Greg Gilbert has written something over at the 9Marks Blog that all Christians everywhere need to read.
Click here to go to it.
Let me just say that I fully concur with Greg and I am glad he has brought this matter up for discussion. Also, I assume that his post will either be ignored by the multitudes who need to heed it, or else he will be lambasted for his statements. God forbid. May we never make musical style the litmus test for measuring a church's faithfulness or vitality.
Click here to go to it.
Let me just say that I fully concur with Greg and I am glad he has brought this matter up for discussion. Also, I assume that his post will either be ignored by the multitudes who need to heed it, or else he will be lambasted for his statements. God forbid. May we never make musical style the litmus test for measuring a church's faithfulness or vitality.
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2 comments:
An interesting blog. I have often heard people say "I just can not worship there" and if pressed they say that the music does not "move" them. I do believe it is possible to have contemporary Christian music and choruses that are spiritually fulfilling and biblically faithful. I also believe that it is possible to have songs that have lasted for decades (or even centuries) that have spiritual 'meat' to them. Of course the older the piece is the more likely there is something there that has kept it alive for so long. Personally I enjoy a service that incorporates the best of traditional and contemporary music along with solid biblically based preaching.
My closest friend and I were asked by another friend to visit his church one Sunday. We went thinking it would give us a different perspective on worship and perhaps ideas we could bring back to our own church. We learned that just because a church has a 20 piece band and huge congregation that jumps up and down to the music and falls down "with the spirit" in the aisles (no this was not a Pentecostal church) it does not mean worship is happening (at least we were not worshiping). There was one chorus (4 lines long) that we sang over and over during the 2 1/2 hour service. I gave up counting the number of times we went through the chorus after I reached 52. The woman beside me who grabbed my hand at the beginning of the service and was trying to yank my arm out of it's socket throughout the service screamed and cried the entire time. The music (or something) was definitely moving her. In fact everyone around us was screaming throughout the service. I can tell you the chorus was nothing special except loud due to the numerous guitars, bass', keyboards, drum sets, saxophones, etc. I think most 5 year old children could come up with words that have more depth that this 'hymn'. The sermon could have been wonderful but I have no idea since the people around us were screaming and crying out in tongues throughout the whole service and I couldn't hear anything the pastor said. People were definitely moved. I have no idea what was moving them though. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. After all I don't know what is in their hearts and I figure their relationship with God is between them and the Lord. I can say that I was extremely grateful when it was time to leave and I could go home, pop a cd of hymns into my computer and study the Bible in peace.
I am not a contemporary music hater. I listen to pretty much every genre of music from every musical age and I have found value in all kinds of worship music. What I have found is that the truly good worshipful music that lasts throughout time are the pieces that speak to people and have solid biblical themes. The rest go into the pile of "what were we thinking when we thought that was good".
And there are many songs being sung today that 10 years from now people will say, "What were we thinking?"
The key issue is always substance over style. But the subject of music is so divisive in church life today that I think the writer's statement, even though it is hyperbole, should cause us all to stop and think -- Would we as Christians be better off, and would the cause of Christ be helped, if we would put a 10 year moratorium on all music in worship? No one is advocating that we really do it, but responses to the question will indicate how on target the question is and how divisive the issue is.
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