Music in Christian preaching symbolizes the joy and unity found in worship and labor, often depicted through communal singing or harmonious sounds echoing through nature. It reflects how praise and work are intertwined, uplifting the spirit and connecting believers to God and one another (Psalm 95:1-2).
In Tyrol, women and children sing until their men respond from the hills.
In the mountains of Tyrol, it is the custom of the women and the children to come out, when it is sublime, and sing their national songs until they hear their husbands, fathers, or brothers answer them from the hills, or on their return home.
Music universally uplifts and accompanies labor across diverse cultures and lands.
MUSIC, Love of Music is universally appreciated and practised. The English ploughboy sings as he drives his team; the Scotch Highlander makes the glens and gray moors resound with his beautiful song; the Swiss, Tyrolese, and Carpathians lighten their labor by music; the muleteer of Spain cares little who is on the throne or behind it, if he can only have his early carol; the vintager of Sicily has his evening hymn, even beside the fire of the burning mount; the fisherman of Naples has his boat-song, to which his rocking boat beats time on that beautiful sea; and the gondolier of Venice still keeps up his midnight serenade. Dr. Cumming.
Have you ever known a truly musical family? One in which each member displays a talent for some instrument, or one in which the children spontaneously break into four-part harmonies? When musicians marry, it often seems that their children have music coursing through their veins.
This is more than a result of favorable genetics. The children of musicians observe the necessity of discipline to produce beautiful music, and often, parents so value the development of their child's talent that they will actually MAKE THEM PRACTICE. That is not to say that musical children are merely a product of their parent's desire. I have known many children who beg to play an instrument before their little fingers can stretch to form chords or notes. They are eager because they have seen the enjoyment that those around them receive from making beautiful music.
This, I believe, is the key to families who display exceptional musical ability: the love of music is contagious. Those who are exposed to beauty develop an appreciation for it and often desire to create it themselves. True lovers of music are able to foster this love in their children, while at the same time serving as an example of the hard work that goes into producing it.
I suspect that members of such families are rarely greeted with the disparaging attitudes that so often meet those who have grown up in religious families. You wouldn't expect someone to remark, “You're only musical because your parents were musical” as if this somehow delegitimizes hard work and talent. Musicians are not accused of being unable to think for themselves or of blindly adopting their parents' values. They so obviously have inherited a love that they are more often envied than derided.
But these are, unfortunately, the attitudes that greet people who continue in their parents' faith. They are quickly labeled “indoctrinated” or “brainwashed” and made to feel that they are second-class citizens at the intellectual table. And it is no doubt true that some do unthinkingly adopt their parents' religion because it is familiar or because they don't want to rock the boat. But it is also true that many who grow up thinking through issues of faith have wrestled through more questions of truth and morality than their counterparts who weren't exposed to any framework of belief.
This is certainly not to say that any religion passed on from parents to children is necessarily good. (We all know that there are notorious crime families as well as musical, artistic, or athletic families.) Negative behaviors or beliefs can be even more contagious than that which is good. And if a religion is not true, it does not somehow become nobler because it belongs to one's family or culture. Rather, I am suggesting that we should not discount those who share their parents' faith; after all, they have seen it lived out in both joys and sorrows.
It was always God's plan for the people of Israel to pass on their faith to their children. Moses spoke the word of the Lord to them, saying: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:5-7).
The point of this command was not to raise children who are good rule followers. Rather, it was to raise up parents who are so full of the love of God (loving Him with all their strength) that their children want to follow the same path. We who are in Christ have the same opportunity: not to raise children who blindly follow us, but to raise those who, because they have tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord, want to run to Him.
________
Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]
P.P. Bliss was killed in a train wreck near Ashtabula, Ohio, on December 29, 1876. 11 cars plunged into a 70-foot chasm. Fires broke out. Bliss was heard to sing "Jesus, Lover of my soul..." over the shouts. Bliss and his wife and 81 others died.
He wrote:
The Light of the World Is Jesus
Wonderful Words of Life
Let the Lower Lights Be Burning
It Is Well With My Soul
Almost Persuaded
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
He was born in a log cabin, saved at an early age. Good friend of D.L. Moody. Heard sermon by preacher named Brundage: "He who is almost persuaded is almost saved, but to be almost saved is to be entirely lost." In a prison, two-thirds of 800 men came under deep conviction. "Hold the Fort, for I am Coming!" was inspired by Major Whittle's account of the besieged brigade of 1,500 Union soldiers surrounded by 6,000 Confederates, with the Union troops being saved by Gen. Sherman. Bliss' last song begins, "I know not what awaits me, God kindly veils mine eyes."
A 10-year study by James Schaefer of the University of Minnesota and his team of anthropologists at a Missoula, Montana, bar - along with study of about 2,000 groups ranging in size from one to nine individuals in 65 bars around Minneapolis over a 3-year period - came to the clear conclusion that country-western tunes go with the most boozing. Blaming the lyrics (sad laments about love gone sour, personal freedom, and solace found in the bottle), Schaefer listed songs by Waylon Jenning, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard, and others as "particularly powerful drinking inducements," songs that "celebrate heavy drinking by making heroes out of drunkards." Cash and Lewis are both professing Christians.
Schaefer, who heads the University of Minn drug and alcohol abuse program, in reporting his findings to the American Anthropological Association at its recent meeting in Phoenix, said their studies found "slower music went with faster drinking," adding, "Hard drinkers prefer listening to slower-paced, wailing, lonesome, self pitying music generally during slow times in the bar."
His conclusion: "No doubt about it, country and western can be a prescription for trouble among people with little self-control." His survey of 89 waitresses and bartenders found that while "the bar staffs in most places were perceptive, they kept serving drinks anyway," even though, in their judgment, 3 out of every 5 of their customers were already drunk.
Sermon for dedication of handbells. 2 Chronicles 5:7-14
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HARMONY & DISSONANCE
====================
I. God likes loud worship.
A. Bells are a Biblical way to worship.
B. Examples of loud worship in the Bible:
1) Bringing ark to Jerusalem. 1 Chron 13:8
2) Dedication of Temple. 1 Chron 25:7-14
3) Heaven's harps - rushing water and pealing thunder. Rev 14:2
C. Our worship should be exuberant.
II. The need for harmony.
A. Noise in and of itself means nothing.
B. Christians are not all the same.
C. We are made for each other. 1 Corinthians 12
III. Christians need to cooperate.
A. Be humble and harmonious. Rom 12:16; 1 Pet 3:8
B. Cooperation in our church.
C. If you lack harmony with someone, resolve it.
IV. To have harmony we must be "in tune" with others.
A. Sensitive to feelings. Romans 12:15
B. Sharing burdens. Galatians 6:2
V. In relation to the world we need dissonance.
A. Dissonance is being out of tune. James 4:4
B. Where Christians need to be different.
C. Distinction in our message. 1 Cor 14:7-9
VI. God's music can only be learned by the redeemed. Rev 14:3
#2368
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How then, are we to praise God? Like every other area of the Christian life, rich times of prayer and praise come through learning principles and putting them into practice.
1. Use Precise Language.
a. Do not use the word PRAISE.
b. Do not use the word THANKS.
c. Try to begin your prayer sentences with "You" rather than "I".
2. Use the Names of God.
Names are very important to God. In the Old Testament, God reveals Himself
to man by gradually introducing new names for Himself to help His people
comprehend who He is. He continues this process in the New Testament
until Jesus Christ is revealed as the One who has been given "the name
that is above every name."
3. Use the Scriptures.
4. Praise Him with Music.
5. Praise through Poetry.
6. Develop Personal Meditations on God.
7. Use Published Praise Guides.
8. Find Praise in the Ordinary.
Toward A Life Of Praise.
1. Determine to improve your praise life because He is worthy of your best efforts.
2. Ask God to teach you in the same way His disciples sought help, "Lord, teach us to pray."
3. Work on praising daily and in small, realistic time increments.
If musicians are the popular philosophers of our time, as Ravi Zacharias has observed, perhaps they are also our psychologists. The message is hopelessness, confusion, and cynicism. The diagnosis is similar....
G. K. Chesterton once noted that people who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. One only has to listen to a few love songs to see this truth in human nature; we find a constant flow of promising and vowing. But think about this for a moment because we also find countless melodies reveling in casual love and promiscuity. Isn't this natural instinct “to bind” remarkably incongruous with a world dancing to the philosophy of “boundlessness” in the pursuit of pleasure?
At the risk of sounding dramatic, the diagnosis for love is understandably a message of confusion! The boundless pursuit of pleasure bombards the senses in every direction, while the natural desire to find love worthy of promise remains a contradicting cry of the heart. The idea of “true love” is met with cynicism — a concept left for Hollywood.
The Song of Solomon is the book of the Bible that speaks most explicitly about human love, with words far-reaching into the heart and heartache of this current day. In one powerful verse the bride declares to her bridegroom: “Set me as a seal upon your arm, as a seal upon your heart. For love is as strong as death; its passion as fierce as the grave.” (Song of Solomon 8:6)
Love and passion — in and of themselves — impel us to place that seal upon our hearts, to bind ourselves to one another. Pleasure was created to be enjoyed with boundaries. This is not a Christian rule meant to be followed simply because it is a good thing to do; some moral virtue we ought to follow. Like Christianity itself, it is good because it is first true. Love is as strong as death. As Ravi Zacharias has noted, when you honor the sanctity of love, the person is exalted and pleasure ensues. But when you seek pleasure for its own sake, it is the person you profane and weariness which ensues. Promiscuity empties pleasure of the meaning for which it was created.
The cry of the human heart for love will not fall silent until it has found that for which it ultimately searches. Where meaning in life is answered, sanctity in love is exemplified and found fulfilling.
In love and by his death, Jesus Christ seeks to bind himself eternally to you. In the presence of that passionate truth I leave you with the words of a love song written by the eighteenth-century hymnist Robert Robinson.
O to Grace, how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wand'ring heart to Thee.
Prone to wander Lord, I feel it — prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above. [1]
May this be the vow that guides our hearts to love well.
____________
1. Robert Robinson, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, written 1758.
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Copyright © 2003 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
==============
Another version from 2005:
If musicians are the popular philosophers of our time, as many have observed, perhaps they are also our psychologists. The message of the musicians is hopelessness, confusion, and cynicism. The diagnosis is similar.
G.K. Chesterton once noted that people who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. One only has to listen to a few love songs to see this truth in human nature; we find a constant flow of promising and vowing. Yet we also find countless melodies reveling in casual love and promiscuity. But isn't this natural instinct to bind oneself with promises remarkably incongruous with a world dancing to the philosophy of boundlessness in the pursuit of pleasure?
The diagnosis for love is understandably a message of confusion. The boundless pursuit of pleasure bombards the senses in every direction, while the natural desire to find a love worthy of promise remains a contradictory cry of the heart. The idea of true love is met with cynicism — a concept left for Hollywood.
The Song of Songs is the book of the Bible that speaks most explicitly about human love, with words far-reaching into the heart and heartache of this current day. In one powerful verse the bride declares to her bridegroom: “Set me as a seal upon your arm, as a seal upon your heart. For love is as strong as death; its passion as fierce as the grave” (Song of Songs 8:6).
Love and passion impel us to place that seal upon our hearts, to bind ourselves to one another. The sheer fierceness of its nature calls for careful boundaries. Yet this is not a verdict meant to be followed simply because it is a good thing to do, a moral virtue we ought to follow. Like Christianity itself, it is good because it is first true: Love is as strong as death. Like all of the deepest questions of life, love is something to be reckoned with. As Ravi Zacharias notes, when you honor the sanctity of love, the person is exalted and pleasure ensues. But when you seek pleasure for its own sake, it is the person you profane and weariness that ensues. Promiscuity empties pleasure of the meaning for which it was created. There is more to life than pleasure itself; there must be a context for it.
The cry of the human heart for love will not fall silent until it has found that for which it ultimately searches. In the same place where the lingering questions of the meaning of life and the fierceness of the grave are answered coherently, sanctity in love is exemplified and found fulfilling. The remedy is comprehensive.
In his love and by his death, Jesus Christ seeks to bind himself eternally to your heart. At this inexplicable truth, the heartfelt response of the hymnist comes to mind:
O to Grace, how great a debtor,
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wand'ring heart to Thee.
Prone to wander Lord, I feel it —
prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
May this be the vow that guides our hearts to love well.
________
Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #343]
Worship can be effectively incorporated in small groups. Know why worship
is important, then learn how to do it. Some suggestions:
1. Have an instrumental worship tape playing softly as members arrive.
2. Select songs everyone knows.
3. Once or twice a year devote an entire small-group meeting to worship.
4. Have each member share why a particular hymn is meaningful to them.
5. Select songs that focus on one theme.
6. Sing to tapes, which may give members more confidence to join in.
7. Play an instrumental tape softly during prayer time.
8. Fit music to the size of the group. Upbeat songs work best with large
(10 or more) groups, mellow worship songs work well in any size group.
Barry Posner did some research that revealed an interesting result of quality. People were 6 times as likely to talk about a business that they considered a 5 on a scale of one to 5 than they were to talk about businesses they rate as a 4. This is the power of WOW!(1)
There is a reason Jesus taught us to shock people with above and beyond, "second mile" service. It is in the second mile that we get people's attention. It is in the second mile that people pay attention. It is in the second mile that people ask, "What does this guy have that I don't?" All the results come in the second mile. This is where people say, "WOW!"
I worked as an assistant manger for a while at a Wendys. One of my favorite moments was when a cranky customer came to complain that we had not prepared her hamburger just so. We were trained to handle this in a very particular and dramatic fashion. We would apologize politely for the mistake, whether or not it was our fault. Then, we would take the hamburger that was prepared wrong and lift it above a trash can. In plain view of the customer, we would drop it ceremoniously into the trash can. Without saying a word, we would grab a fresh bun, hold it in our left hand, look the customer in the eye and say, "Tell me how I can prepare this hamburger for your satisfaction." In shocked disbelief they would stutter out their order. Often they would try to stop us from throwing it away. "No... no... no... I only needed you to add pickles." "Plop." They would insist that it was their fault. No matter. We wanted to get their attention. We wanted to watch their mouth open as we dropped the hamburger into the trash in front of them. We wanted to impress on them that we were serious about customer service. We wanted to make a story they could go and tell their friends about. We wanted them to say, "WOW!"
