I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that
we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make
sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our
minds.
- Karl Paulneck

How do you define music?

I’ve not blogged in some time, but this 1986 cartoon from Far Side by Gary Larson along with the book I’m reading again may just drive me to it.  A short post for today…

I’m slowly delving in to a book by Frank Burch Brown called Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste that I first read as a wide-eyed first year masters student.  Here is a fantastic quote for today that really has my mind spinning and wanting to read more…and give thanks for the great diversity of music which surrounds us everywhere we go.

“Music is not just a sign of the differences between different groups; it is one of the ways of establishing those differences and showing that they matter.  Neither is music just a sign of the blessed ties that bind; it is one of the ways of making those ties binding and blessed to begin with (p.163).”

Leave a comment or two.  Even better, maybe you have alternative captions for the cartoon.  I’ll buy & send a copy of the Frank Burch Brown book to the winner with the best quotes.

You can see her site here…

Thanks, Rachel…we all need to hear this message.

People sometimes assume that because I’m a progressive 30-year-old who enjoys Mumford and Sons and has no children, I must want a super-hip church—you know, the kind that’s called “Thrive” or “Be” and which boasts “an awesome worship experience,” a  fair-trade coffee bar, its own iPhone app, and a pastor who looks like a Jonas Brother.

While none of these features are inherently wrong, (and can of course be used by good people to do good things), these days I find myself longing for a church with a cool factor of about 0.

That’s right.

I want a church that includes fussy kids, old liturgy, bad sound, weird congregants,  and…brace yourself…painfully amateur “special music” now and then.

Why?

Well, for one thing, when the gospel story is accompanied by a fog machine and light show, I always get this creeped-out feeling like someone’s trying to sell me something. It’s as though we’re all compensating for the fact that Christianity’s not good enough to stand on its own so we’re adding snacks.

But more importantly, I want to be part of an un-cool church because I want to be part of a community that shares the reputation of Jesus, and like it or not, Jesus’ favorite people in the world were not cool. They were mostly sinners, misfits, outcasts, weirdos, poor people, sick people, and crazy people.

Cool congregations can get so wrapped up in the “performance” of church that they forget to actually be the church, a phenomenon painfully illustrated by the story of the child with cerebral palsy who was escorted from the Easter service at Elevation Church for being a “distraction.”

Really?

It seems to me that this congregation was distracted long before this little boy showed up! In their self-proclaimed quest for “an explosive, phenomenal movement of God—something you have to see to believe,” they missed Jesus when he was right under their nose. 

 Was the paralytic man lowered from the rooftop in the middle of a sermon a distraction?

Was the Canaanite woman who harassed Jesus and his disciples about healing her daughter a distraction?

Were the blind men from Jericho who annoyed the crowd with their relentless cries a distraction?

Jesus didn’t think so. In fact, he seemed to think that they were the point.

Jesus taught us that when we throw a banquet or a party, our invitation list should include “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” So why do our church marketing teams target the young, the hip, the healthy, and the resourced?

In Bossypants (a book you should really go out and buy this very instant), Tina Fey describes working for the YMCA in Chicago soon after graduating from college. This particular YMCA included, “a great mix of high-end yuppie fitness facility, a wonderful community resource for families, and an old-school residence for disenfranchised men,” so Fey shares a host of funny stories about working the front desk. One such story involves one of the residents forgetting to take his meds, bumping into a young mom on her way to a workout session, and saying something wildly inappropriate (and very funny—you should definitely go out and get this book). Fey writes, “The young mother was beside herself. That’s the kind of trouble you get when diverse groups of people actually cross paths with one another. That’s why many of the worst things in the world happen in and around Starbucks bathrooms.”

Church can be a lot like the Y…or a Starbucks bathroom. 

We have one place for the un-cool people (our ministries) and another place for the cool people (our church services). When we actually bump into one another, things can get awkward, so we try to avoid it.

It’s easy to pick on Elevation Church in this case, but the truth is we’re all guilty of thinking we’re too cool for the least of these. Our elitism shows up when we forbid others from contributing art and music because we deem it unworthy of glorifying God, or when we scoot our family an extra foot or two down the pew when the guy with Aspergers sits down. Having helped start a church, I remember hoping that our hip guests wouldn’t be turned off by our less-than-hip guests.  For a second I forgot that in church, of all places, those distinctions should disappear.

Some of us wear our brokenness on the inside, others on the outside. 

But we’re all broken. 

We’re all un-cool.

We’re all in need of a Savior.

So let’s cut the crap, pull the plug, and have us some distracting church services… the kind where Jesus would fit right in.

***

Do you ever get the feeling that church is just one big show? Have you found a congregation in which Jesus and his friends would be welcome?

Thanks for my sister for pointing me to this sure-to-be great book!

I’ve been working on a post for later about the current outpouring of new music our churches are facing.
Bottom line is I think there’s a lot of really good stuff being written out there right now.
And I want to know if its hitting your church yet!
What new stuff has stuck with you?
What new music do you find yourself humming at the office or at home during the week?

What are your current favorites?  I think its really important we process this change that’s happening even as we speak!

Help me out and leave a comment!

