
People love politics, and because of this I feel like adding this paragraph preface after I already posted is necessary: the reality that Christ decided to pop up and move around furniture in my Darwinist, borderline-spiritually-apathetic life is beyond me. The gospel “clicked” for me a year ago, despite my 3-year long prior draw. And even though daily scripture consumption has provided a world of truth, hurt, exhortation, terribly low expectations out of humanity, and a potential chew toy for my inherent cynicism, it has been accompanied by this American “Evangelical” stigma of church politics that I’m always late to the party for. I have no left or right wing *yet* simply because I only care about what scripture says, not about that someone’s childhood church did when they were growing up. Seeing that this entry has a lot to do with worship music, which is an odd area that – through observation – countless Christians divide themselves over, I want to say this: In my 4 years of “church experience” (what is that?) I’ve sang worship a capella, to an organ alone, to contemporary rock, as well as to Jazz (I attended an awesome church in NYC called Redeemer Presbyterian Church and got to experience that for the first time. Check it out under the “Resources” tab). I don’t have a preference or bent. I wasn’t raised on one so, frankly, I don’t care. Jesus was in all of them, which made it easy to worship. Before I piss people off, I’ll stop prefacing and get into it.
If you’re looking for a passionate plea for a “new” type of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), you are not going to find it here. If you are looking for a thoroughly organized complaint about how droll or vanilla CCM can be, you will also not find it here. That is not what this is about. This is about the painful, slowing and recessive sting of traditionalism making its footprint in culture and driving a dagger into the heart of something I almost love as much as graphic design: music. It’s actually a draw in regards to appreciation, but graphic design (and most fine arts) definitely win in regards to my love for creation. At any rate, the topic I am about to present is an open forum and it has been plaguing my thoughts for the longest time.
The title of this entry was originally going to be “A call to worship leaders from a layperson who isn’t really a musician, but makes a lot of music and knows a lot of them and can relate to them as artists and has some questions and comments about the art form that it really is.” It was clearly too long of a title. Don’t misinterpret the preface for this essay. It’s not really a complaint or even a theological exhortation. This essay is getting more at the craft of worship leading than the theology behind it. I know that they seem to be inseparable, so let me attempt to unpack this well.
An Old Chinese Man’s Mistake
One of the first churches I ever went to after Jesus flipped my whole life upside down was this small Chinese church tucked away in this back road of my hometown. It was just a visit. And even if it were a real candidate, I think it would have become just a visit anyway. I don’t remember everything that the pastor was talking about. I was about 18 or so and a lot of my brain didn’t follow what he was preaching, but I remember him making the most random tangent into how much of a massacre young Christians are making of “the worship music of today.” Now, I knew nothing of church politics or the cultural Christianity that would soon annoy the hell out of me, but I remember these words:
“Electric guitars are sinful.”
Yeah, he said it. I thought it was funny. He also went on explaining that the grand piano and organ are the truly legitimate means of facilitating worship with God. It’s interesting because I can dismiss his frail, dated, unbiblical, and ignorant argument in two fashions. On one end, I don’t even have to open a bible; the guy didn’t even mention the capacity of the Holy Spirit within the context of worship which is just unhelpful. God’s grace through his gifted Holy Spirit is our means of communication with the father (Mark 13:11). An exposition on “holy musical instruments” is hardly meaningful to anyone. Another fashion is if I actually did open the bible. Saving the scripture that reveals the power of the Holy Spirit until the end, I could just open up to Psalm 33:2, Psalm 43:4, and Psalm 81:2.
“Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!”
“Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.”
“Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.”
Even if we wanted to play it safe and stick exclusively to the instruments that were mentioned in scripture, our outlets of praise would definitely be a six-stringed instrument like a guitar. And there could even be a tambourine for those worship leaders who don’t play a real instrument. Nowhere in scripture is an organ or grand piano mentioned, therefore making biblical and holy worship of God not bound by these instruments. If you’re going to be a conservative bigot, at least read the book you claim to be conservative to.
The Heart of The City’s Music
That last anecdote had a purpose that I will revisit later. I started thinking about worship music while in the car with one of my worship-leading friends a month ago. I think I’ve only mentioned it once, but let me just echo that I am a serious fan of the way that Mars Hill and The Resurgence have been “doing” ministry in the city of Seattle. In a world of neutered church boys who make a big deal about having a cuss-free, censored mouth instead of investing the spirit into repenting from a prideful tongue, Mark Driscoll is a fresh, masculine wake-up call to tradition. Further, the city community has been a serious mission field on my heart and mind lately and I can understand why new culture always seems to ripple out from there. As a graphic designer, I’ve come to the conclusion that significant growth for me just isn’t going to happen if I don’t leave the suburban town I’m in and head south to Philly. Frankly, the white picket fences, Honda Odysseys, and sub-engaging conversations about baby strollers have all left me on the cusp of vomiting and I’m pretty excited about changing gears to the city of Philadelphia. In urban places where no single day could ever be the same, I can see how churches like Mars Hill truly seem like this growing organism of new, doctrinally-sound perspectives and vibrant, rooted arts.
Mars Hill recently had their Good Friday service and broadcasted it live on their website. It was simply amazing, and what I loved about it the most was the Grunge-inspired worship music. Of course, no single church’s worship music is meant to be the model for every other one, but – being located in the city of Seattle which is where legendary grunge bands like Nirvana were born – it makes perfect sense as to why Mars Hill’s worship reflects that culture. I was raised on grunge ever since I was a kid. I grew up on Nirvana, The Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins (Currently looping “1979″), Mother Love Bone, Hole, and Soundgarden. That’s all my older sister really listened to and I fell in love the moment I heard it. Of course I eventually had to throw my cassette tapes away and adopt the iTunes versions. But in regards to worship, it’s only natural that I jump for joy at the idea of worship music to God in the musical language I know best. As I was jamming to Mars Hill’s Chad Gardner and Christian Grunge band Red Letter, amongst the long distorted guitar strums and electronic garble, my worship leader bud couldn’t refrain from saying “I don’t understand how people could worship to this. It’s sounds so gimmicky.”
There are so many things going on in this statement. Many of which come from a close-minded indoctrination into what music is and what worship is. Somehow, I don’t think that I can cover everything in one entry. Especially not without being well-read on specific subjects. Because of this, I will be frank about what I do understand about this position. My friend and I didn’t really have an argument over this. On the contrary, I stated to him what I’m sorta restating and building upon here and we agreed on the final conclusion. For the worship leaders or musicians out there, I pose this question:
How do you approach worship music?
Does the music have a quality that you can quantify? Well of course it does. The sound quality and price tag of the equipment used can all be quantified. Can the genre be quantified? These are all open-forum questions. The first thing to understand about worship music, within the context of my conversation with my friend in particular, is that Mars Hill Church is not like the churches we are familiar with. This has nothing to do with the style or the arts at all. Just speaking membership, we have a church that was placed in the least Christian-populated city in America. There were more dogs than there were Christians when Mars Hill started. Mars Hill’s typical new member was a new Christian, not some Christian who changed churches because they got a new job in a new location, or just had a kid and needed a church with a better daycare center. New talent came from the hearts and minds Seattle-bred residents who probably weren’t raised in a church. In the worship department, this most likely consisted of bands and musical artists who were probably engaging whatever post-modern, grunge-inspired music would look like at the time. These new converts aren’t thinking like suburban PK’s who picked up the guitar to sing Chris Tomlin to the congregation. There is no gimmick-scale. Christian radio and Evangelicalism aren’t determining jack for them. In many cases, these are real musicians who decided to point their talents to the sky. How do people worship to this? Easy. This is how people in that situation were meant to worship.
There are two subtopics that branch from this one topic that I think a lot about:
Based solely on years of observation, to the suburban-church-kid-turned-adult, something that is musically different is perceived as something that is “too much,” as if it were an addition to something that was already there. Is there something overwhelmingly seizure-inducing and “distracting” about this music to me? No. From the perspective of someone who was raised on grunge, I’d like to say on a completely opposite note that there is nothing “super-crazy-innovative” about the music itself either. It’s grunge music. Within the context of it’s genre, it’s just what it is. There’s nothing gimmicky about it at all. It does was the genre says it will do for most of the time. It is excellent music. Excellent. Red Letter’s album is amazing and it even goes bluesy for a few tracks. It is most definitely my favorite Christian album ever. But they’re not selling a new brand of worship. They’re being who they are. And what that is is amazing musicians.