The interesting thing about this approach is how calculated it was to the customer's response. You see, what I was taught to do at Wendy's is not so different than what many restaurants, stores and fast food places do. Many products and services routinely come with a money back guarantee. Whether it is stated or not, if you bring a hamburger back at McDonalds or Joe Bob's Grill they will generally take it back and fix you what they want. The difference is in THE WAY we did it. Normally THEY take it to the back room and you, the customer, never really knows what happens. Do they salvage all they can and give you back the same meat but with a new bun? Do they just pull off the pickles and hope you won't notice the pickle juice? Do they take your sandwich and serve it to someone else? Do they put the preparation of your hamburger in line behind everyone else's order? What happens in that magic transforming back room? No one knows. What we did was remove all doubt.
We wanted to leave nothing to the imagination. We wanted to send a strong message to our customers that we were really sorry we had messed up their order. We wanted to visibly display to them that the were far more important to us than anything we might salvage from their sandwich in the back room. We wanted them to know that we were going to stop everything to get their order right. We were going to do it now, for all the world to see. We wanted them to say, "WOW, these people made a mistake, but they sure went the second mile to get it fixed. WOW!"
Churches ought to adopt the goal of causing people to say, "WOW!" We ought to do our advertising, our outreach, our preaching, our music, our childcare, our everything to make them say, "WOW!" The goal of Christian ministry is nothing less than to drop open jaws and hear people say, "WOW!" That is how Jesus ministered. When people saw Jesus, they said, "Wow!"
Glory is about saying "WOW!" When something was glorious, you would just look at it in stunned disbelief and say, "WOW!" "Little Kittel" defines glory as, "that which makes God impressive.(2) When churches accurately display the glory of God, they make God impressive. They show his glory. They cause people to say, "WOW!" Too many churches make people yawn.
Churches that cause people to say "WOW!" don't have attendance problems. They have parking problems, space problems, administrative growth problems and all kinds of other problems. But they do not have attendance problems. If you aspire to double your church every five years or less, it is not enough to be a pretty good church. We must make people's jaws drop to the floor. We must cause them to say, "WOW!" When was the last time someone walked out of your church and said, "WOW! I had no idea church could be that way. I had no idea church music could be like that. The people, were so, well, just different. WOW!"
Not "WOW!" at us. Of course not. "WOW! Isn't God incredible! This is all far different than I imagined!"
WOW! PREACHING
===============
Jesus in generally considered the greatest teacher that has ever lived. I agree. Jesus' teaching has been analyzed, dissected, inspected, and scrutinized. A number of books profess to show the reader how to teach as Jesus taught. Few teachers actually teach as Jesus did, however. A full exploration of the teaching style of Jesus is beyond the scope of this volume. However, I would like to make a couple of observations.
One notable distinction of Jesus teaching was its brevity. If the modern preacher were to preach the Sermon on the Mount as it he would be accused of sloughing on the job. The whole thing can be read in ** just a few minutes. Not nearly long enough to be considered a real sermon. A sermonette for Christianette maybe, but not a real sermon. How can we grow true disciples without giving them forty five minutes of meat? Following this feature of Jesus teaching could well cause people to say, "WOW!"
Another notable distinction of Jesus teaching was his lack of clarity. Yes, you read it right, I said lack of clarity. If we will be perfectly honest, we must admit that in many cases we STILL don't have a clue what Jesus meant by some of his teachings. Oh, sure, we have some theories. But, at times, honest teachers look at the parables and say, "Not a clue. Not a clue." We needn't feel bad. Jesus disciples clearly felt this way. They didn't have a clue either. That is why they asked him on several occasions what in the world he was getting at. If they disciples had not asked for an explanation, we would probably be in the dark on even more parables.
Take the brief teaching of the treasure hidden in the field (Matthew 13:44). Commentators disagree as to the meaning of the parable. Is it teaching us that we must give up everything to get the treasure of the gospel? (Luke 14:33) Or are we the treasure that God gave up everything to possess? Or, did he intend a double meaning? The best of Christian teachers and thinkers and theologians are split down the middle.
What about the teaching of the mustard seed growing to be the largest of trees. (Matthew 13:31 - 32) Most commentators say this is speaking of the tremendous growth of the church. I have heard others, however, point out that the mustard seed is not, technically speaking, the largest of trees, as Jesus said. Jesus was predicting the growth of the organized church (read Roman Catholic Church) beyond what was natural and normal. This large mustard seed plant was to be an aberration, an abnormality. This is a completely different spin from the first interpretation. Which one is right?
I know what your are thinking. You know what these parables mean. You have a clue. Yes, and more than a clue. You know for sure. Some of us are not sure. Some of us wonder why Jesus left so much up for grabs. Why make the trip from heaven to planet earth and not be Windex clear about everything you say? Why not speak in language that a lawyer could not see in more than one way? The goal is communication, isn't it? What does this lack of clarity teach us about Jesus communication style?
The teachings of Jesus beg explanation. They beg for discussion. They make you want to say, "Yeah, but... " or, "Go on." or, "Would you run that by me one more time?" Jesus doesn't run it by one more time. He doesn't go on. Jesus is so brief the listener begs him to go on. Now, that is a switch. He goes on to the next subject and is likely to leave the audience dangling again.
This feature of Jesus' teaching has always puzzled me and even, (may I say it?) bothered me a bit. I love clarity. Why wasn't Jesus more clear in some of his teachings? It seemed to me that in light of the importance of the message he was delivering that he would leave nothing to the imagination.
The genius behind Jesus' approach was not clear to me until I read Garrett Soden's treatise on communication entitled HOOK SPIN BUZZ: HOW TO COMMAND ATTENTION, CHANGE MINDS & INFLUENCE PEOPLE. In the last section, Soden discusses the idea of BUZZ: "an idea, a rumor or trend that is on everyone's mind."(3) We use the word as he does when we say, "The buzz at the convention was all about cell groups." The question Soden grapples with are:
How is buzz created?
What keeps buzz moving?
How can we take advantage of the current buzz?
How can we create our own buzz?
As I read, I thought of Jesus. Whatever else he was, Jesus was a master of buzz. He was the talk. He was it. He was the hot topic. People loved him, hated him, delighted in him or were angered by him. But they did not ignore him. Jesus told people to hush the buzz. They would not. Seemingly, they could not. He created buzz like no one before or since. How did he do it? Soden offers some insight:
THE IDEAS IN BUZZ CAN BE DESCRIBED, BUT NOT DEFINED. PART OF WHAT MAKES BUZZ VIBRATE IS THE FRICTION BETWEEN DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF WHAT THE BUZZ IS REALLY ABOUT.(4) (italics added)
"That's it!" I thought as I read. That is exactly what Jesus did. He created buzz by leaving some things up for discussion. I want to leave nothing to the imagination. Jesus wanted to get the imagination buzzing. The basics were clear. The essentials were plain. But, in many of Jesus teachings, he choose to leave some things up to discussion. He knew people would be talking. He knew they would be asking, "What do you think he meant by that?" He wanted them to ask. He wanted to create a buzz, and he was a master at it.
Next, I would like to explain exactly, precisely, so that there is no misunderstanding, why varying interpretations create a friction that causes the buzz to vibrate. Then we will explore exactly, precisely, specifically how to do it so that it is perfectly clear.
Not.
Teaching that makes people say "WOW!" creates a buzz. How loud is the buzz about your preaching?
WOW! MUSIC
===========
Music has the ability to make my soul cry "WOW!" quicker than just about anything else. I will confess I have looked at my watch a lot more often during the preaching than I have during the music. I have heard many sermons that went way too long. I hardly ever tire of GOOD music. One of the easiest ways to make a worship service better is to make the music ten minutes longer and the sermon ten minutes shorter. Both will be improved.
Good music, that is the key. What is good? Simple. Good is the stuff that I like. It is true for you too. Good is the stuff that you like. Bad is the stuff that you don't like. Beauty in music is in the ear of the listener.
I grew up on the mission field and tend to think somewhat intuitively like a missionary. I have often asked myself, "If Korean missionaries were to come here to evangelize America, how would they do it?" This question has plenty of implications, but for now, let me explore only those having to do with music. Would they. . .
Use a pipe organ and a choir? (Remember, the question is, how would Korean missionaries coming to America do it, not what do I think about pipe organs and choir.)
Use 16th century hymns?
Use hard driving, heavy metal, rock?
Use rap or hip hop?
Use contemporary Christian?
If you have your missionary thinking cap on, this question is a slam dunk no brainer. You would use the music of the people you are trying to reach. People like to become Christians without having to change their taste in music. Becoming a Christian does not change one's taste in music.
People who become Spirit filled believers who used to listen to country music still tend to like country music. People who used to like contemporary top 40 and become fully mature followers of Christ tend to still like contemporary top 40 music.
Here is some good news. It does not require expensive, sophisticated demographic study to determine a culture's taste in music. We can discover the taste in music for any population group using a simple instrument found in every home and every car. It is called a radio.
Try this little experiment. Hit the seek button on your FM radio and describe each type of music you hear. Skip the talk radio. When you have done this, you will have a pretty good idea what people like to listen to your community. You have now discovered what will cause them to say "WOW!" If you were a Korean missionary who came to the United States to penetrate the culture with the gospel you would start a congregation employing every one of the types of music on your list.
This list needs to be prioritized. We need to start congregations first that employ the music enjoyed by the most people. What kind of music is this? For main street America it is middle of the road contemporary pop rock. For some places it is rap. For others it is county. (Country music has had a huge revival in recent years by moving closer to the style of contemporary pop-rock.) Different kind of music for different kinds of people. By far and away the most popular music in America is contemporary pop rock. This is the music they sell Pontiacs and Coca cola with for good reason. The marketing experts have done their home work. The sound on the streets is the middle of the road stuff of Whitney Houston and Kenny G. This is the style of music we would have if we were thinking like Korean missionaries.
The easiest way to get started on making our music more like the people we are trying to reach is to start an alternative congregations targeted toward reaching this group. Leave the existing congregation alone. They like to worship God without changing the music they enjoy. Let them. Draw a big red circle around their service and promise them you will not mess with their service. Then keep your promise. But get permission to start something else for someone else. I discuss this idea fully in my previous book, LET IT GROW!
Look at the different types of services as two tracts to lead people to experience God. One is not better than the other. People who have been in church a long time have embraced a musical culture all of its own. This is fine. Do not try to transition them. Lead them to God within the musical culture that you find them. All you need from them is permission to be a missionary and start something else designed to reach someone else.
As you think about a contemporary service, I would invite you to consider three things: instrumentation, musical selection, and feel.
You cannot sound like contemporary music without using the instruments of the contemporary culture. Most important is drums. Nothing will change the sound of music quicker than adding drums. It has always been curious to see churches miss this. They throw in "This is the day" just after "Count your many blessings," and without changing any of the instruments and call it a contemporary service.
To make a service contemporary, you have to use contemporary instruments. It is the instruments that create the sound and music is about sound. If you don't change the instruments, you have not changed the sound and it is not contemporary music. I don't care what it says on the top of the bulletin. It may be slightly more contemporary than the same instruments playing 200 year old hymns, but it is not nearly contemporary enough.
The most "visible" instrument are the drums. Nothing will change the sound of a service quicker than adding drums.
I was rather slow to accept this truth. It was six weeks after we had started a contemporary service that a drummer approached me, "Have you ever considered using drums in the service?" "You gotta be kidding," I thought, "Drums in church? Have you gone stark raving berserk mad?" I replied in a more polite way. After all, I was interested, just afraid. "What did you have in mind?" "Well, I play drums, and I was wondering if I could play with you guys?" We decided to roll the dice. The first week he played I told him, "Now, I want you to play sort of quietly. Maybe you can just use your brushes." He cooperated as best he could, but before the service was over, I was directing him to turn loose. I wanted to say to him "PRAISE HIM WITH THE CLASH OF CYMBALS, PRAISE HIM WITH RESOUNDING CYMBALS." (Psalms 150:5) Most churches are flatly disobedient to that verse. Obedience to Psalm 150 could dramatically change most churches.
I could not believe how much drums changed the sound of the worship service. I never looked back on the decision to let Terry play his drums in worship. A time or two when he was out of town we failed to get a replacement. The music went from "WOW!" to wearisome in one fell swoop. Contemporary music needs drums.
You simply will not find any contemporary songs that don't have drums. Period. The American ear is not used to listing to music that does not have drums. One of the few places in American culture that we find music without drums is in church. Contemporary music employs drums. Country music uses drums. Bands that play at half time use drums. Easy listening music has drums. Quiet drums, but drums, still. The Koreans missionaries would get this right every single time. Why do we struggle with it?
We struggle with it because we have never done it that way before and we are all a little afraid of the unknown. You may think I am making a lot of noise about something that is just a "clanging cymbal." (See 1 Corinthians 13:1) I double dog dare you try it. If you have a contemporary service, and do not have drums, try it. If you have a "blended" service and think you can pull this off without loosing your job, try it. If you are skeptical of how much difference it will make, try it. Try it, you'll like it. If you don't have a drummer, get a good key board player to play drums from his keyboard. It can be done and sound very tasteful. The nice thing about electronic drums is that you can control the volume and balance them with the rest of the instruments and voices. In other words, you can turn down the volume.
The other instruments that comprise a contemporary ensemble are synthesizer -- which can sound like virtually anything -- guitar, bass guitar and any brass that are available. If brass are not available, synthesizers can be a good substitute. Nothing can reproduce the ambiance of a live trumpet, but a synthesizer can sure come close. It is nice to have several synthesizers to add maximum flexibility. Contemporary services need a variety of instrumentation in the same way that traditional services have a piano, organ and choir.
There are some that put too much hope in MIDI. If you don't know what MIDI is, skip to the next paragraph. Although sequenced songs can add a nice touch at times, they never deliver all that they promise. It never sounds as good as all those instruments jamming down live on the stage. Any audience will prefer live musicians to a recording, which is essentially what MIDI offers. The flexibility to alter, in real time, the nuances of the tempo is lost with MIDI. (By the way, would someone explain to me what time is that is not real.) The ability to do something as simple as singing the last verse again with just the strings is lost with MIDI. In short, the ability to direct the band to do anything other than what was laid down in the MIDI file is out the window. I am not saying there are not times when MIDI is you best choice. It may be better than just one instrument. It may be better than nothing if your keyboardist is home taking care of a child with an ear ache. But it is not the goal to be aspired to. It is not, ultimately, going to cause people to say, "WOW!"
The first component of contemporary music is the instrumentation. The second is the selection of music. No song that is older than Elvis Presley and the Beatles ought to every be sung in a contemporary service. Are their exceptions? A few, but not the ones you are probably thinking about.
Some will argue that we ought to at least acquaint this younger generation with the great old hymns of the faith. I 10% agree. There are a few old hymns of the faith that are that good. But, can I be honest? There are many old hymns of the faith that could just as well be replaced by their modern equivalents. There are certain hymns that if I never heard again, it would be OK. There are some hymns that I have already heard way too many times. My list would be different from yours, which is my point.
The notion that there is a specific body of Christian hymnody that every believer ought to be acquainted with is simply not tenable.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians songs have been written by Christians of thousands of culture world wide down through the centuries. To suggest that a couple of hundred songs written in Europe and America over the past two to three hundred years are more sacred than others is just not true. Korean missionaries would never get confused about this, but we do. The important thing is to make people say "WOW!" To do this, we need to lead them to see God within the context of American culture in this century, not Europe in the last century.
Beauty is in the ear of the listener. No song or style of music is inherently better or worse than any other song or style. Bach is not better than rock. The opposite is also true.
Occasionally I will run across a zealous contemporary musician who is on a campaign to transition a congregation toward contemporary music. This is sad. People like to worship God without changing the style of music they enjoy. Let them alone. Start anther congregation if you must, but lead these people to God in the music style they enjoy.
Music written in the last 20 years -- and especially the last 10 years -- has a distinctly different sound to it. When you draw from this music, people will tend to say, "WOW!" When you don't, the yawn and look at their watches. They usually don't come back. We have lost out chance to reach them with the gospel. Seven percent of the unchurched population will sample a church this year.(5) When we do, we need to let the music drop their jaw open and say, "WOW!"
The third component of contemporary music is more subjective. It is what can only be called "feel". You cannot define it. You can hardly describe it. Everyone knows it when they hear it. You either have it or you don't. It is very difficult for this to be educated into you if you basically don't have it. If a musician has what it takes, training will make him better. If he does not have what it takes, understand that the key of E flat has 3 flats will not help very much.
Good music has a flow to it. It moves from celebrative music that reaches out and grabs the congregation from their depression or boredom or distraction or whatever state they found themselves in when the came. Slowly by slowly it moves them into the presence of God so that they loose them selves in the presence and wonder and glory of God. They sing out, "This is holy ground," and they feel as Moses felt before the burning bush. The sing, "Holy, holy, holy," and they feel as Isaiah felt in Isaiah 6. They sing the songs; their soul sees into the unseen world of heaven itself. They lift their hands; they do not know they are lifting their hands. They are not wondering what people think. They are hardly aware of anything around them. They are captivated by the presence and the wonder of God. Their soul says, "WOW!"
Worship leaders, this is your job description: you are to lead people to this experience each and every week. No exceptions. The soul longs for this kind of closeness with God. Church is about giving people the gift of this kind of experience with God. Yet, 61% of people who attend church regularly say they experience God seldom or never.(6) The world needs, more than anything else, to experience the presence of God. We must give it to them. We must cause their soul to see God and say, "WOW!"
Some may object that this is all too experiential, too emotional. I would argue that worship is about feeling because love is about feeling. I am utterly convinced that God is weary of commitment with no feeling. God wants to be enjoyed AND obeyed. God wants us to feel about him. He wants us to experience him in real time. This is what worship is all about. This is what Christianity is all about. If we are not experiencing God, if we don't have a real heart for God, we are nothing but very good Pharisees.
WOW! PASTORAL CARE
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In seminary they taught us how to do weddings and funerals. We learned how to do hospital visitation and help people through crises situations. We learned our lessons well. What they did not tell us is that people will hardly ever remember what is said at a wedding or a funeral. At the risk of offending the pastors who are reading, let me break it to you: you and I who officiate at weddings are not the most important thing going on. We are not the picture. I am not even sure we are the frame. We are not supporting actors. We are more like the extras -- the thousands of locals the movie producers hire to create a crowd effect. Nobody ever remembers funeral or wedding messages. So when they come up to you and say, "Oh pastor, that was perfect." don't believe it. Smile and say thank you, but don't start thinking that you did anything really extraordinary
There is something, however, really extraordinary you CAN DO in helping people through pivot points in life. It isn't difficult or time consuming, but it will mean the world to people. It will cause them to say "WOW!" these people really care around here. This simple practice, if effectively executed, will mean more to people than anything else you do as pastor. Over time, your people will develop an irresistible love and gratitude toward you. They will follow you anywhere because you have loved them well. You have "taken care of my lambs," and been obedient to Jesus' teaching in John 21. Here is how it works.
As soon as the funeral or wedding is over, plan out your follow up strategy. This is where the battle will be won. You may want to do this on your own calendar, or have your secretary keep up with it for you, or use a computer to remind you. In one ten minute session, plan out a dozen ways to remind the family that you care.
Here is an example. Suppose you do a funeral on Friday, November 26th. A 58 year old man named Bob died suddenly of a heart attack leaving a widow, Jean, and three children. They had been married 32 years. When you get back to the office, write down the following dates:
December 15: write a note acknowledging that you are understand the Christmas season may be hard with out Bob.
February 10: write a note acknowledging this is the first Valentines day in 32 years Jean has not had a date. You know it is hard. You are sorry. You are thinking of her. You are praying for her. If you want to go the extra mile, send one long stem rose. Sign the card with your wife in order to avoid any misunderstanding.
June 15: Write a letter to each of the children acknowledging their grief in Father's day without dad.
August 22: Bob's birthday. This day will come and go with a great cloud over it. To everyone else, it is just another day. Jean will be touched that you remembered.
September 15: "Jean and Bob's anniversary. Thirty three years ago she slept with Bob for the first time. Tonight, she crawls in bed alone. She is so alone. The letter she got from her pastor made her day." WOW! It is sure good to have people who care.
November 20: Write a note acknowledging the anniversary of Bob's death.
The following year you may write half as many cards and then decrease from there.
If you serve anything other than a very small church, keeping up with all these contacts will become daunting. I have some good news. The bigger the church, the more money you have to pay secretaries and support staff. Turn your secretary loose. Ask her to be creative and be an extension of you in showing care to the congregation.
Modern contact management software that salesmen use can be adapted to track this kind of thing. In ten minutes you can mark each date you want to be reminded to do something, along with a note describing what you need to do. If you turn on your computer every day it will keep you on top of these things.
Buy your cards in bulk, but don't buy cheap cards. Purchase some cards that look like you picked them out just for this person. Again, let your secretary help you.
Variety is the key. Send a card this month, call next. Send a flower next month and a gift the next. Once in a while, on a Wednesday night, ask the group to remember a beloved member of the congregation who is passing the first anniversary of their spouses death. Everyone will say, "WOW! I feel cared for."
Don't just acknowledge sad things. Acknowledge the one month anniversary of that new born child. Acknowledge the six month anniversary of a wedding.
This is pastoral care that makes helps people. This is pastoral care that makes people say WOW!
WOW! FACILITIES
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Churches ought to be at least as nice as the malls, banks, schools and Burger Kings in the community.
In yester-years believers built great cathedrals to lift the spirit of man to God. They understood that the size and shape of the building influenced a person's soul. They asked different questions than we do. They asked, 'How can we construct this building so that it lifts the soul of man to God?" We ask, "How can we reduce the dollar per square foot figures so that it comes in under budget?" Different kinds of questions result in different kinds of answers.
I am not saying that buildings have to be opulent. Certainly not gaudy. We don't want to distract people from thinking about God to thinking about brick and mortar. Church buildings need not be the most lavish buildings in society. They should not send a symbol of wastefulness to society. They should not be an expression of materialism. Buildings need not be the nicest in society, just about the same as the schools and banks and, well, Burger Kings.
Having traveled some and having been in a number of church buildings, I would offer an observation. Being opulent with our church buildings is not our problem. Many church buildings are down right shoddy. They are far worse than the banks, the schools and the Burger Kings in the community. We really ought to do better than that.
It is often argued that home groups have an advantage over Sunday School type groups because of the building. The home atmosphere gives them a warmer feel. I have another argument. Church buildings ought to be homier. How much can wall paper cost? If we can afford comfortable chairs to sit in at home, why can't we afford comfortable chairs to sit in our Sunday Schools?
One difference between church buildings and buildings used for business is that business men generally understand that buildings deteriorate over time. One of the things investors look for when people go to buy a business is differed maintenance. This means that the previous owner beefed up his bottom line by putting off things that really ought to be fixed. This is seen in the business world as cheating. The normal and customary way to do it is to spend a little money -- perhaps in the neighborhood of 5% of gross -- on maintenance each year. This way there is no deferred maintenance that will accrue.
How differently churches think about these things. They have no plan whatever for setting a side a certain percentage of their income for maintenance. They seem to see maintenance as an unusual thing. They seem to be surprised that the roof needs to be repaired, that the painting needs to be redone, that the carpet is wearing out. It often takes and act of congress and some great special action to get these things taken care of. In order for buildings to cause people to say, "WOW!" we need to set aside a little money each year to keep them looking nice.
Another difference between Burger King and most Sunday School class rooms. Most Sunday School class rooms have a little pile of junk in the corner, whereas most Burger Kings don't. If there is a little pile of junk, it is generally not the same pile of junk as the last week you were there. Many Sunday School class rooms have the same pile of junk in the corner for years. It consists of precious things -- old Sunday School quarterlies, unused questionnaires, maps from last quarter's study of the temple, and a few prospects names that no one got around to contacting. For some reason, no one has the courage to pick up this pile of junk and drop it in the trash. At Burger King, this is fairly simple: if a pile of junk ends up the corner of a Burger King, the manager just asks someone to through it away. There are some things we could learn from Burger King.
WOW! CHILDCARE, CHILDREN'S PROGRAMS AND YOUTH WORK
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There is a way to get parents to come to church and make them stick like Velcro. We have a means at our disposal a method so effective it will keep parents coming back every single week. If executed properly, parents are nearly defenseless against the approach. They cannot resist. They are stuck. Captured by their own children. Here is how it works.
A family gets up on a Sunday morning resolved to turn over a new leaf. They are going to get the family in church. Perhaps they used to attend church. Perhaps they want their kids to have a well rounded upbringing (one day of church; six days of soccer; that's balance). For whatever reason, they lay hold of the stuff to get the family to church one time. The children go, quite literally, kicking and screaming. The parents have an OK time. Not great; not awful. OK. Then they pick their kids up from Sunday School and the kids are beaming. You would think that they just got to go to Disneyland. They got to eat some cookies, play some games, watch a really cool video and generally have a great time. The amazing thing is they seemed to have learned something. This is almost enough to snag the parents. Almost. One more thing is needed to set the hook:
"And we have to go back next week, because next week we are going to. . .
have a Christmas party, or
complete the project we are working on, or
have a special guest in the class, or
take a special field trip, or
make something really cool, or
have a contest
If any of these things happens and the kids start begging their parents to attend church the next week, the parents should send up the white flag early. They will not be able to resist. NO PARENT CAN EVER RESIST THE INSISTENCE FROM THEIR OWN CHILD THAT THEY ATTEND CHURCH. EVER. Few churches fully capitalize on this dynamic. One of the quickest ways to become a Velcro church instead of a Teflon church is to have a children's program so irresistible that kids will want to come back. It doesn't mean they feel OK about coming back. I mean they pull Mom's skirt. I mean they pound the floor. I mean they ask, "How many more days till Sunday?" I mean the walk into Mom and Dad's room thirty minutes after bed time and ask, (for the eighth time) "Can we go back to that church?" When this happens, it is over. The fat lady has gotten up, sung, gotten down and driven home. It is over. That family will be in church each and every Sunday from then on -- no exceptions.
You say it can't be done? Kids are brats? How can you plan a program around the finicky whims of kids? We planned something really special for them and they turned up their nose? Is that what I heard?
Listen. Disney does it. Peter Piper does it. McDonalds does it. Nickelodeon does it. Businesses do it all the time. And churches must learn to do it too. Businesses don't do it because they love Jesus. I am not sure they do it because they love kids. They might just do it for money. We can do it for Jesus. We can do it for kids. Jesus taught if we make a kid stumble spiritually, we are in deep weeds. I think the rewards will be pretty handsome for the people who make the gospel attractive to kids. If you want to be a Velcro church, make church attractive to kids.
"But, but, but, we shouldn't make this into Disneyland. We are not trying to entertain these kids, we are trying to teach them." No. We shouldn't make this Disneyland. It should be better. Every businessman knows you have to be better than the competition to beat them. And if we do not beat the competition we will loose our kids. That is a price I am not willing to pay. If it is not interesting we won't have the opportunity to teach them because they won't come back. And where does it say learning has to be boring?
Besides, we have an enormous advantage over Disney and Nickelodeon. We have teachers who actually love kids; Disney just wants their money. We have teachers that actually care for our kids. Let's show how much we care by being more attractive than Disney, Nickelodeon and Discovery Zone. Our caring for kids ought to show in our facilities. Our caring for kids ought to show in our programming. Our caring for kids ought to show in our activities. Our caring for kids ought to show in the most interesting, active, involved teaching that kids have ever seen. Our caring for kids ought to really show up during the week when we pray for kids and call them and send them cards. Here is a sure fire Velcro strategy: have your children's Sunday school workers send cards to their kids. Kids don't get much mail. They will love it. And mom and dad will bring them back to church every single time. Guaranteed.
We ought to do things like take them to the river and say, "Imagine what Moses felt like. . ." When we teach about the loaves and the fishes, pass out some bread. Kids like teaching they can touch and smell and hold and feel. Kids like to laugh and be amazed and cry and get involved.
Kids know something instinctively that we adults some times forget: learning ought to be fun. If you want to double your church really really fast, concentrate on doing things that make kids say "WOW!"
WOW! MULTIMEDIA
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We are all amphibious beings, with one foot in the spiritual world and one foot in the physical world. These two worlds are connected. It is hard to feel spiritual when I hit my thumb with a hammer or when I haven't slept for 28 hours. My body affects my soul.
There is also an abundance of evidence that the soul effects the body. Happy, optimistic people tend to live longer and fight disease better.Proverbs 13:12 is really true, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."
Sometimes spiritual leaders are so spiritual they are no earthly good. They forget we have a foot in both worlds.
Here is the point: the stuff that I see and hear and taste and touch touches my soul. Here are some examples:
My soul is affected when I see full motion video of the Grand Canyon and Mount Rainier as I sing, "When I look down, from lofty mountain splendor, and see the brook and feel the gentle breeze... Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee, How great thou art, How great thou art!
My soul is affected when I walk into church and the paint on the door is chipping and pealing.
My soul is affected when someone hands me a piece of bread and says, "This is my body. . ."
My soul is affected when I hear crisp clear high sounds and warm, deep, rich low sounds. My soul is also affected by a squawking PA system and especially by the obnoxious squall of feedback.
My soul is affected when the sound man pushes a button that sets the lights into to a 120 second dim. This is so slow as to be imperceptible to the human eye. Yet, but the end of the song, the mood is completely different. My soul is quieted by the dimming of the lights. It is lifted when the lights are lifted.
My soul is touched by seeing slides of my Savior on the cross as I hear a beautiful tenor voices sing, "It was my sin that nailed him there." Sometimes someone will tell me to "just listen to the words." I cannot. My soul is affected by the words and the music and whether the singer sings on pitch and the slides and everything.
Physical stuff, the stuff of earth matters. It should cause people to say, "WOW!" Multimedia seems like an extra, something in the, "nice to have," category. It will not be true in the next century. Multimedia with full motion video on most of our songs as well as dramatic on screen illustration to our sermons will be standard fare for the growing churches of the next century. This is true, not because technology will make this all more inexpensive and do-able, but because of the basic nature of man. Our souls are affected by what we see, taste and touch.
WOW! HOW YOU TREAT GUESTS
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Guest want it all. They want to be given space and distance. They want friendly people who reach out to them and sense of anonymity. They want it both ways and we must give it to them.
Ultimately, guests are impressed with us to the degree that they feel we are impressed with them. While we are busy thinking about what we do, they are busy thinking of themselves. They wonder if they matter to us. They wonder if they matter to anyone. They wonder if anyone notices them or cares. They have a deep need to stand out without sticking out.
I have some ideas about this. Why don't we set up a video camera and tape everyone who comes in? Tape the greeters introducing themselves and see how many people volunteer their names. Why don't we see if we can get their addresses off a CD ROM and have a team of people run out to their houses to leave them some small gift -- have it waiting there when they get home. That might make them say "WOW!"
Why don't we review the tapes on Monday morning, like a football team reviews films of Sunday's games? Why don't we, the staff, learn as many names as we can. If each staff member can pick up a couple of new ones a weekend, and share those with the rest of the staff each week, it would become very difficult to attend more than a couple of times without all of the staff knowing your names. I think if I attended a church twice and the pastor came up to me and said, "Hi, Josh," I would say, "WOW!" The key to impressing people is being impressed with them.
Of course there is the plan described in DOUBLE YOUR CLASS called giving Friday nights to Jesus. We can quantify how effective this is. Ninety percent of the people we have in our homes on Friday night join the church. It just makes them sit up and say, "WOW!"
Even if we can't make visitors say, "WOW!" let's not make them say "Ugh!" Like the time I visited a church in another part of my state. I arrived late because I assumed the service started at 11:00 instead of 10:45. I missed the instructions to the guests about filling out cards. Boy, was I ever glad. At the end of the service the pastor took the cards and called out every visitor by name, asking them to stand up and introduce themselves. Ugh. I was glad I hadn't filled out a visitor's card.
I had a friend who visited a church and was very impressed. He like the music, the preaching and the people. They brought a little gift to his home. He said "WOW!" The pastor called him personally and seemed very personable and warm. The attended a number of times and liked it better and better. He was starting to feel at home. One day, they attended and the pastor came up to greet him, "Haven't I seen you before? Have you visited before? What was your name?" Ugh. He thought he mattered to the pastor. Unless you have a photographic memory, I think the idea of studying the game films is a good one. By the way, he never went back. Ugh.
How well we treat our guests is one of the most easily quantifiable things in this list. The ratio of how many people visit verses how many people join tells you how well you are doing with guests. The goal is to become a Velcro church where people stick rather than a Teflon church where people slide on out the door.
This is important because if people are in the mood to get back into church the probably won't try very many. We might be tempted to think that if they don't like our church they will move on to another church where they will feel more comfortable. This is often not the case. They will try one or two churches. If these experiences are negative, you can color them gone for another ten years. Ugh. Trying to get back into church is a huge hassle, especially if you have kids. If one or two experiences are negative, they may be the last for a long, long time.
On the other hand, if we take good care of our visitors, growing a church can be easy. Most churches have over three fourths of their visitors kick tires and walk away. In many, many situations all we have to do to be the fastest growing church in town is to take good care of our visitors. WOW!
WOW! SUNDAY SCHOOL
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Nothing will make people say "WOW!" any quicker than love. Love is the commodity of the church, and especially of the Small Group or Sunday School class. We are in the business of loving people. How is business?
The Bible is very clear about the importance of love. Love is the shibboleth by which we can tell who are and who are not Christians: "THIS IS HOW WE KNOW WHO THE CHILDREN OF GOD ARE AND WHO THE CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL ARE: ANYONE WHO DOES NOT DO WHAT IS RIGHT IS NOT A CHILD OF GOD; NOR IS ANYONE WHO DOES NOT LOVE HIS BROTHER." (I John 3:10) It is impossible to love God and not love people. In fact, the Bible calls us a liar if we try: "IF ANYONE SAYS, 'I LOVE GOD,' YET HATES HIS BROTHER, HE IS A LIAR. FOR ANYONE WHO DOES NOT LOVE HIS BROTHER, WHOM HE HAS SEEN, CANNOT LOVE GOD, WHOM HE HAS NOT SEEN. (I John 4:20) We are flat out commanded to be people of love: "AND HE HAS GIVEN US THIS COMMAND: WHOEVER LOVES GOD MUST ALSO LOVE HIS BROTHER." (I John 4:21)
If a church can become a place where people find love it will attract people like Velcro. People will stick. People will not be able to leave. That church will not be able to start enough services. That church will not be able to build buildings fast enough. That church will grow explosively. That church will enjoy the smile of God.
The number one need in society is love. It is true in your community and it is true in mine. It was true in the sixties and it is more true today. What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
People go to bars to find it. They have affairs to find it. They drown themselves in alcohol and drugs because they can't find it.
We have violence today because people cannot find love. Loving people are not violent people. Loving people are peacemakers. Our children get in gangs because they are looking for love.
Why is the church failing to provide this need? Because we have an inadequate theology of love. What we say about love is true. We simply don't tell the whole story.
What we emphasize in the evangelical community about love is simply incongruent with what the Bible teaches about love. Again, what we say is true; we just don't say enough. We say love is something you do. It is commitment. This is true. It is just not the whole story.
The teaching of the evangelical church about love is stated in juxtaposition of our perception of the world's view of love. We perceive the world's view of world as being solely feeling based. In the world, love is simply an emotion. It means I feel good about you. I like you. I like being with you. You make me happy. I am not promising anything about tomorrow. I am not committing. I am just enjoying being with you.
The church looks at this kind of love and says, "No." This is not what love is about. Love is about commitment. It is about action. Jesus loved so much that he went to the cross. He did something. He sacrificed. He followed through. He served. That is love. Love is not a feeling. It is action. It is commitment. It is doing. Consider that description of love in light of these verses:
IT IS RIGHT FOR ME TO FEEL THIS WAY ABOUT ALL OF YOU, SINCE I HAVE YOU IN MY HEART; FOR WHETHER I AM IN CHAINS OR DEFENDING AND CONFIRMING THE GOSPEL, ALL OF YOU SHARE IN GOD'S GRACE WITH ME. GOD CAN TESTIFY HOW I LONG FOR ALL OF YOU WITH THE AFFECTION OF CHRIST JESUS. (PHILIPPIANS 1:7 - 8)
Do these sound like the words of someone who has simply made a commitment to some people and is faithfully, dutifully living out that commitment? Read the passage again. Do you see any emotion there? Do you see some heart there? Listen to Paul as he speaks of "Longing with the affection of Christ Jesus."
Obviously, the church does not preach against emotional love. We never say that love should not be a matter of emotion. We only say that that is secondary. The really important thing about love is that it is a commitment. I remember a little chorus that was popular in the seventies that went,
Love is something you do.
Love is something you do.
Not just something you talk about.
Love is something you do.
What is your call? Is that true to the Biblical teaching on love? I don't think so. I don't think it tells the whole story. It think it would be just as valid to add a second verse:
Love is something you feel.
Love is something you feel.
Not just something you talk about.
Love is something you feel.
People crave heart love. They crave a love that is felt. They want to feel and they want people to feel toward them. Not just commit to them; feel toward them. People crave heart love because we are created in the image of God and God craves heart love. Jesus rebuked people for saying the right words but not having the right heart: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." (Matthew 15:8) Notice that the problem was not the incongruity between their words and their actions. The problem was the incongruity between their words and their heart. The problem was they didn't feel anything. Jesus never got onto the Pharisees for not doing the right things. He got on to them because their hearts were not in it. He knew that a heartless love did not satisfy God.
A heartless love does not satisfy God. It does not satisfy people very much either. No one wants to be someone else's project. We want to be loved from the heart. We wanted to be loved with feeling. We want someone to feel about us. We want someone to enjoy us.
Love, at its best is a little bit selfish. I want someone to love me for what they get out of it. I want them to gain from loving me. I don't want them to gain at my expense. I don't want them to gain some mere financial advantage. I want them to enjoy being with me. Of course, what we often say is also true. I don't want this to be all there is too it. I want them to care about me. I want them to care how I feel. I don't want a love that is completely selfish. But I do want a love that is enjoying me, benefiting from me. I am not interested in a love that is only trying to help me. That is pity, not love. I don't want to be pitied. I want to be loved.
I feel strongly about this because this kind of teaching nearly killed my marriage. For years I thought I was fulfilling the obligation of my marriage vows by honoring my commitment to Sharon. I was dutiful. I was honorable. I did what was right. Sharon's heart nearly shriveled like a raisin in the sun. She didn't want my duty. She wasn't helped by my commitment. She wanted my heart. She wanted my emotion. She wanted me home talking to her because I wanted to be home talking to her, not because I was faithfully fulfilling my commitment. She wanted me to enjoy her. She wanted a love that was a little bit selfish. She wanted to know that I was savoring each moment.
When we think in terms of loving the world, we must think in practical, as well as emotional terms. Love means having people into my home and laughing with them and playing Balderdash with them and sipping coffee together. Sure, it means being there through the thick and the thin and all that, but love is also much more mundane than that. Love is not always dramatic. Most of the time, love is composed of much more ordinary stuff.
If you are honest, you may find yourself saying, "I don't like people like that. Some people, I don't like at all. I don't want to have them in my home. I don't want to go out to dinner with them. I don't wish ill on them. I just want them away from me." I have two responses. First, it may be that you don't have to like them. You need to care that some does. There are a lot of weird people in this world. People who are weird tend to like people who are weird. This is because of the principle of rapport, discussed in a later chapter. (Weird, in this context, of course, means someone who is not like me. I am the definition of normal.) As long as weird people are loved by weird people, all is well.
The second response is this: you and I need to take our non-accepting self to the cross and let it be crucified again. We need to say to God, "If you could love someone like me, surely I could love someone like him." Loving people, at its core a spiritual issue. Church growth, at its core, is a spiritual issue.
This is what Sunday School work is all about: creating these kind of relationships. When we create hot houses of love in our Sunday School classes and small group, we will make people say "WOW!" Sometimes, with tears in their eyes they will say, "WOW!" "WOW! I didn't know I could be love like this. I didn't know this kind of warmth existed. WOW! WOW! WOW!"
Churches are in the business of reflecting the glory of God, which means making people say, "WOW, ain't God good!!" How is business at your church?
In the next chapter, we will look at the most important area of all that we should cause people to say, "WOW!" The Bible teaches that it is the divinely appointed means of attracting people to the gospel. (1 Corinthians 1:21) God warns us that many should teach because they will be judged more strictly. The work of preaching and teaching is absolutely crucial to all we are doing in evangelism an discipleship.
20 QUESTIONS
============
1. What one thing does your church do that causes people to say, "WOW!" Don't be bashful. Let me hear you brag a little. What does your church do well?