First thing that struck me in today’s reading was a very simple quote… “We can’t love anything in the right way unless we love God more.”
Took me a while to pick myself up and go on after reading that…

Finally for today, a quote from Isaac Watts, as quoted by Charles Spurgeon…

“The Great God values not the service of me, if the heart not be in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; he has no regard to outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therein.  It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly for God.”

So, tell me…who (or what) do you love?

What Easter/Resurrection songs are most meaningful to you and why?

Please leave your feedback…I’d love to hear each of your stories!

Today there’s a phrase of a relatively new worship song running through my mind…and its message is just as appropriate in this season of Lent & Easter as it is for every other time of year.
The name of the song is “The Greatness of Our God,” (© 2010 Hillsong Publishing | So Essential Tunes (Admin. in U.S. & Canada by Integrity’s Hosanna! Music) | (Admin. by Essential Music Publishing)
Jason Ingram | Reuben Morgan | Stuart David Garrard)

The phrase is from the beginning of the chorus…
And no sky contains…
No doubt restrains…
All you are, the Greatness of Our God.

I spend my life to know,
And I’m far from close to all you are…
The Greatness of our God…

So, I guess I’ll just ease back in…
I just returned (a week ago today) from an INCREDIBLE musical week in Chicago at the ACDA National BiEnnial conference with one of my dear friends and mentors.
It was a week chalked full of experience after experience that we’ll never forget…My soul was fed and filled.  From Worship with John Ferguson, Anton Armstrong, choirs from St. Olaf, Michigan, and Highland Park UMC, to the many wonderful breakout sessions, exhibits, and phenomenal choirs, and a Saturday night performance of Elijah with Helmuth Riling and the Grammy Award Winning Chicago Symphony and Chorus, it was a week to be remembered for sure.  But perhaps I’ll write more about that later…

This afternoon, I’m struck by lyrics of music as I pour through piles of arrangements and charts of songs as I plan our journey through the Lenten Season (though I wonder if our good Stone-Campbell CofC folks recognize the significance of that season)…two rather new sets of lyrics in particular.

YOU ALONE CAN RESCUE (© 2008 Thankyou Music | sixsteps Music | Said And Done Music | SHOUT! Publishing (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing) | (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing) | (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing) | (Admin. by Integrity Music, Inc.)
Jonas Myrin | Matt Redman)

Who O Lord could save themselves
Their own soul could heal
Our shame was deeper than the sea
Your grace is deeper still

And You alone can rescue
You alone can save
You alone can lift us from the grave
You came down to find us led us out of death
To You alone belongs the highest praise

You O Lord have made a way
The great divide You healed
For when our hearts were far away
Your love went further still
Yes Your love goes further still

And You alone can rescue
You alone can save
You alone can lift us from the grave
You came down to find us led us out of death
To You alone belongs the highest praise

And the other…

O THE BLOOD (© 2010 Gateway Create Publishing (Admin. by Integrity’s Praise! Music)
Mary Elizabeth Miller | Thomas Miller)  Love love love Kari Jobe’s leading of this powerful song…

O the blood crimson love
Price of life’s demand
Shameful sin placed on Him
The Hope of ev’ry man

O the blood of Jesus washes me
O the blood of Jesus shed for me
What a sacrifice that saved my life
Yes the blood it is my victory

Savior Son Holy One
Slain so I can live
O see the Lamb the great I Am
Who takes away my sin

O the blood of the Lamb
O the blood of the Lamb
O the blood of the Lamb
The precious blood of the Lamb
What a sacrifice that saved my life
Yes the blood it is my victory

O what love no greater love
Grace how can it be
That in my sin yes even then
He shed His blood for me

What a sacrifice that saved my life
Yes the blood it is my victory

HERE’S YOUR PART…What Easter/Lent/Resurrection songs are most memorable to you?  Which songs of this season have formed you?  Why?  Are they “lasting hymns” now?  Might they be “lasting” one day?

This is the tune name with which most restoration movement churches, especially Churches of Christ have most often sung the the text “When My Love to Christ Grows Weak.”  A couple of interesting items come with this song.  One is that it is not in too many hymnals outside of our movement, even though it was first published in 1837 in the author’s (John R. Wreford) own book of Hymns for Public and Private Worship (McCann, Hymns & History,1986).  Historically, the tune has most often been attributed to Phoebe Palmer Knapp (1839-1908).  Yet even in her own collections of hymns, the tune does not exist and/or isn’t printed or published.  There is historical evidence of this text being sung with a few other tunes, although they’re rare.  Another interesting item of note is that the original title/lyric of this hymn text was “When My Love to GOD Grows Weak.”

But this is the question that baffles me…Who knows where this tune came from?  The search continues…

In the mean time, here’s the text of this old hymn…

When my love to God grows weak,
[or When my love to Christ grows weak]
When for deeper faith I seek,
Then in thought I go to thee,
Garden of Gethsemane.

There I walk amid the shades
While the lingering twilight fades
See that suffering, friendless One,
Weeping, praying there alone.

When my love for man grows weak,
When for stronger faith I seek,
Hill of Calvary, I go
To thy scenes of fear and woe.

There behold His agony,
Suffered on the bitter tree;
See His anguish, see His faith,
Love triumphant still in death.

Then to life I turn again,
Learning all the worth of pain,
Learning all the might that lies
In a full self sacrifice.