it in the summer!