2. Consider the theology of "WOW!" Should we be trying to make people say, "WOW!" ?
3. Let's look at a list of the seven areas discussed in this chapter on "WOW!" Which ones do you think we are doing pretty well in, and which ones need vast improvement. Here are the seven areas:
WOW! Music
WOW! Pastoral care
WOW! Facilities
WOW! Childcare, children's programs and youth work
WOW! Multimedia
WOW! How you treat guests
WOW! Sunday School
4. If you were writing this book, what areas would you have added to this list? Would you have left any of these areas off the list?
5. Describe a really moving music experience for you? What are the elements that cause it to come together?
6. Have you considered starting a contemporary service?
7. What benefits would there for you to start a contemporary service?
8. What price would you have to pay?
9. In what ways have you implemented Josh's plan of following up on pastoral care? What did it mean to your people?
10. Specifically, how could you organize and implements such a plan?
11. What is the most glaring deficiency in your facilities?
12. What improvements have you made in the past 6 months in your facilities?
13. How would you evaluate your children's ministry?
14. Do you think church ought to be fun for kids?
15. If you could wave a magic wand over your children's ministry, what would you change?
16. Have you dabbled in multimedia any? Tell us about it.
17. How do you make your guests feel special without making them feel on the spot?
18. What is the ratio in your church of number of guests to the number who join?
19. Do you agree with the idea that emotion has a valid and important place in biblical love?
20. What could you do to help your Sunday School to be a more loving place?
NOTES
=====
1. Barry Posner, from a tape series entitled CREDIBILITY.
2. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Editors, THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, ABRIDGED IN ONE VOLUME, Abridgement by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, (Grand Rapids Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985) p. 178.
3. Garrett Soden, HOOK SPIN BUZZ: HOW TO COMMAND ATTENTION, CHANGE MINDS & INFLUENCE PEOPLE. (Princeton, New Jersey: Peterson's/ Pacesetter Books, 1996) p. 169.
4. Garrett Soden, HOOK SPIN BUZZ: HOW TO COMMAND ATTENTION, CHANGE MINDS & INFLUENCE PEOPLE. (Princeton, New Jersey: Peterson's/ Pacesetter Books, 1996) p. 174.
5. George Barna, EVANGELISM THAT WORKS, (Ventura, California; Regal books, 1996), p. 68.
6. George Barna, EVANGELISM THAT WORKS, (Ventura, California: Regal, 1996) p. 58.
Josh Hunt, 2744 Crown Point, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88011 (505) 532 9693.
*
Too often churches divorce the Word of God from the songs they sing in worship, said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
"In these days, it is the case that in the local church worship is often one of the most controversial issues," Mohler said in a chapel message, "Does God care what we sing?" based on Colossians 3:15-17.
"That which should most unite the people of God, a congregation at worship, has now become a divisive issue, as matters of taste and preference and style predominate in congregational discussions," Mohler lamented. "One of the most important marks of the people of God is the mark of unity, and if nothing else, we know that division and debate over the issue of music in worship is a sign of disunity. It cannot be pleasing to God."
Personal taste often divides congregations more than doctrinal or ecclesiastical issues, Mohler said. The sin of pride is usually the chief culprit for dividing a church when it comes to music.
"Our preferences must rule," Mohler observed, noting that people argue certain music doesn't speak to them or they can't sing certain songs reverently.
"Many of our most precious and, to us, persuasive theological arguments are barely disguised arguments for personal preference," Mohler said. "It just so happens that so many of our arguments from the Scriptures, clothed in rich theological terminology, come down to a justification of what we like and what makes us most comfortable."
He pointed to the number of churches which offer "a cafeteria line of services. Something for everyone, but what you end up with is as many churches, as many different congregations, as you have worship styles.
"Something is wrong here and that which is wrong has more to do with theology than with taste or music," Mohler said.
The lordship of Christ must determine what is sung in worship, he explained. Limitations in worship music should be set by vocabulary and content, not by the tune.
The prerequisite for worship music is the Word of God, Mohler said. "This means that a biblically illiterate congregation is automatically going to fail the test of singing God's song God's way."
One of music's main purposes, Mohler said, is teaching and admonishing believers. The absence of such teaching leads to spiritual poverty in many churches.
"One of the great divorces that is very dangerous in our churches is the divorce between the ministry of the Word and the ministry of the song," he said.
In Colossians, the Apostle Paul uses three words for what Christians should sing: psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, Mohler recounted.
"Unless these three words refer to one song, there's a license for a variety of musical forms in congregational singing," he said. "We dare not sing what we do not believe in our hearts."
True worship must be God-centered and God-directed, Mohler said. "We forget that it is God who is the Sovereign and we who are the subjects. The God-directedness of worship is not just one form of worship. It is the only form of worship."
Mohler said he had developed a new appreciation for praise and worship music because much of it is God-directed, simple and Scripture-based, as are many of the church's best-loved traditional hymns.
Both hymns and praise choruses, however, may also be "crude" and "self-directed," he said, thus the kind of music Christians sing in worship should be based on theology.
Great leaders throughout church history, such as Augustine, Calvin and Luther, have been concerned that music does not override worship, Mohler said. "If you find yourself humming the tune rather than reciting the words, you have heard the wrong thing, and the music has not served the glory of God but robbed him of his glory."
*
Mall managers all over the world are concerned about teens who use their centers as hangouts. In some malls, hundreds of teens are present at the same time for no other reason than that "There's nothing to do." How do you keep them from congregating in annoying packs?
The Warrawong Westfield mall in Wollongong (yes, there is really a place by this name south of Sydney, Australia) arrived at this original solution: they play Bing Crosby music, loudly, over the mall's public address system. And it works (or at least we're told it works).
Being good business people they have a Plan B in the event Plan A doesn't work: lighting that amplifies facial blemishes will be installed.
APPLICATION: Fortunately, God doesn't need or want a Plan B. His Plan A has always been certain of success, it has always been to seek and to save that which was lost [Luke 19:10]. When all has been said and done, there will be no one in Hell who can wag his finger at Heaven and proclaim, "There's been a mistake, I don't belong here!"
________
Source/Attribution: John Gillmartin
Christianity has never had a very strong presence in Japan. In fact, with industrialization, Japan has become one of the most secular nations on earth. But right now, thousands of Japanese are hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ in a new, or should I say old, way -- and they're embracing it.
The evangelist responsible for leading this spiritual awakening might surprise you. He's none other than Johann Sebastian Bach.
That's right. The German composer who died 250 years ago is bringing Christianity to Japan through the beauty of his music. Now there are reports of thousands of Japanese, inspired by his cantatas, converting to Christianity. It's a testament to the power of art steeped in a biblical worldview.
Christianity has never been widely embraced by Japanese culture. When European traders and missionaries came to the island nation in the 17th century, they met with mixed success: Commerce thrived, but the Gospel languished. But Japan eagerly embraced the music of Western culture.
Shinichi Suzuki even developed a method to learn to play classical instruments that became famous worldwide. But now, through a resurgence in Bach's popularity, that music is providing a foothold for evangelism that trade and traditional approaches never have.
Bach's popularity is so great that the classes at the Felix Mendolssohn Academy in Bach's hometown of Leipzig, Germany, are filled with Japanese students. These students are learning about more than the music of the great composer -- they learn about the spirit that moved him to write: that is, Bach's love of God.
Writing on this resurgence of Bach's music for Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress, Uwe Siemon-Netto reports that his Japanese interpreter asked to start the day with one of Bach's cantatas. She selected one whose lyrics declare that God's name is Love. "This has taught me what these two words mean to Christians ... and I like it very much," she said.
As Siemon-Netto points out, Bach's music was once celebrated as the "fifth gospel" -- praise that has never been more aptly said of Bach's work than it is in Japan today.
What began as an interest in the brilliance of the music has led to an understanding of the richness of God's grace. Masaaki Suzuki, founder of a school for Bach's music in Japan, says, "Bach is teaching us the Christian concept of hope." And Yoshikazu Tokuzen, of Japan's National Christian Council, calls Bach nothing less than "a vehicle of the Holy Spirit." And the revival his music is causing indeed confirms that.
At the end of every one of his works, Bach inscribed the initials "SDG" -- shorthand for Soli Deo Gloria, "to God alone be the glory." Little could he have imagined what purposes God would have for his work, even hundreds of years after his death.
And Bach could hardly have imagined that his music would contribute to the evangelization of Japan.
Bach's legacy is a sterling illustration of C.S. Lewis' maxim that the world does not need more Christian writers -- it needs more good writers, and composers, who are Christians. And when we produce art that is really good, art that reflects a biblical worldview, its richness will endure through the ages -- Soli Deo Gloria.
---------------
Uwe Siemon-Netto, "The Gospel According to J.S. Bach." Civilization: The Magazine of the Library of Congress" (Feb/Mar 2000); p. 45-49.
___________________
Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
*
Rock and Demon Possession
* “We come bursting through your bodies/ Rape your helpless soul/Transform you into a creature/ Merciless and cold/ We force you to kill your brother/ Eat his blood and brain/ Shredding flesh and sucking bone/ Till everyone's insane...” “Demons” - Rigor Mortis (1988).
* “Anyway, I don't do very many things until A CERTAIN FORCE tells me to do them. THE FORCE tells me when and then I make my move”. - Michael Jackson.
* “It happens subliminally. IT'S THE MUSIC THAT COMPELS ME TO DO IT. You don't think about it, it just happens. I'M A SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM.” (Michael Jackson.)
* “In Haitian voodoo as in Africa the drum is holy. The drummer is seen merely as the servant of the drum...but through his drum HE HAS GREAT INFLUENCE ON THE CEREMONY. Each loa (demon) PREFERS A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT RHYTHM, and the drummer knows them all and all their variations. HE CAN OFTEN INVOKE POSSESSION BY WHAT HE PLAYS...” (“Hear That Long Snake Moan', by Michael Ventura, Whole Earth Review, Spring, 1987, p.34.)
* “We're making our music into electric church music - A NEW KIND OF BIBLE, not like in a hotel, but a Bible you carry in your hearts, one that will give you a physical feeling. We try to make our music so loose and hard-hitting so that IT HITS YOUR SOUL HARD ENOUGH TO MAKE IT OPEN. IT'S LIKE SHOCK THERAPY OR A CAN OPENER...” -- Jimi Hendrix ('Scuze Me While I Kiss the Sky' - Henderson, 1978.)
* “Atmospheres are going to come through music, because music is in a spiritual thing of its own...you hypnotize people to where they go right back to their natural state which is pure positive... and when you get people at that weakest point, you can PREACH INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS WHAT WE WANT TO SAY...” - Jimi Hendrix.
* “You've been polluted so long/ But here's a way for you to get clean/ By chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free/ The Lord is awaiting you all to awaken and see...” “Awaiting on You All”, “All Things Must Pass” - George Harrison (1970).
* “They call you Christ, Vishnu, Buddha, Jehovah our lord/ You are Govindam, Bismillah, creator of all...” “Life Itself”, “Somewhere In England” - George Harrison.
* “Paul Simon says that he was connected up to the sounds of Brazil when he was asked to guest on a recording made by singer Milton Nascimento...drummers who still used their instruments in quasi-religious ceremonies AIMED AT INVOKING DEITIES. Simon says, “That's why I hope the music on the album [“Rhythm of the Saints”] is hypnotic BECAUSE THE DRUMS ARE INVOKING SPIRITS, AND HAVE BEEN FOR A LONG TIME...rhythm does interest me mostly now, simply because it links up with the kind of '50s music I grew up on, with Elvis, with doo-wop...” “Flyaway Paul”, by Steve Grant, Time Out, October 24-31, 1990, p. 15.
* “It was the same way with The Doors when we played in concert. The sets didn't last that long, but I think that our drug experiences let us get into it that much quicker. We knew the symptoms of the [altered] state, so that we could try to approximate it. It was like Jim [Morrison] was an electric shaman and we were the electric shaman's band, pounding away behind him. Sometimes he wouldn't feel like getting into the state, but the band would keep on pounding and pounding, and little by little it would take him over. God, I could send an electric shock through him with the organ. John could do it with his drumbeats. You could see every once in a while - twitch! I could hit a chord and make him twitch. And he'd be off again...” Ray Manzarak (former organist with The Doors.)
* “Kenneth Anger [a master satanist] told me I was his right-hand man. It's just what you feel. Whether you've gotten that good and evil thing together. Left-hand path, right-hand path... Once you start, there's no going back...IT'S SOMETHING EVERYBODY OUGHT TO EXPLORE...I JUST TRY TO BRING IT INTO THE OPEN A LITTLE...There are black magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents of Lucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. EVERYBODY'S LUCIFER...” - Keith Richards (guitarist with The Rolling Stones.)
* “I was round when Jesus Christ/ Had his moment of doubt and pain/ Made !@#$% sure Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate.../ Just as every cop is a criminal/ And all the sinners saints/ As heads is tails/ Just call me Lucifer/ Cause I'm in need of some restraint...” “Sympathy for the Devil”, “Beggars Banquet” - The Rolling Stones (1968).
* “He [Jimi Hendrix] used to always talk about SOME DEVIL OR SOMETHING WAS IN HIM, you know, and he didn't have any control over it, he didn't know what made him act the way he acted and what made him say the things he said, and songs...just came out of him...He was so tormented and just torn apart...and I used to talk about my grandmother and all her weird stuff, you know, and he used to talk about us going down there and having some root lady or somebody see if she COULD DRIVE THE DEMON OUT OF HIM.” - Fayne Pridgeon in “Jimi Hendrix - The Movie.”
* “And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune/ Then the piper [Pan] will lead us to reason/ And a new day will dawn for those who stand long.../If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, Don't be alarmed now/ It's just a spring clean for the May Queen.../The piper is calling you to join him...” “Stairway to Heaven” - Led Zeppelin (1971).
* “More than anything it was the time and the place when the Beatles came up. Something did happen there...It was as if several people gathered around a table and a ghost appeared. It was that kind of communication. So they were like mediums in a way. It was more than four people...As I said, they were like mediums. They weren't conscious of all they were saying but it was coming through them...” - Yoko Ono, The Playboy Interviews, p. 133.
