Tearing Sutures Out

But he somehow keeps smiling in spite all of that,
While I keep finding ways to push the good out for the bad
Oh, how selfish of myself to always say that it was more than I could take,
Like it was pain I could not shake,
Like it could break me with it's fingers, throw my body in the lake,
And I would slowly sink away
But the Truth is it was sorrow that I made and would not face.
See, I keep falling for the future after tripping on the past.
And I am always tearing sutures out to make the anguish last like it defines me.
Or reminds me I've found comfort in my suffering
And uncertainty in happiness and death,
Because what's next is such a mystery to me.
I am terrified of all the things I feel but cannot see.
--La Dispute, The Last Lost Continent

So often in life this defines me. No, not at the moment, at the moment I'm doing fine. I was just reading over these lyrics tonight and realized how accurate this was to my life. When I get depressed or down, I find myself staying that way just for the sake of staying that way, like it brings some sort of twisted comfort to me. It just comes so naturally and I don't really know what to think of it.

Being 'down' also comes very naturally to me. I remember a few weeks ago, one of our teachers told us to come to class depressed to get into the right mood for Ecclesiastes, his topic for our class. I was like, "I could totally do that," because I think I usually just default to that. Like, staying optimistic is like holding onto a rope ladder, and all I have to do is let go and fall backwards to walk around with an ornery look on my face, not feel like being around people, and see everything pessimistically. Even during good times where I'm generally bright and cheery, I can put myself in this mode almost instantly.

But really, I'm not letting go of that rope ladder very often. Things are alright. I need to update more.

Worship: Wrong (Rewrite)

I think I got it right this time... I hope so. This is something very important to me, and I hope I've articulated it correctly.

I've got a problem with our current state of doing 'worship' as a church through music. Let me count the ways:

1. It's too easy. The very first instance we see the word worship being used in the bible is when Abraham gives the ultimate sacrifice, a foreshadowing of what God would do for us later. He says "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." (Gen 22:5). There's something to be said about this, and to me, it's that worship often takes sacrifice on our parts. Giving of our time or possessions, serving others, being outside of our comfort zone. Many other examples in the Bible where the word worship is used is often in context of God appearing and men falling on their faces in His presence.
2. We worship in the wrong tense and perspective. Almost always throughout the Bible, we see Israel praising God for things he's done, all throughout the old testament and through the psalms. Worship is always in present or past tense, after God has done something great. I'm not saying we shouldn't have hope for the things God is going to do, but we can't know what those things are. We often say things along the lines of "following all of our days," or, "less of me, more of you." These are also examples of focusing on what we'll do for God instead of what He's done for us as well as promises we can't keep - after all, we know that we are only capable of following God as it was His grace that has saved us, nothing of our doing. "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil 1:6). So it's good to have hope that we'll be kept in His grace, but as far as our worship goes, I think we should both be focusing on Him, not making promises, and focusing ourselves on things He's already done for us.
   
3. It lacks creativity. Honestly, I don't think I should have to turn to secular music to find anything innovative. We are definitely failing to display God's attribute of creativity in our music, using the same simple formula over and over again. If we're writing music for God, the best audience we can have, why are we not creating masterpieces, why have we created so many cliches for ourselves, and why does all our music sound so similar? Granted, there are a few Christians who really do create innovative music that is even recognized by secular critics as great (Sufjan, Danielson, Various Metalcore bands), but as a whole, the entirety of our "Christian Genre" lacks any effort to break the mold.
   
4. It's being used for profit. This part disgusts me outright - read this:

   WorshipMusic.com offers one of the best values in Christian music. Our mission is simple: to increase worship on the earth! Make us your one-stop store for worship & praise music by Vineyard, Integrity Music, Maranatha, Worship Together, Hosanna!, Kingsway, Passion/sixsteps, Hillsongs, Brentwood Benson and quality independent & import worship music.

   If nothing else is taken from this blog post, I hope that this would. I don't get passionate about a lot of things, but this just boils my blood. The fact that we're copyrighting and selling our words that are supposed to be for God is unbelievable to me, and honestly, I recognize it as outright sin. You can't serve the world and God at the same time: You can't write music to make money from, and write music acceptable to God at the same time. You just can't. An interaction between you and God should be between you and God. What if you started selling personal letters between you and your girlfriend? Think of even moreso how much of an offense that is when you're doing the same thing with your creator.
   
5. It's replacing true worship. When I say the word "worship" the first thing that will come to mind is probably singing. I think this is very weird. Whether it's been intended or not, our whole mindset of what worship is is now defined by the act of singing. Is that seriously all we're gonna give? Granted, I know lots of Christians spend lots of time serving and worshipping in many other ways, but why don't we ever define feeding the homeless as worship, or painting someone's house, or sharing what God has done in our lives, or trusting God instead of worrying about something. None of this is considered worship, and if I were to tell someone that I don't enjoy going to church and singing, I would probably be accused of (or atleast thought of as) someone who doesn't worship God.

Honestly, there are countless ways to worship God, and singing is just a very small part. I believe a big part of why Christianity in America is so weak today is that people have the mindset that the only thing worshipping God requires is 20 minutes of singing every sunday and that they're good for the rest of the week. No, worshipping God is much more than that, and it's an act we should be doing every day. Simply, giving the glory to God - whatever that may look like. I can't tell you what that's going to look like in our own life, that's up to you and God. I would suggest it as a topic of prayer perhaps? You might be surprised.

