A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine, Greg Gilbert, posted a blog on the 9Marks site called Against Music. The title was more an attention grabber than a statement of Greg’s attitude toward music in general. He was cautioning Christians against becoming spiritually dependent on music in their relationship with God. He wrote: The bottom line, I suppose, is that it would do every Christian well to do some honest heart-searching about what makes them feel “close to God.” Can you feel close to God just by reading or saying the words, “In Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”? Would you be able …
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Should We Can Canned Music in the Church?
Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently posted a blog bemoaning the increasing use of pre-recorded (canned) music in church services. After I read his comments, Eric Zeller sent me this e-mail: “Often smaller churches will use pre-recorded musical tracks either to accompany soloists, choirs, or congregational singing. Do you have any thoughts on this practice and its impact on worship?” I don’t know if Eric saw Dr. Mohler’s post, but it seemed like the topic of pre-recorded music in the church was worth commenting on. New Testament Christians obviously didn’t have to face this issue, so there’s no …
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I Worship God by Singing. You Should, Too.
Last week Donald Miller, probably best known as the author of Blue Like Jazz, wrote a blog post called, “I Don’t Worship God by Singing. I Connect With Him Elsewhere.” It came as I was working on a chapter for my book, True Worshipers. A chapter called “True Worshipers Sing.” I was surprised by the categorical nature of Don’s title and even more concerned after reading the post. Don seemed more committed to being honest (brutally honest at one point) and telling us about his learning style than helping us see more clearly what God might think about our singing. I’ve read some thoughtful responses to Don’s post from Mike Cosper, Denny Burk …
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Monday Devotions – Anticipating God’s Presence
These thoughts are from Randy Alcorn, who will be a main speaker at this year’s WorshipGod Conference: “[God’s servants] will see his face.” Revelation 22:4Our longing for Heaven is a longing for God—a longing that involves not only our inner selves, but our bodies as well. Being with God is the heart and soul of Heaven. Every other heavenly pleasure will derive from and be secondary to his holy presence. God’s greatest gift to us is, and always will be, himself. His presence brings satisfaction. His absence brings thirst and longing. “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for …
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Why a Synthesizer Isn’t the Holy Spirit
In recent decades ambient sounds have become omnipresent in church gatherings. Meetings start with a synth swell and every song after that is connected to the next with musical glue. Synth pads play softly behind prayer, Scripture readings, song intros, communion, and in some cases, the preaching. If you don’t have someone who can produce the necessary sounds, no worries. “Worship pads” in every key are available for purchase to smooth out the transitions. Which raises the question: what’s going on? Music and God’s Presence We often see a connection between music and the Holy Spirit’s activity in Scripture. Long before he was …
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Pursuing God’s Active Presence
In 1971, the great 20th century preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, brought these remarks to an annual Minister’s conference: “We must not be content until we have had some manifestation of the activity of God. We must concentrate on this. This is my plea, that we concentrate on this, because it is the great message of the Bible, so substantiated by the lessons of history. That is obviously today the only thing that gives us any hope as we face the future. And God seems to be saying that to us. ‘Prove Me now. Try Me. Risk your everything on Me. Be fools for My sake. Cast yourselves utterly upon this belief.’ Let us put it like this: Do we really …
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Worship Without Words
Recently I posted on Twitter: The fact that Psalms doesn’t include a soundtrack or notation clues us in to what God values most in our worship songs. I find it fascinating that God gave us a “songbook” with numerous musical references, but no actual music. It’s not that music is unimportant. Badly played or written music can make great theology sound obscure or unappealing. Great music can make shallow lyrics sound profound and incredibly moving. Which is why when we’re deciding what to sing congregationally, we want to give the greatest attention to the lyrics we’re singing. In response to my tweet someone asked: @bkauflin Is it …
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Sheet Music or Chord Charts?