* “But my joy is when you're like possessed, like a medium, you know. I'll be sitting around and it'll come in the middle of the night or at the time when you don't want to do it - that's the exciting part...I don't know who the #$%@# wrote it - I'm just sitting here and the whole #$%*$ song comes out. So it, you're like driven and you find yourself over on a piano or guitar and you put it down because it's been given to you or whatever it is that you tune into.” - John Lennon, “The Last Lennon Tapes (1981).
These are bands that have at least one or more songs devoted to Satan, Satanism, or suicide (Satan inspired music). This is NOT an exhaustive list (because there are more bands out there).
Taken from the Lost Souls Domain Website Absu
Acid Bath
Acrostichon
Alice in Chains
Amorphis
Anathema Ancient
The Ancient
Rebirth
Ancient Rites As I Lie Dying
At the Gates
Autopsy
Babylon
Sad Benediction
The Blood Divine
Bolt Thrower
Brutality
Burzum
Candlemass
Cannibal Corpse
Cathedral Celestial Season
Cradle of Filth
Creepmime
Crematory
Cynic
Danzig
Darkthrone
Dark Tranquillity
Death
Deicide
Demolition Hammer
Diabolos Rising
Dismember
Dissection
Edge of Sanity
Elend
Emperor
Enchantment
Enslaved
Entombed
Faith No More
Fear Factory
The Gathering
Genetic Wisdom
God Dethroned
Godflesh
Godsend
Gorefest
Gwar
Hate Squad
Hybernoid
Hypocrisy
Immortal
Impaled Nazarene
Incubator
In the Woods
Kreator
Korn
Lash Out
Life of Agony
Lord
Belial Machine Head
Marilyn Manson
Mayhem
Messiah Metallica
Ministry
Misery Loves
Co.
Moonspell Morbid Angel
Mordred
Morgoth
Mucky
Pup My Dying Bride
Mystic Charm
Nailbomb
Napalm Death Necromantia
Nine Inch Nails
Nirvana
Nocturnus
Obituary
Old Orphanage
Osdorp
Posse &
Nebrionic Pantera
Paradise Lost
Pearl Jam
Pestilence Phlebotomized
Pro Pain
Pyogenesis
Rotting Christ
Sadness
Samael
Sarcofago
Satyricon
Sear Bliss
Sepultura
Sigh
Six Feet Under
Slayer
Suffocation
Suicidal
Tendencies
Threnody Tiamat
Traumatic Voyage
Type O
Negative
Ugly Kid Joe Unleashed
Visceral Evisceration
"I was born in the 50's. I grew up on rock 'n roll. It's
what I like. Since I happen to prefer that type of music and since
I'm a dedicated Believer in Jesus Christ, I merge the two and use it
to show the world the vitality of the Living Lord. It's like taking
salid oil and vinegar (with a few spices, of course), and pouring it
over my "salad of life." To many, it "tastes" good. To others, they'd
prefer mayonnaise and ketchup mixed up. You see, music has to do with
taste. Some like folk. Some like classical. Some like country and
western. The list goes on and on. Why is it that when we walk into a
majority of churches today, they only serve one type of dresssing?!
We, who are called to be the "salt of the earth" are serving up a
bland menu. We sit and wonder where all the youth and young adults
are. We expect them to like the same kind of "dressing" with NO
SUBSTITUTIONS thank you! I think the Master Chef grieves over our lack
of creativity. It's time for God's people to open the doors of their
hearts and serve a "variety" on the menu.
"I'm willing to taste something new. How 'bout you?"
-- Laurel Lear
Young Life Song book
The little sketch of Beethoven's last moments given in The Evangelist of November 11th, so interested me that I desire to give you a little different account of the same incident. It gives the same facts, with the different view of another writer. It is from Harper's Monthly, July, 1854, by an unknown author. The story is full of deepest pathos connected with one of the greatest of musical genii the world has ever known. I hope you will give it a place in your Music Department. -- J. H. Vance, Erie, Pa.
He had but one happy moment in his life and that killed him! He lived in poverty, driven into solitude by the contempt of the world and by the natural bent of a disposition rendered almost savage, by the injustice of his contemporaries. But he wrought the sublimest music of which man or angel ever dreamed!
Beethoven had but one friend and that was Hummel. But he had quarreled with him, and for a long time they had ceased to meet. To crown his misfortunes he became completely deaf. Then Beethoven retired to Baden, where he lived isolated and sad, in a small house that hardly sufficed for his necessities ... In the midst of his solitude a letter arrived, which brought him back, despite himself, to the affairs of the world, where new griefs awaited him. A nephew whom he had brought up and to whom he was attached by the good offices he had performed for the youth, wrote to implore his uncle's presence in Vienna. He had become implicated in some disastrous business from which his elder relative alone could release him.
Beethoven set off upon the journey and, compelled by the economy of necessity, accomplished a part of the journey on foot. One evening he stopped before the gate of a small mean-looking house and solicited shelter. He had already several leagues to traverse before reaching Vienna, and his strength would not allow him to continue any longer on the road. They received him with hospitality, and after partaking of their simple supper he was installed in the master's chair by the fire-place.
When the table was cleared, the father of the family arose and opened an old claverin (the primitive piano mentioned in The Evangelist). The three sons each took a violin and the mother and daughter each occupied themselves with some domestic work. The father gave the key note, and all four began playing with that unity and precision, that innate genius which is peculiar only to the German people. It seemed that they were deeply interested in what they played, for their whole souls were in their instruments. The two women desisted from their occupation to listen, and their gentle countenances impressed the emotions of their hearts. To observe all this was the only share that Beethoven could take in all that was passing, for he could not hear a single note. He could only judge of their performance by the movements of the executants, and the fire that animated their features. When they had finished they shook each other's hands, as if to congratulate each other on a community of happiness, and the young girl threw herself weeping into her mother's arms! Then they appeared to consult together, and resumed their instruments. This time their enthusiasm reached its height, their eyes were filled with tears, and the color mounted to their cheeks!
"My friends," said Beethoven, "I am very unhappy that I can take no part in the delight which you experience, for I also love music. But as you see, I am so deaf I cannot hear any sound. Let me read this music which produces in you such sweet and lively emotions."
He took the music in his hand; his eyes grew dim, his breath came short and fast, then he dropped the music and burst into tears! Those peasants had been playing the Allegretto of Beethoven's Symphony in A!
The whole family surrounded him with signs of curiosity and surprise. For some moments his convulsive sobs impeded his utterance. Then he raised his hand and said: "I am Beethoven;" and they uncovered their heads and bowed before him in respectful silence! Beethoven extended his hands to them, and they clasped them, kissed, wept over them! (Imagine that scene!) For they knew that they had among them a man who was greater than a king! Beethoven held out his arms and embraced them all, father mother, young girl and her three brothers!
All at once he arose, and sitting down to the claverin signed to the young men to take up their violins and himself performed the piano part of this chef d'auvre. The performers were alike inspired! Never was music more divine or better executed! Half the night passed away thus and the peasants listened. Those were the last notes of the man!
The father compelled him to accept his own bed, but during the night Beethoven was restless and fevered. He arose; he needed air, he went forth with naked feet into the country. All nature was inhaling a majestic harmony, the winds sighed through the branches of the trees, and moaned along the avenues, and glades of the wood. He remained some time wandering in the cool dews of the morning, but when he returned to the house he was seized with an icy-chill. They sent to Vienna for a physician. Dropsy of the chest was found to have declared itself, and in two days despite every care and skill, the doctor said Beethoven must die. And in truth life was every instant fast ebbing away.
As he lay upon his bed pale and suffering, a man entered. It was Hummel, his old and only friend. He had heard of the illness of Beethoven, and came to him with money and succor. But it was too late. Beethoven was speechless and a grateful smile was all he had to bestow upon his friend. Hummel, by means of an acoustic instrument, enabled Beethoven to hear a few words of his compassion and regret.
Beethoven seemed reanimated, his eyes shone, he struggled for utterance and gasped: "Is it not true, Hummel, that I have some talent after all?"
Those were his last words. His eyes grew fixed, his mouth fell open and his spirit passed away. They buried him in the little cemetery of Doblin.
-- From "Present Day Parables" by J. Wilbur Chapman
<> My Source: Wayne Jackson's Penpoints Website
<> \webpage{http://www.christiancourier.com/penpoints/aidAddition.htm}
<> Author: Wayne Jackson
=========================================
“Aid” Or “Addition” — What Is The Difference?
by Wayne Jackson
A visitor enters a service of one of the congregations of the churches of Christ. After being seated, he notices that no piano or organ is used during the musical portion of the worship, and so he asks: “Why do you folks not use instruments of music in your worship?”
A kindly gentleman replies: “Because musical instruments are not authorized by the New Testament, hence, they are additions to the divine pattern which prescribes Christian worship.”
But the intrigued visitor probes further: “Why then do you use song books? Aren’t these also additions?” “No," the brother replies, “our song books are merely aids; there’s a difference between an addition and an aid.”
Conversations like the previous take place on numerous occasions. There is much confusion in discerning the difference between an “addition” and an “aid.” What is the difference? This is a great question, and we focus briefly on it in this week’s Penpoint.
How is an “addition” distinguished from an “aid”? An addition occurs when a particular action has been altered, or the fundamental composition or substance of a thing has been changed. An aid alters nothing; it merely facilitates the implementation of the action or substance, without changing anything.
Perhaps several examples will help us focus on this.
1. A cane may aid one in taking a walk, but with or
without this device, one is just walking. But if
one walks for a while, and then rides a bicycle,
he is no longer just walking; something has been
added to his mode of travel. Now, he’s both
walking and riding.
2. A mother sends her son to the market to buy a
loaf of bread. He brings the bread home in a bag.
The bag is merely an aid. Should he purchase a
candy bar as well, he has disregarded the
instruction of his mother by an addition.
3. A man takes his automobile to the service center
for an oil change. The attendant may use a wrench
and funnel to aid in his replacement of the oil.
There is no problem with that. But we all understand
that if he changes the sparks plugs as well, he
has augmented the original instructions.
4. Jesus taught that the communion supper is to
consist of bread and fruit of the vine. A table,
plates, and cups facilitate (aid) the implementation
of those commands. But to garnish the bread with
peanut butter, and “punch up” the fruit of the vine
with ginger ale, is to be guilty of addition.
5. Christians are obligated to preach the gospel
everywhere to the extent of their ability. In order
to accomplish this, it is acceptable to use aids
(e.g., tracts, television, the world wide web, or a
building). But if one combines something with
that gospel (as the Judaizers did in the first century
when they taught that circumcision, an element of
the Mosaic law, is also necessary to receive
salvation — Acts 15:1), that is an offense.
6. When the church commences the musical portion
of its service, the saints may “sing,” for such is
enjoined by God (Ephesians 5:18-19; Colossians 3:16).
Christians may employ song books, a projection
screen, or a tuning fork (to determine the appropriate
“pitch”). Still, though, in the final analysis, they would
be singing only.
On the other hand, if the church sings to the
accompaniment of an organ, those thus participating
have added something to what the Lord prescribed.
There now are two types of music — vocal and
instrumental. The nature of the original command
has been supplemented.
Additions are wrong.
And so, the serious Bible student must conclude that the use of a mere aid only accommodates obedience to God’s will. Such expediencies may fluctuate from time-to-time and from place-to-place.
On the other hand, those who respect the authority of the sacred Scriptures will not tamper with the divine prescriptions for worship by the clutterment of additions. They will not add to sacred instruction, for to do so is to invite the wrath of God ultimately.
One needs to remember what happened to those who put God’s Ark of the Covenant on a “new” cart (2 Samuel 6:3), instead of transporting the sacred chest as the law had required (Exodus 25:12-14). David later admitted that this addition was “not according to the [divine] ordinance” (1 Chronicles 15:16). It pays to know the difference between an “aid” and an “addition.”
To many, such matters perhaps seem rather trivial. This is because they have never fathomed the concept of the necessity of absolute obedience to the sovereign Creator.
©1998-2000 Christian Courier.
Sixteen-year-old David Merrill, a student at Nansemond River High School in
Suffolk, Virginia, experimented with the effects of music on mice. He took
72 mice and divided them into three groups: one to test a mouse's response
to hard rock, another to the music of Mozart, and a control group that
wouldn't listen to any music at all, rock or classical. Merrill played
music 10 hours a day. Then he put each mouse through a maze three times a
week that originally had taken the mice an average of 10 minutes to
complete. Over time, the control group mice cut about 5 minutes from their
time. The Mozart-listening mice cut their time back 8.5 minutes. The
hard-rock mice added 20 minutes to their time, making their average time
200 percent more. Merrill had tried to do his experiment before, allowing
mice in different groups to live together. 'I had to cut my project short
because all the hard-rock mice killed each other,' he said. 'None of the
classical mice did that.' What in the World" (The Evangelical Methodist,
Feb. 1998)
One of our local papers features a column titled "Newsquirks"
comprising selected quirky news items. A recent column included the
following:
"Suffolk, Va., high school student David Merrell finished first in
regional and state science fairs by demonstrating the effects of music on
lab mice. After the mice ran through a maze in about 10 minutes, Merrell
played classical music to one group and heavy metal to another for 10
hours a day. After three weeks, the mice exposed to classical music made
it through the maze in a minute and a half. The rock-music group took 30
minutes. Merrell added he "had to cut my project short because all the
hard-rock mice killed each other. None of the classical mice did that."
--From Electronic Gospel Herald, 1/15/98.
Because of the agony of her own marriage breakup, singer Amy Grant sees why God hates divorce, she says in an interview with CCM magazine this month.
“I know why God hates divorce because it rips you from stem to stern, and children are the total innocent recipients of a torn and shattered life,” Grant told the magazine, a leading publication in the Contemporary Christian music world.
Grant, one of the most successful singers in Christian music, ended her 16-year marriage to fellow Christian performer Gary Chapman in June. The couple have three children.
