Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

26 March, 2007   comments: (0) Today's Worship   There's More To Christian Music Than The LYRICS I've been receiving a lot of emails lately asking me to check out 'Christian' songs and musical performances related to various new cultural styles. The appeal is always the same: "the lyrics are great and are really biblical", but the tune (the music) itself is another story. So the question that we'll look at in this post will be: "are the lyrics the only thing that matters" in Christian music, or even more importantly - in worship music? That's what Rick Warren would have you believe; he flat-out says it in one of his books. And at his church you can pick your worship music style as easily as you choose what coffee flavor you want at the cappuccino cafe. Before there was The Purpose Driven Life, there was his book - The Purpose Driven Church, which profoundly impacted the pastor of the church that I used to attend. After reading that book, my former pastor began to do all sorts of crazy things in church, at least by historical standards. Our worship became an electric guitar band, with a drum set sometimes combined with another drummer playing the bongos. And Clinton'esque saxophone solos, in which the sax player would step forward during his spotlight segment, wearing a set of dark sunglasses. It was all so "cool". After we left that church (we had been there nearly a decade), we visited another church one Sunday in which the lady in front of us was doing some sensual dance moves while the worship music was being performed. My wife and I both thought that was rather odd, and we figured it was a result of the type of music that the band was playing. The lyrics were very Christian though, and talked about things in the bible. The following is one of my favorite posts of Ingrid's from the old Slice of Laodicea blog (now called CRN), simply because it's both feisty and funny. But more than that, it's a sad commentary on how twisted the idea of "Christian music" has become. I think it also underscores how wrong the idea is that the music style itself does not matter. Remember the ZombieGutz Christian punk rock band? Here Ingrid responds to one of their emails; she writes: ZombieGutz Speaks! A member of the rock group ZombieGutz sent a rant to Slice. He thinks we should be shut down. This has not been edited for spelling, punctuation, grammar or capitalization. this is for all of you people who are so set on "changing the minds of the youth of today... or generation X(which apparently means satan worshippers these days)". YOU can't change a person. you may add little thoughts to their thought process, or give them little incentives... but THEY have to change themselves. so stop! if you don't care for the music or the oh-so-obvious christian lyrics then don't listen to blasted stuff. but if not, DON'T try and tell others what they will or will not do. that is THEIR choice. like stated by the great ryanGUTZ, we are trying, and in most cases, succeeding in reaching a whole different genre of youth... as opposed to the "correct genre of youth that ya'll deem nessecary". in conclusion and in my most humble opinion, i think this site needs to be shut down just for the simple fact of being COMPLETELY unnessecary. much love to all, VanGUTZ Well, VanGutz, the first lesson you need to learn is that if you want to be taken seriously, you need to use a name that has some significance other than the entrails of zombies. Otherwise, it's hard to type a response with a straight face. Secondly, as long as bands naming themselves after said zombie entrails and writing songs like Dead by Dawn claim to be ministering to young people, sites like Slice will be necessary to hold their claims up to God's Word. Youth need the same thing that elders need. They need to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They need to be discipled and taught about separating themselves from the world and its system and how to live a holy life of service before God. That is the need of young people today. They need to hear a straightforward message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone and a call to live a sanctified life... Posted by Ingrid on August 17, 2006 For those of you who have a faster internet connection, you can watch the zombie ministers do their thing in this video. As you watch it, ask yourself "is this Christian music?". Even if you could change the lyrics around so that they were very biblical lyrics, would that make this music Christian? Why, or why not. Back on Old Truth, you might remember my 2005 post about the Seeker church that sent out these postcards to the community based on the hit secular song called Love Shack. This church thought that they only needed to change the lyrics around a bit, and then the song was fine for a worship service. The original lyrics, of course said things like "The Love Shack is a little old place where we can get together. Love Shack, that's where it's at! Huggin' and a kissin', dancin' and a lovin', wearin' next to nothing". So is that ok then, just to change the lyrics around to mention God a few times, and now you have a Christian song? And isn't it true that there is more to worship music than just the lyrics? Can't we say that worldliness and fleshliness in the style of music can betray the Christianity of a song? Consider these words by AW Pink: Worship, then, is the occupation of the heart with a known God; and everything which attracts the flesh and its senses, detracts from real worship. "God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." There is no choice in the matter. This emphatic "must" bars out everything which is of the flesh. Worship is not by the eyes or the ears, but "in spirit," that is, from the new nature. The more spiritual is our worship the less formal and the less attractive to the flesh will it be. O how far astray we have gone! Modern "worship" (?) is chiefly designed to render it pleasing to the flesh. The tendency today is to say rap, punk, hard rock, whatever . . . are all valid forms of Christian music (even for corporate worship) so long as the lyrics are biblical. But is that right thinking? Tomorrow, I'll look at the ditch on the other side of the road, and address some highly conservative worship music with highly deficient lyrics. Before you comment on today's post however, remember what it's NOT about: It's not about any certain style of music being the only right way for worship. And it's also not about whether you should or should not listen to non-Christian music outside of church. I have been careful to make no such statements in this post. Instead, we are focusing on music that claims to be "Christian", simply because of the lyrics, and how that label often becomes a free pass for this music to make it's way into worship services. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.641   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism