Five Iron Frenzy had this habit of drawing you into the music and then hitting you with the most profound God-lyric ever! We even had the worship band at our wedding adapt their song ‘World without End’ adapted to be played as a worship song.

Over the last few months the bands website contained a mysterious countdown and their Twitter and Facebook came to life, building hype around something that would happen at 2am this morning (or 7pm in the USA!)…having toyed with the idea of staying up or sleeping through and checking out twitter in the morning I opted in for a 1:55am alarm and hoped that it would be something worth disturbing my sleep for.

And it was!

I’d spent my day telling myself that it would be a greatest hits or rarities album and not a reform or anything new but how wrong was I?

Five Iron Frenzy announced (with a slightly bizarre video of Reese Roper in the desert) that they were getting back together and would be recording a new album (to release in 2013…10 years after their break-up) and possibly playing some shows….oh and they put a new song online!

Now the latter doesn’t excite me as much unless they venture to the UK (I wish!) but the thought of a new album and a chance to hear a new Five Iron song really got me excited. To make this new album the band were asking for pledges in return for a variety of things ranging from a CD of the new album to the band writing you a song…I went for the former and amazingly the band aimed to get $30,000 to make, master and release the album and amazingly they got that within 55 minutes and less than 24 hours later they’re on $80,000.

Turns out I’m not the only one excited about the new Five Iron Frenzy.

I was also pretty excited about the new song titled ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ and it’s so good! It’s like a mix of ‘Electric Boogaloo’ and ‘Our Newest Album Ever’ and I think will please all FIF fans.

So why the blog?

This blog is simply to express my burst of excitement…share the word and tell you to listen to Five Iron Frenzy…they’re amazing and so much fun but also seriously challenging.

Go listen, support and download at: www.fiveironfrenzy.com

Note: I also had a worship blog in mind to write which also included some stuff about FIF so this blog might end up a little FIF obsessed for a week or so!

So today I’m going to continue those thoughts but hopefully in a way that ponders how we can actually use contemporary music in worship.

Firstly I think we need to remember that worship isn’t always singing and so I see no reason why contemporary songs couldn’t be used as reflections (even screamy reflections…although we may need to display lyrics in such cases).

Secondly I don’t think worship music needs to be written by a Christian! – Surely it’s the lyrics and the place our heart is in as we express, pray, sing or ponder those lyrics to God. Our worship shouldn’t be about the song writer but about the sentiment we’re trying to express to God in doing so.

Thirdly I believe contemporary music may see church growth - Let’s face it, anyone coming into a church for the first time may find church a strange place and more to the point the singing of a lambs blood probably doesn’t help matters. So how would their experience differ if they came in and found songs they knew being used in a different way? Would they feel more at home hearing something familiar?

Finally I think contemporary music could be icing on the emerging church cake! It’s great doing Cafe church, pub church or whatever form of church a place is trying out but if music is going to be used then contemporary music would be more appropriate and fitting. I remember a youth worker telling me he did a series of acoustic songs in a youth cafe all of which were contemporary songs but used in a Christian setting…I even heard one of my lecturers at uni talk about using Last Resort by Papa Roach as a song in church!

I whole-heartily believe there is a place for contemporary music in church and I think if we use it well it could deeply enrich our worship…yes it may isolate different generations…for example a Green Day song may not be as helpful in worship to some as a Beatles song but surely this is no different to our organ/worship band or Redman/Townsend divides we already have?

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!

Dave has insisted for years that any screamy music is wrong and shouldn’t even be considered music yet as the numerous genre’s available to us prove there are many ways that people express themselves musically.

I remember reading in Philip Yancey’s book ‘Prayer’ about a man who goes to a house and the door is opened by a lady and inside this house the man can hear terrible screaming and crying out from upstairs, asking if everything is ok the lady replies ‘it’s fine, that’s my son…he’s praying’

How do we pray? Do we say things quietly to God or do we ever scream at Him? (If you don’t scream in frustration why not?).

If worship is about the way in which we connect with our creator then expressing angst, pain, suffering, feelings of abandonment and expressions of desperation must be part of that worship.