My roommate Kurtis suggested something cool the other day. What if instead of sitting around singing along to some familiar and overplayed song, everyone got an instrument and literally just made a joyful noise, singing out thanks to God. Even if you can't play an instrument, most of us can bang on stuff or sing to some extent, and while it may not sound the best, the whole group would be expressing themselves the best they could, with words from their own mouths and sounds from their own hands. I can only imagine a scene like that to be a sweet aroma rising up to God.

More good insights on this topic from Kurtis. We share mostly the same view - he articulates a few things better than I, as well as a different perspective. Definitely check it out. @ Integral Truth.

Worship: Wrong

Hello controversy.

(I need to rewrite this, it's messy and doesn't convey anything in particular clearly enough)

I have a big problem with musical worship. It's just sort of slowly evolved over the years, starting with feeling inadequate because I didn't feel the need to raise my hands during worship and thought I might arrive at some higher level of understanding that would all of a sudden make me want to start raising my hands. I later started realizing this to be a lie. Then I started noticing a trend at how much "worship" is focused on ourselves and not on God and a big "Here I am to worship" mentality, often lying to God through song with words like "You're all I want" when, humanly, there are hundreds/thousands of other things we want all the time. We sing to God empty promises about giving our whole lives to Him, yet go on living for ourselves. Many songs contain lyrics that are personal and meaningful for the writer of the song, but the rest of us have to cut strange puzzle pieces to fit our experiences into these songs. I really started analyzing the things being sung instead of just singing them and came to the conclusion: We're doing it wrong.

This was fine for a while, I thought maybe we just needed to write more God-centered music and looked to hymns. Hymns are better lyrically, there's no doubt. They lack cheesiness and for the most part, focus on God's character and things he's done and altogether just contain more universal truths. They satisfied me at first, but now I'm weary of them as well. I'm weary of merely singing to God and calling it worship. I'm disgusted that the term worship now means "singing Christian songs together" instead of "giving glory to God in any situation." We have designated times of worship - 20 minutes, five songs, three times a week. Seriously? I thought this was a lifestyle. I thought this could manifest itself in countless different ways. I thought it was about trying to offer a worthy sacrifice... how does singing for a few minutes require any sacrifice at all on your part?

Worship has become an industry, and this is the most sickening part. Read this excerpt from WorshipMusic.com, it speaks for itself:

WorshipMusic.com offers one of the best values in Christian music. Our mission is simple: to increase worship on the earth! Make us your one-stop store for worship & praise music by Vineyard, Integrity Music, Maranatha, Worship Together, Hosanna!, Kingsway, Passion/sixsteps, Hillsongs, Brentwood Benson and quality independent & import worship music.

This is disgusting. Just the fact that worship songs are copyrighted is outrageous. On top of that they're being sold. Praises to God are being sold.

I can understand people who make praise music need money to live on. Get a job. If a (secular) musician from, say Magic Bullet Records has a passion for music, he puts his soul into it and creates an original masterpiece, then makes creative and personal packaging for it (often hand-made), and then sells it for $8 or less to barely cover the cost of it and gets his money from his day job, not his creative output and passion. Why then, can a Christian musician use the same over-used four chords that every other Christian musician uses, maybe remake some cliche praise songs in their own "style," put a pretty picture of them self on the cover of their album, and sell it for $15? The secular big-name recording industry is disgusting enough doing the same thing, but as Christians? Why are we following the example of the corporate money-grubbing recording industry instead of maybe... not making a profit on their "songs to God?"

That brings me to another point - Why is Christian music so un-innovative all the time? Why is it so cheesy? Why does it have to sound the same and why is it its own genre? Why do I have to turn to secular music to hear something creative and heartfelt? If our audience is God, shouldn't we be the ones that are leading in musical innovation instead of being decades behind? Isn't God worthy of a "new song" like we always sing about? Why do we keep putting out the same old thing?

Now, a few disclaimers:

1. Worship is very important. Very. I just don't think we're doing it right.
2. There are some Christian musicians who are actually innovative - see Danielson and Sufjan - people that are more popular in secular society even than in Christian circles.
3. We see singing praises as a model in the Bible with Psalms and a few other places. Note this is a very small part of worship and I would say, not required at all (We don't even see Jesus singing in the gospels). If you want to add a bit of singing to your worship - that's great. More often than not, we see people adding a bit of worship to their singing, though.
   

I'd like to people stop calling "singing praises" worship and start thinking a bit broader. How can you worship God the best? It's different for everyone and different all the time, so I can't tell you. Maybe step out of your comfort zone to do something the Holy Spirit's been convicting you of for a while? Maybe ask someone how they've been blessed that day and then sharing how you've been blessed? Praying for someone? Admiring God's creation? Giving up a prized possession in order to help someone else out? Hey, maybe at some moment you can worship God the best just by singing to Him. There's definitely a time for that for many people - don't let it drown out all the other times, and please, stop calling it worship.

Note: This might be messy and hard to read, I'll have to go over it again tomorrow and maybe rewrite some of it, I'm quite tired. Enjoy.