(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:
- Worship is very important. Very. I just don't think we're doing it right.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
5 comments:
It is interesting. I have been pondering many of the same questions. I think the problem is that we have missed the idea that musical praise is an outlet that God has given us to express our emotions, joy, gratitude, sorrow, remorse etc. Not something to replace the act of worship. That they are designed to work in tandem. When I worship God by helping someone in need there is an overflow and emotional response that music and praise allows me to express.
I hope that makes sense, it's not a clean cut subject because it deals with God and emotions.
For so long, I wondered why God gave me any musical talent or why He had me go through years of studying music and taking lessons. I dread the "worship music genre," but I want to make music that gives the glory back to God. I mean, it would be selfish to hoard the gift to myself.
Then, I thought about the book of Esther. It never once even mentions God. Literally, His name is never even used (for good or bad). Yet, somehow, the book still gives full credit/glory to God as He protects His chosen nation from cruelty, and we know that it is entirely inspired by Him. Maybe if I just pray that the Holy Spirit will work through me (as I'm sure the author of Esther must have done), the glory will naturally be given back to Him, whether I'm writing a song secifically about God or not, or in whatever else I'm doing in life.
Thanks for writing this Mick. I, and everyone else, need to hear this.
Wow! Good insight and lots of opinion. Jesus also didn't write books, but God inspired the bible.
Music is as theclure intimated, part of an emotional outlet go God. Music allows many of us to express ourselves more openly. It has been a struggle to get 'other' artists to share their worship through arts in the church. Why?
So if an individual is not being authentic in their worship - regardless of the form, the issue isn't really about how cheesy the words might be, or what the chords in the songs are, or how much money the artist made selling this work.
Hopefully, we are praying for the leaders in our church, including our Art Directors, more commonly called worship leaders, so that decisions about what songs to sing on Sunday mornings, and what songs run through our minds during the week, are prayful and pleasing to God.
Well, ZooMama, I assure you that Mick has no problem with stating that the most important thing is that we are pleasing to God with our hearts and in the way we worship. I think what he is trying to say (if I'm not imposing too much) is that our methods of worship set us up for failure and temptation to have the wrong motivations (i.e. the temptation to let it become about money) and that our lack of inivation in this area fails to reflect God's creativity and glory. We seem to emphasize reflecting many other attributes of God but are failing at this one.
In addition, I agree with his view on cheesy lyrics, because I think it reflects that we are setting a very low standard for ourselves when we worship. I'm not saying that our words have to be spiced up and intelligent when we sing, pray, or talk to God; not everyone is intelligent or good at writing lyrics. However, I do think that we should be putting a great deal of effort into our lyrics to assure that they are heartfelt, and not just superficial, generic feelings about about the faith. Our faith in (and relationshiop with) God is what we live for; we should be thinking much more of how we can be reaching out to the world through our actions and 24/7 lifestyle of worship, rather than just lyrics that cause us to romanticize God as though He's just a good friend or lover whom we appreciate.
Lastly, I think too many of our songs cause us to just fantasize promises that we never go on to actually put into action For example, when we settle for words, like, "I want to praise you all of my days," do we actually do that outside of those twenty minutes when we're closing our eyes, enjoying the sweet melodies and words that remind us of Him?. All of the actions that we mention in our songs are in the conditional and future tenses. Is praising Him merely hypothetical?
Worship is so very much more than just a few lyrics that we shout out to God at designated 'worship' times. The psalmists often times wrote their psalms in the past and present tenses, because they were things that actually happened. I'm not so sure many of us could do those things today. Let's start living out the things we promise in those songs to prove that we actually want to "praise Him all of our days," and then write about our experiences in doing so.
I am actually in complete agreement with you Mick, I've always been this way. I have always been an outcast in my church/family for thinking this way, but oh well. I'm not even a huge fan organized religion, but I can accept it. But when it comes to music I am right there with you. Well put.
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