Grant, 39, said she was raised to think divorce is sinful.
“I’m from a big family,” she told CCM Managing Editor Gregory Rumburg.
“My parents are still together, and my three older sisters are married and still together. I stood up at the front of a packed-out church and made a vow before God about -- as best I could -- how I would lead my life. And I failed in that. Failure’s incredibly humbling.”
After years of painful counseling to try saving the marriage, and after sessions with pastors and much prayer, she now has a sense of healing about the break-up and a feeling of being “released” by God, she said.
“It makes me incredibly thankful that God is a God of second chances,” she said.
She recounted what one counselor told her: “He said, ‘Amy, God made marriage for people. He didn’t make people for marriage. He didn’t create this institution so he could just plug people into it. He provided this so that people could enjoy each other to the fullest.’ I say, if you have two people that are not thriving healthily in a situation, I say remove the marriage. Let them heal.”
Grant’s divorce has been an intense preoccupation in Christian journalism and among fans. If the Christian music past is an indicator, CCM said, Grant might lose support from some disillusioned fans. Grant said she’d have no argument with that, but she had a few thoughts on judgmentalism.
“I guess I would say, judgment is usually exercised from a distance, but in more than one instance the thing that has brought about change (in people) is compassion. Jesus led by compassion. No one is ever changed because of judgment. No one’s ever healed through judgment.”
Singing At Night
Read: Psalm 20
God my Maker . . . gives songs in the night. --Job 35:10
There are two little birds that are beautiful pictures of the spirit of song. The one is the skylark. It awakens early in the morning and greets the rising monarch of the day with music. Its whole being seems to burst forth in song.
The other bird is the nightingale. This dark-colored little bird hides away in the bushes and doesn't sing much in the daytime. But when evening comes, it trills forth with its beautiful, tender, moving night song.
In the spiritual realm, as in the world of nature, the singers of the day are more numerous than the singers of the night. But surely we can glorify God the most by singing in spite of the dark.
It is not hard to praise the Lord when everything is going well, when we have our health, when the family is happy, and when we have a good job. But what happens when trials come? When our health is gone, our money is spent, relationships are broken, or tragedy strikes, the reality of our faith is tested. Only those who are wholeheartedly committed to Christ can have a song in the night.
Some of the sweetest Christians I have ever met were God's patient sufferers on their beds or in their wheelchairs who had learned to sing in the dark. --M. R. De Haan, M.D.
When the shadows are long He will give me a song
As when skies are blue and bright;
For each step of the way, each hour of the day,
And songs in the deepest night. --Grimes
If you keep in tune with Christ, you can sing even in the dark.
Among the nominees for Best Picture in 2002's Academy Awards is THE PIANIST. The movie, which has been nominated for six other Oscars in addition to Best Picture, tells the story of one man's survival during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
Like most films, THE PIANIST takes liberties with the historical facts. Unfortunately, these liberties include one key fact that made the story, and the film that tells it, possible.
THE PIANIST is based on composer Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoir. Szpilman feels little affinity for his fellow Jews, even after the Germans forced them into the Warsaw ghetto.
He only avoids the fate of the rest of his family -- who perished in Treblinka -- through a series of improbable events: being selected to work on a construction crew and then afterwards as a clerk.
Then comes the most improbable turn of all: While searching for food, Szpilman is stopped by a German officer who asks him, of all things, his profession. After Szpilman answers, the officer takes him to a piano where Szpilman plays Chopin. The German then hides and feeds Szpilman for the remainder of the war.
As Michael Oren wrote in the NEW REPUBLIC, the image we are given is one of a “monster transformed by music.” That image, as Oren tells us, is a “misrepresentation.”
The German soldier in question was named Wilm Hosenfeld. Hosenfeld was “an ardent Catholic who abhorred Nazism.” In his diary, he wrote that the war happened because “humanity had to be shown where its godlessness was taking it.” Our “denial of God's commandments” and our unwillingness to “love one another” condemned us to die “innocent and guilty alike.”
This faith is why Hosenfeld “repeatedly risked his life to rescue others, Poles and Jews, from extermination.” This is why these survivors, including Szpilman, tried to get Hosenfeld released from a Soviet labor camp, where he died in 1952.
The only suggestion in the film of Hosenfeld's real motivation is when he gives Szpilman his coat and tells him, “You must survive. God wills it.” But without knowing about his faith, the audience can't possibly make sense of that remark. Why must Szpilman survive? Because he can play Chopin flawlessly or because he is made in the image of God?
In suggesting the first answer, the filmmakers are following the Romantic ideal of the artist as a visionary, prophet, and even redeemer. The irony is that no one better articulated this vision than the German composer Richard Wagner -- Hitler's favorite composer.
This is not to say that Wagner or Romanticism should be blamed for the crimes of the Third Reich. Of course, they should not. But it is a reminder that the kind of heroism displayed by people like Hosenfeld and other “righteous Gentiles” was, more often than not, a function of their faith. Risking their lives to rescue others was a matter of love for neighbor, not a refined aesthetic.
Szpilman knew this, and he pointed it out in his memoir. Unfortunately, his adapters were not as careful with the facts. As a result, a film that was supposed to shed light on the Holocaust leaves viewers in the dark about what they saw. And you might want to tell your friends who watch the Academy Awards the real story behind this film -- very different from the one they will see on the screen.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Michael B. Oren, “Schindler's Liszt,” THE NEW REPUBLIC, 17 March 2003.
Jonathan V. Last, “A Pre-Pre-Oscar Malaise,” WEEKLY STANDARD, 10 January 2003. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/091hcvbx.asp
Roberto Rivera y Carlo, “Duty, Honor, and the Movies,” BOUNDLESS, 13 March 2003. http://www.boundless.org/2002_2003/departments/atplay/a0000728.html
Rebecca Phillips, “In a World without Heroes,” BELIEFNET, 18 March 2003. http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/123/story_12306_1.html&boardID=53631
Wladyslaw Szpilman, THE PIANIST (Picador, 2002). http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0312311354-0
Read Chuck Colson's List of 50 Insightful Films for suggestions on good movies to rent, including children's films. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/ResourcesGroup/BackgroundArticlesAndInformation/Colsons+List+of+50+Insightful+Films.htm
Robert K. Johnston, REEL SPIRITUALITY: THEOLOGY AND FILM IN DIALOGUE (Baker Book House, 2000).
____________
Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
*
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5171]
"I am a musician. My passion for music has obliterated everything in its path for my entire life. Whenever there was a choice between music and anything else, music won hands down every time. No one person or material thing could ever come close to the feeling I get when the music is right. I am totally committed to my music and my fans." - Barry Manilow
Sermon in Colossians series. Colossians 3:15-17
DO IT FOR JESUS
===============
I. The habits of highly successful people.
II. Christians are Peaceable.
A. Inner peace or interpersonal?
B. Learn to be peaceable people.
III. Christians are Thankful.
A. Gratitude is often a rare quality, but shouldn't be.
B. Thanksgiving is an evidence of faith.
C. Thanksgiving reveals the depth of our fellowship.
IV. Christians are Word-ful.
A. Let Christ's Word dwell in you richly.
B. Teach and admonish with all wisdom.
V. Christians are Musical.
A. Obviously, some are more musical than others.
B. Responding to God.
C. Our singing should lead to praise.
D. It's ironic that music often divides Christians.
VI. Do it all in the name of Jesus.
*
Did this actually happen or did I imagine it?
Every Christmas we had a family get-together in the parlour of our house. We stood or sat around the piano and had a sing-song. On this particular year (1934), my elderly grandmother arrived just before Christmas and a camp bed was put in the parlour for her to sleep in overnight. She was a small frail person in her 90s.
A few days later, my mother went into the parlour to waken her in the morning, but was unable to. Our doctor lived a few doors down the road, so my mother went to his house and asked him to come and examine my grandmother. He pronounced her dead.
Our father arranged for a coffin to be delivered. The lid was taken off and my grandmother was carefully placed in the coffin. My parents, however, did not like the coffin on the floor, so they had it put on top of the upright piano. -
At that time, I was 11 years old and had just started taking piano lessons. Mother insisted on me practising and when the time came, she told me to go in the parlour and practice. I said I could not go with Grandma in there. Mother said, "She won't bother you, you go in there and practice."
So I gingerly sat down at the piano where, fortunately, I could only see the side of the coffin and I began to practice "The Blue Danube." This was one of the first tunes I learned to play: CCEGG, then, an octave higher, GGEE.
I practised this tune for a while, then I suddenly looked up and there was my grandmother sitting up in the coffin. My hair stood on end and I rushed out to my mother and said, "She is alive!" My mother immediately went into the parlour and my grandmother was lying peacefully flat in the coffin. However, my mother went along to the doctor and got him to re-examine my grandmother. He said she is definitely not alive; her heart is not beating.
I am sure I saw my Grammy sit up and, on reflection, I wonder if she was initially in a coma. The piano playing awakened her and when she saw that she was in a coffin, she died from shock.
Norman L. Spencer
Vancouver, BC
"The devoted daughter who dedicated her life to praising God."
Occasionally, you have the privilege to meet someone who is really too "good" for this tarnished world - someone who is kind, caring and for whom transitory pleasures and the pursuit of material gain mean nothing. Instead, their whole being is suffused by a love of God which illuminates their personality. Frances Ridley Havergal was just such a person.
She was born in the village of Astley, Worcestershire, in 1836, a few months before the Accession of Queen Victoria. Frances was the youngest in the family of two Sons and four daughters of the Rev. William Henry Havergal and his wife Jane. He was a gifted musician with a wide knowledge of psalmody who composed and published church services as well as hymn tunes and chants. A fervent evangelical clergyman, he had a reputation as an effective preacher and a caring pastor, and was later made an Honorary Canon of Worcester Cathedral.
Frances was a high-spirited and affectionate child with a mop of golden curls, who was dubbed "Little Quicksilver" by the family. She reveled in the countryside around her home and developed a deep love and knowledge of Nature.
Taught both by her sisters and her mother, who had grown up in the Sussex town of East Grinstead where she had been known as the "lovely Jane Head", Frances proved a bright pupil. By the time she was seven years old, she was writing her own hymns and, having inherited her father's musical talents, she was soon writing tunes for them as well.
When Frances was aged eight, the Rev. Havergal was appointed vicar of St. Nicholas's Church in Worcester and the family had to move into the town. Frances desperately missed the garden and countryside surrounding their former home and said she felt like "a caged lark". However, at least she had a room of her own in the new rectory and had the benefit of a view of sky and clouds from her own window which she soon learnt to level as much as the birds and the flowers.
In 1848, Frances's beloved mother died after a long illness. Shortly before her death she had said to her daughter:
"Fanny, pray to God to prepare you for all He is preparing for you." Frances never forgot those words and she later said the message became "a life prayer" for her.
It was eventually decided that Frances should continue her education at "Belmont", a boarding school near Campden Hill in London. The school was run by a Mrs. Teed and it was renowned for its fervently evangelical teaching. Frances, who had many doubts and worries about her faith, found the school provided the spiritual guidance she was seeking and, soon after she was 15, she recorded: "I committed my soul to the Saviour, and earth and heaven seemed bright from that moment."
In 1851 the Rev. Havergal married again. His bride was Caroline Cooke who had been a teacher of Frances at one time, and Frances was brought back from London to a school at Powicke Court, near Worcester. However, she did not stay long as her previously robust health began to fail. Instead she stayed at home with her father and stepmother, travelling with them to Germany in 1852 where the Rev. Havergal wanted to consult a specialist about problems with his eyesight. They stayed for quite some time and Frances attended a school at Dusseldorf, mastering the German language so quickly that she came out top of her school class. An amazing feat for an English girl of 17. Later she stayed with a German pastor and his family and wrote one of her early hymns during the visit.
Soon after the family's return home, Frances was confirmed in Worcester Cathedral in a service which left a deep impression on her. She wrote that when the words: "Defend, O Lord, this Thy child with Thy heavenly Grace, that she may continue Thine for ever" were pronounced over her head "if ever my heart followed a prayer, it did then; if ever it thrilled with earnest longing, not unmixed with joy, it did at the words 'Thine for ever'". She continued ever after to mark the anniversary of her confirmation.
Frances read a great deal, but within the narrow confines dictated by her father's very Puritan tastes. Some poetry was permitted, but he would not allow her to read any classics of English literature - even Shakespeare was taboo! The Bible was the only book he really approved of and as a result Frances virtually knew it by heart. She had a great gift for languages and became proficient in German, French, Latin, Italian, Greek and Hebrew. However, by far the most important language to her was music which she regarded as "a sort of alphabet of the language of heaven - not any more equal to it, of course, than an ABC book is to Milton - but a sort of introduction".
If Frances fretted and rebelled against her rigid upbringing, it is not recorded. Instead, she seems to have been the perfect vicar's daughter, throwing herself wholeheartedly into philanthropy. She started Sunday School and Bible classes and went around the community helping others wherever possible and regarded herself as "a maid of all work in the household of God".
In 1861 her father left Worcester for reasons of health and moved to a living at Snareshill, a Staffordshire village near Wolverhampton. Frances went to live with one of her sisters at Oakhampton, not far from her old home at Astley. There she took on the education of her nieces for nine years until the youngest of them went to school in 1867. By this time Frances was a regular contributor of hymns, poetry and articles to a number of publications and was inundated with requests for her work.
She said that her work had nothing to do with her being "clever" or "gifted" because God spoke the lines to her. He had not given her a poetic chest of gold to do whatever she wanted, but instead kept hold of the treasure and gave her a gold coin every now and again.
In 1867 her father retired to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire and, like the devoted daughter she was, Frances returned to care for her aging father and stepmother. She took a holiday to Switzerland when she was 32 and was awed by the Alps. The tips of the mountains were so near to Heaven and the unsullied snow seemed to represent perfect peace and purity. Frances loved mountainous scenery and made almost annual visits to Switzerland, as well as trips to Scotland and North Wales.