The other subtopic is more like an unanswered question. All the worship leaders I know are people who, on any other occasion, would not be musicians and may not even be playing their instrument as often as they do while they serve. As a ministry media director/graphic designer dude, I was really an artist before anything else. When God saved me, I was now an artist who focused his energies within the church as well as outside of it; on any other occasion I would be honing my craft as much as I do now. If I were to compare myself to the high school Photoshop wonder-kid who only applied his Google-tutorial graphic design to his church and nothing more, I wonder how different we’d think about art. I wonder how different worship might look if one of my experienced music major friends led a worship team. I wonder how that approach to the craft of music alone would intertwine with worship. I’m not really getting at anything, nor am I insinuating that one type of artist is more appropriate than another. If anything, I’m posing a question more about our craft, technique, and theory more than our theology or spirituality.
With the resurgence of reformed theology among college youth and most young adults (at least in the areas that I dwell in NY, NJ, and PA) it seems like a handful of worship leaders have become semi-professionals at giving people what they want, while preserving the doctrinal integrity of scripture. You can’t argue with that at all. It beats the hell out of terrible worship with unbiblical or misleading lyrics. And it also beats the hell out of terrible music. There’s nothing wrong with that. What I’m trying to stir here is difficult to describe, primarly because what I’m getting at is the inner drive of a musical leader that probably cannot be quantified. Here’s a question I am sure most worship leaders are not asked, but should be asked:
Where are you going with your music?
You have taken a responsibility that holds hands with a world of creative direction. Have you bottlenecked it to capital letters that sit below lyrics on a worship sheet? Are you waiting for your iPod to tell you what to do? And this isn’t a direct shot at people who love Hillsong or other poppy Christian music. You can be a straightlaced Westminster graduate who only feeds off of whatever Sovereign Grace Ministries puts out. Same chemistry problem, different elements. Do you really want that to be it? Sure, depth is found in the “Worship” side of it, but that’s only 50% of what your trade’s title assumes. You want to know what biblical worship is? Read Romans 12:1. Do you make your own music? You don’t have to, but would it help you to? Once again, this isn’t a plea. These are just questions I’m asking as an artist to other artists. It would be weird to consider yourself a worship leader and not an artist. You’re not a CD Player up there when you’re doing worship, so you’re an artist in some way.
So what is this all about?
You’re not constrained by what DC Talk did. You don’t have to play it safe. You also don’t have to and probably shouldn’t go crazy-wild either. Music has been around for a very long time. There are so many genres in front of you. It doesn’t have to be anything. It doesn’t have to not be what everybody is familiar with either. If Star 99.1 musically reaches out to your upper-middle class suburban mid-20′s newlyweds then go for it. God will be there and it will be a party. But know that music did not start in 1995 with Jars of Clay. Don’t be stuck up like some of our last generation was. Just like how organs aren’t the extent of how people worship musically, neither are delay pedals and 90% reverb on your voice. Instead of being a lofty traditionalist, a lot of people are just becoming lofty modernists with Contemporary Christian Music. There is no gauge of creativity and innovation. I guarantee you that you will probably never come up with something that people haven’t heard before. I don’t see the correlation between worship music being more hedonistic through it sounding less like 90′s U2 and whatever else you would typically hear on Christian radio stylistically. Delay pedals and reverb are not the cap of what “we” can do. It’s just a style. There’s nothing beyond it or before it. Stop looking at art so linear. Do your missiology research surrounding your community and the people who are attending your congregation. You’re a worship leader; love and explore music.
That came off like a rant, but I’m really not annoyed by anything. Lately, I love the worship in my church. My worship-leadin’ partner in crime, Tim Shin, has been keeping his ears open. He’s still trying to figure things out, like I am with my art. And I think doing things like removing the linear approach to music that many church kids may have been raised in or indoctrinated into could quite possibly lift the chains of … stupidity.