Kyle wrote in to ask this question: I am about to start leading a worship team that consists of a good number of talented people and a variety of instruments. To this point, the band has used printed sheet music for all of the songs they play; this means that someone has manually entered everything into a music writing program (Finale) and printed everything out. It also means that for any given song, A) Musicians have four to six pages of material to deal with, B) creativity and freedom of expression are squelched a bit, and C) introducing new songs to the band, and to the congregation, will be very difficult.I have been used to working from …
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Expressing Love to God
Someone coined the phrase “God is my girlfriend songs” to describe contemporary lyrics that express love to God with words that are romantic in nature. They include phrases like “embrace me,” “let me feel your touch,” etc. While this isn’t the first time in history congregational songs have been labeled as sensual (John Wesley had some problems with Charles Wesley’s lyrics at times), it’s an issue that still needs clarification. Why does someone write songs that can be sung either to God or a human lover? The reasons vary. Perhaps the writer is simply a poor lyricist and doesn’t know any better. It might be an attempt to stretch the …
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Worshiping God Should Make Us Holy
Thought I’d post a brief section from a chapter I wrote on "Living for God’s Glory." In it I describe different ways corporate worship should change the way we live. Feel free to leave any thoughts. Thanks again for your prayers and encouragement regarding my current book project… It is impossible for us to rightly consider God apart from his holiness – his wrath against sin, his steadfast opposition to injustice, and his righteous judgment of the wicked. These aren’t exactly popular or seeker-sensitive topics, but they describe the God we worship. But the more we love “worship,” the more we should hate sin in all its manifestations. …
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Should We Can Canned Music in the Church? Pt. 2
Yesterday I shared some of the drawbacks of using pre-recorded music in church services. Can it ever be beneficial? I think so, as long as we’re aware that God is more concerned about the faith in our hearts than the sound of the music. If you’re part of a small church, a small group, or a mission church, you may find the following to be true. 1. Recorded music can encourage people to sing out enthusiastically While I generally prefer the sound of an average musician to a CD, there are times when bad instrumentalists are more distracting than helpful. Of course, as I mentioned yesterday, singing with no accompaniment is certainly a viable …
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On God, Glory, Grace, and Grammys
As a professional musician for almost 40 years, I’m at least mildly interested in the Grammys each year. Who are the young artists that will be tomorrow’s legends? Where is music headed, if anywhere? What old artists are continuing to produce great music or making a comeback? Since this past Sunday, there’s been a disproportionate amount of online buzz about the show. I watched a part of it and was freshly grateful for a DVR with fast forward capabilities. In case you missed it, this year’s event included an overtly sensual duet between Beyoncé and Jay Z, a satanically influenced segment by Katy Perry, and a mass wedding for 30+ heterosexual …
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Standards for the Music Team, Pt. 2
Someone recently sent me this question: Can you share your standards for those who participate “up front” on Sunday mornings? After my last post on this topic, Matt Blick wondered if a list of standards would even be helpful. He wrote, “Lists are not as helpful as developing relationships which are open to challenges on character issues no matter how small. Sometimes it’s just a comment or attitude you want to query that’s often hard to pin a commandment on! To which I say, AMEN! Rules without relationship usually results in rebellion, whether you’re leading a group of musicians or your own children! However, with that understood, it …
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Our God Saves by Paul Baloche
I met Paul Baloche about ten years ago when we were both part of a panel at the GMA (Gospel Music Association) week. We actually met back in 1985, although I didn’t find out about it until 1998. Paul had just become a Christian and Rita had persuaded him to attend a Christian conference in the Philadelphia area where some guy was teaching a session on writing songs for worship. That guy happened to be me. I’ve joked with Paul that I should probably be getting a cut of his royalties since what he learned at that seminar has probably been a key part of his success all these years… Paul is a humble man. We’ve talked about the unfortunate ending …
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Motivating the Church to Worship God
If you read this blog regularly you know I’m coming down to the wire on my “kind of” first draft for a book I’m writing for Crossway. THANK YOU to everyone who responded to my previous post asking about the challenges you face as a worship leader. Your thoughts are helping and guiding me as I write. I had a fruitful day of writing yesterday and actually finished three chapters. I’ve been able to borrow from some of the posts I’ve written on this blog as well as some material from my first draft of the book. I very much feel the effect of people’s prayers. I’m really enjoying the process of writing, which is completely God’s grace. The book …