So, in drawing together Dave’s comments on screamy music, some thoughts on how we lament to God (2/3 Psalms are lament!) and adding into the mix my challenge of the way in which we worship I want to present you with a song called ‘Replace Me’ by Family Force Five. The chorus is simply amazing with the lyrics ‘desperation, needing you, every last breath I scream for you, shatter me into a million pieces, make me knew. Crush me, tear me, break me, mould me, make me what you want me to be, I am yours for you to use, oh take and replace me with you’ (There could never be the same amount of emotion in this song without it being screamed!). Enjoy and don’t forget to comment with your thoughts.

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

Now I’ve been thinking recently about how true this is in our churches, how often do people reach a particular age and we stop them doing the children’s work because they’re ‘too old’?, how often do we decide that people are too old to serve yet tell them they can ‘still pray’?

The problem with this is that, firstly prayer becomes something that becomes almost a negative thing for someone to do, if we’re not careful it can become a ‘hmm….now what can you do for our church…you can’t do this…that wouldn’t be suitable…umm…just pray for our church’. Prayer shouldn’t be the last resort, nor something someone does when they can’t do anything else but it should be seen as the most important part of our ministry, behind everything prayer should be going on, as well as someone helping with the youth group they can (and should) be praying for the youth work they’re doing.

The second problem with the attitude above is that we automatically write off old people, have we not thought that some of them can still serve? In fact, all of them can!

It might not be suitable that they help out with the youth ministry but perhaps a less energetic role is there for them? What about encouraging them to welcome new people to church? Look out for new faces and talk to them? What about encouraging evangalising to their friends and people they meet? As many of you will know most old people can talk for hours!!!

Let’s not forget though that in some situations it can be suitable for someone elderly to continue an active role whether it’s doing children’s work, managing the friday night drop-in tuck shop or helping to move tables and chairs around the church.

We have to remember that in the bible people didn’t just reach a particular age and stop serving, they either kept going or found a ministry suitable for their current state, let’s not write off our OAP’s in churches…if they all did things I truly believe we’d see a massive change in our churches.

So how have I spent my friday night? Well, my house group have been out on the streets of Peterborough armed with bottles of water, trying to get to know people, help out the worse for wear and have some conversations and the result was brilliant.  Yes, some people took the water and left, but others stayed for a few minutes to talk, another guy stayed for half an hour!

For me (and probably all our house group folk) tonight was about being a proactive christian, it was about practically showing our love. I think often drinking culture is something which Christians are quick to condemn (I’ve done it on a previous post) however although we may not agree we are still called to help…Jesus helped out those who’s behaviour I’m very certain he wasn’t happy with (the woman at the well, the Roman soldier etc.) and tonight we did the same…some people didn’t ask why we did it and that didn’t matter, it was about sewing seeds, helping people and worshipping God.

I know a lot of universities do similar things and I can see why after tonight…it’s a great thing to do…and hopefully we’ll get more chances to do this and build up a real profile in the community.

Anyway I’m off to make my bed and sleep…goodnight readers

Matt Redman – Beautiful News
Beautiful News is Matt Redman’s first album since Facedown and his first studio album since ‘Where Angels Fear To Tread’. I bought this album having been to Soul Survivor and loved a couple of songs on it. The album has plenty of songs which will be new to most people so don’t buy it expecting to sing along straight away, however after much listening this is an awesome album, I don’t think there is another ‘Blessed Be Your Name’ on it, but maybe that’s a good thing! My favourite song on the album is Never Let Go and despite the corny ‘Oh No’ in the song the song is awesome.

On a sidenote, being at Soul Survivor helped me understand the point of the na na’s in ‘Undignified’!

The Starting Line – Direction
The Starting Line are an american pop-punk group who’ve been around a good few years now, I saw them in Norwich supporting MxPx last March and they were awesome, their very unique style of pop-punk takes some getting used to but this (their new album) is pretty good, it still feels like The Starting Line but is much better produced than their other albums and a bit heavier too which is good, plus amazing album artwork!

MxPx – Secret Weapon
The final album in my random list of reviews is the latest release from Christian punk act MxPx, 15 years since their first album the band continue to impress and write awesome songs. Panic (their previous release) showed the band getting more punk than pop-punk and the heaviness was awesome, this continues on secret weapon with heavy, fast songs which is awesome showing that MxPx are still one of the best bands around! This album is probably their best yet.

If you readers want to hear selections of these albums I’ve put a couple of tracks from each on the mp3 player! Enjoy!