The first volume of her poems appeared in 1869 under the title of The Ministry of Song and she dedicated the book to her beloved father. His sudden death the following year was a great blow to Frances, but she dutifully continued to care for her stepmother until her death eight years later.
Early in 1874 Frances went on a five-day visit to a friend's house. There were about 10 people there, some of whom were unbelievers and others who were lukewarm Christians. She prayed that everyone in the house would be given the blessing of true faith, and her prayer was granted. On the very last night of her visit she was woken up by the governess of the two daughters of the household. They were very upset and confused, but Frances talked to them and suddenly they, too, became firm believers. Frances was so happy that she could not sleep and the words of a hymn formed themselves in her head until they ended with the words "Ever, only, all for Thee!" This was the story behind Frances Ridley Havergal's most famous hymn "Take My Life, and Let it Be". She always sang the hymn to the tune "Patmos" which her father had written, although now it is sung to a variety of different tunes including "St. Bees" by J.B. Dykes, and also "Consecration" which is attributed both to William Havergal and Mozart!
In the same year - 1874 - another book of her work was published. Entitled Under the Surface it proved as popular as the earlier volume. Frances also wrote a number of children's stories which achieved a wide circulation.
After the death of her stepmother, Frances went to live with her maiden sister, Maria, at Caswall Bay, near the Mumbles in Wales. Even though she had recurring bouts of ill-health, her workload seemed to grow rather than diminish. There were increasing demands for her work, as well as the needs of her new community to administer to. It was because she insisted on addressing a temperance meeting on a wet and misty day towards the end of May 1879 that she caught a chill which turned into a fever. Her condition rapidly deteriorated but she viewed her dangerous illness with joy rather than dismay. She knew that she would soon be in her true home, which all her life she had been striving to be worthy of. Frances Ridley Havergal died on 3rd June, 1879.
Two years before her death Frances had written: "I am not one of those terrible 'strong-minded women', I think we have quite 'rights' enough in proportion to our powers and position."
It's a comment that was very typical of a Victorian lady although it would make some modern women cringe. However, despite her modesty about her weakness in resolve and her creative ability, Frances Ridley Havergal proved to be one of the most remarkable hymn-writers of her time. Like the words of her famous hymn, her life was consecrated to God, and she had the will and the determination to live "ever, only, all for Thee".
___________________
Source: This England - Britain's loveliest magazine, Spring 2001
PO Box 52, Cheltenham
Gloucestershire, GL50 1YQ
Velryba vydává jeden z nejneobyèejnìjších zvukù, které v pøírodì mùžeme slyšet. Její zpìc je kombinací vysokých a nízkých tónù, jekehosi sténání nebo povzdechù. Ti, kdo se zabývají studiem velryb se shodují na tom, že píssnì tìchto tonù jsou velmi pozoruhodné, nebo této obbøi morských hlubin své melodie neustále mìní. Pøidávají nové èásti a staré pøedstávají zpívat, takže po urèitì dobì jssou jich písnìzbrusu nové.
V tomto smyslu máme být my køesané skladateli nových písní chvaly a radosti k našemu Pánu. Podle toho, jak Pána poznáváme, zakoušíme v životì Jeho milost a moc; podle toho, jak On k nám stále hloubejí a novì promlouvá mùžeme pøídávat dalších do naších písní chvály a radosti.
A potom mùžeeme øíct s žalmistou: A do úst mi vložil novvou píseò, chvalozpìv našemu Bohu.
The skillful orator Robert Ingersoll devoted his talents to undermining the Christian faith. It is sad that in his dynamic lectures he so effectively employed sarcasm and humor to twist the truth to gain converts to unbelief. When he died, the brochure for his funeral service carried this statement: “There will be no singing.” That certainly was appropriate for one who denied the reality of an afterlife.
But singing is in order at the funeral of a Christian, even though eyes may be wet with tears. Death ushers the believer into that land of unimaginable glory and beauty where countless angelic and human voices join together in exultant praise, their hallelujahs filling heaven with mighty harmonies.
With good reason, then, we can sing even if we don’t have good voices. And we can sing no matter what our circumstances. If we are enjoying life, we can sing songs of praise (Jas. 5:13). If we are suffering affliction, we can follow the example of Paul and Silas. After being beaten and imprisoned, they prayed and sang hymns (Acts 16:25).
In all circumstances of life, Christians can sing. And our singing on earth is just a rehearsal for our participation in heaven’s jubilant praise. -- VCG
I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant power I’ll tell,
How the victory He giveth
Over sin and death and hell. -- Bliss
If you’re in tune with heaven, you’ll have a song in your heart.
Keep in the faith Like any good mother, when Karen found out that another baby was on the way, she did what she could to help her 3-year-old son, Michael, prepare for a new sibling.
They found out that the new baby was going to be a girl, and day after day, night after night, Michael sang to his sister in Mommy's tummy. He was building a bond of love with his little sister before he even met her.
The pregnancy progressed normally for Karen, an active member of the Panther Creek United Methodist Church in Morristown, Tennessee. In time, the labor pains came. Soon it was every five minutes, every three...every minute. But serious complications arose during delivery and Karen found herself in hours of labor. Would a C-section be required?
Finally, after a long struggle, Michael's little sister was born. But she was in very serious condition. With a siren howling in the night, the ambulance rushed the infant to the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Mary's Hospital, Knoxville, Tennessee.
The days inched by. The little girl got worse. The pediatrician had to tell the parents, "There is very little hope. Be prepared for the worst." Karen and her husband contacted a local cemetery about a burial plot. They had fixed up a special room in their house for their new baby but now they found themselves having to plan for a funeral.
Michael, however, kept begging his parents to let him see his sister. "I want to sing to her," he kept saying. Week two in intensive care looked as if a funeral would come before the week was over. Michael kept nagging about singing to his sister, but kids are never allowed in Intensive Care. Karen made up her mind, though. She would take Michael whether they liked it or not! If he didn't see his sister right then, he may never see her alive.
She dressed him in an oversized scrub suit and marched him into ICU. He looked like a walking laundry basket. But the head nurse recognized him as a child and bellowed, "Get that kid out of here now! No children are allowed." The mother rose up strong in Karen, and the usually mild-mannered lady glared steel-eyed right into the head nurse's face, her lips a firm line. "He is not leaving until he sings to his sister!" Karen towed Michael to his sister's bedside. He gazed at the tiny infant losing the battle to live.
After a moment, he began to sing. In the pure-hearted voice of a 3-year-old, Michael sang: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray ---"
Instantly the baby girl seemed to respond. The pulse rate began to calm down and become steady. "Keep on singing, Michael," encouraged Karen with tears in her eyes.
"You never know, dear, how much I love you, Please don't take my sunshine away-"
John Wesley’s directions for singing:
I. Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please.
II. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.
III. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.
IV. Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.
V. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.
VI. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.
VII. Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that you heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.
From John Wesley’s Select Hymns, 1761
Violent lyrics in songs increase aggression-related thoughts and emotions and could indirectly create a more hostile social environment, a study released on Sunday by a U.S. psychology association found.
The Washington, D.C.-based American Psychological Association (APA) released the study, resulting from five experiments involving over 500 college students, in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat, according to the study. It said the effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artist or arousal properties of the songs.
Even the humorous violent songs increased aggressive thoughts, the study said.
The group said the study contradicts a popular notion that listening to angry, violent music actually serves as a positive catharsis for people.
The music industry came under criticism from lawmakers in October for failing to use more descriptive parental advisory labels that specify whether the music contains sex, violence or strong language.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has said that current CD labels give parents enough information without violating the right to free expression.
The RIAA is the trade group for the world's five big labels, including AOL Time Warner Inc., EMI Group Plc, Bertelsmann AG, Vivendi Universal's, Universal Music and Sony Corp.
In response to pressure from Tipper Gore, the wife of former Vice President Al Gore, the industry agreed in 1985 to put labels on records that contain explicit sex or violence. At the time, artists said the labels were government-sponsored censorship.
ROCK AND STICK
During the APA's five experiments, conducted by researchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human Services examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and eight nonviolent songs by seven artists.
After listening, students were given various psychological tasks to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings, including asking the participants to classify words that have both aggressive and nonaggressive meanings, like rock and stick.
Results of the experiments showed that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words and increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive versus nonaggressive words.
“Such aggression-biased interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive response, verbal or physical, than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state, thus provoking an aggressive escalatory spiral of antisocial exchanges,” said researcher Craig Anderson, in a statement.
While researchers said repeated exposure to violent lyrics could indirectly create a more hostile social environment, they said it was possible the effects of violent songs may last only a fairly short time.
*
Music used in corporate church worship should not seek to amuse, entertain or manipulate congregations; rather, every text and tune should be carefully and thoughtfully informed by Scripture, music professor Ken Puls said during the 2001 Southern Baptist Founders Conference, July 17-20 at Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky.
Music often competes with preaching and teaching for supremacy in the contemporary church, when it should serve as an underpinning for the proclamation of God’s Word, said Puls, who teaches church music and classical guitar at Dallas Baptist University and also serves as music director at Heritage Baptist Church in Mansfield, Texas.
“I know of no other ministry in the church that has so great a potential to help or to hinder the pastoral ministry of teaching and preaching in the church than music,” Puls noted.
“The music in your church has the potential to become an obstacle to worship [by] amusing, distracting, entertaining the people and, as a result, minimizing and trivializing the preaching of the Word of God, or worse, contradicting the pastor who is trying to be faithful in preaching the Word to the congregation.”
Scripture is clearly foundational for the presence of music in a worship service, Puls said. Songs and spiritual songs are particularly found in Psalms and should inform the words sung in worship, he said.
Puls himself has written several hymns and contributed to the compilation of the Founders hymnal “Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs,” published by Founders Press and used in the annual conference sponsored by Founders Ministries, an organization rooted in the historic teachings known as the doctrines of grace, or Calvinism, embraced by numerous early Baptists.
Puls listed various roles which Scripture assigns to music: praise of God, giving thanks to God, prayer, proclaiming the truth of God’s Word, exhortation, confessing one’s faith and enriching worship with beauty.
A hymn’s text should be of primary importance, Puls said, because it voices the content of the believer’s worship. Therefore, the words must be faithful both in context and theological truth drawn from Scripture, he said.
“The text conveys and sets forth truth as we sing the words of Scripture, as we teach and admonish one another through music with the truths of Scripture,” he said.
Much of today’s praise and worship seeks to minimize theology and doctrinal content while maximizing feelings and subjective experience, Puls observed. Some of the newer music should be used but he cautioned worship leaders to ensure that all worship songs are filled with doctrinal truth.
“If you are in a situation and you are only trying to do that [reform worship] with praise choruses and short little songs, you’re going to have a very difficult time doing it,” Puls said. “We need church music that has substance to it, that keeps us focused on the truth of God’s Word.”
Texts and tunes should not be framed according pragmatic, man-centered, feel- good methods because God’s Word sets guidelines for worship in John 4:23, Col. 3:16 and Eph. 5:18-21 in which the apostle Paul places worship under the authority of Scripture.
“The passages in Colossians and Ephesians must be considered together,” Puls said. “In worshiping in spirit and in truth, truth is inseparably tied to the work of God’s Spirit.
“It is the Spirit who indwells us, who illuminates our hearts and our minds that we might grasp and understand and respond to the truth of God and his Word. What we sing before God matters.”
Puls urged music leaders to ask questions of the text regarding quality, purpose and message, examining it carefully to see that the words of Christ are dwelling richly in them.
The tune of music, often dismissed as a matter of personal taste, is another critical consideration in singing God-centered worship songs, Puls said. The issue runs much deeper than mere taste, he said.
There are certain styles of music that are always inappropriate for worship, he said. Heavy metal rock is one example, Puls said, of music that is beyond the bounds of worship because its discordant and violent style fails to promote the dignity, reverence and seriousness that should accompany worship.
“I find the disregard for music disturbing,” Puls said, “because music is wed so closely to desires and emotions. Not all music or musical styles are appropriate for worship. There are musical gestures, inflections and movements that will always be out of place in worship. Not all music is suitable for every context.
“Music provides an accompaniment for almost every activity in human life, each requiring a certain style and a character of song. Music does not have to be sanctified and used in public corporate worship in order to make it legitimate or within God’s pleasure or God’s will,” Puls continued.
“There is music that God gives us to accompany a great many activities that we partake of in Christian liberty outside the context of worship. When we understand the regulative principle of Christian worship, that not everything that God has given us liberty to do are we to do in corporate worship, it shouldn’t surprise us that not all music will be adequate or suitable to accompany those activities that God calls us to when we gather together in corporate worship.”
With the music beneath the words a subject of much conjecture and debate in the contemporary church, Puls said it is vital to give it painstaking consideration for three reasons: The tune is the incarnation of the text; it helps worshipers to interpret the text, providing an emotional context; and perhaps of prime importance, it identifies the text.
Different styles of music lead to different interpretations of the words being sung. Puls used an example of an actor on stage in an opera performance. The actor could be extolling the virtues of another character in song with a serious, sincere tone of music underlying it, thus showing the sincerity of his adulation.
However, if the music were whimsical and circus-like, yet accompanied the same words, the audience would interpret the singer’s tone as mocking and sarcastic instead of truly complimentary.
In much the same way, the tone of the tune beneath church music sends messages ranging from sorrow over sin to exalting worship of a holy God, Puls said, urging a congruency between the text and music.
“Do both the text and the tune communicate the same message?” Puls asked. “Are the music and the words equally yoked to communicate a clear message suited to the purpose of worshiping God and edifying the church? When choosing songs for worship we must carefully consider both music and words and how they fit together.
“Tone affects how we take the words. The music should undergird and strengthen worship, not distract from it or confuse it or call attention to itself rather than the content.”
Sing about Jesus at your own risk. That's the conclusion of some rock bands that perform Christian music and then seek crossover success.
They say they face constant questions about their faith, a tough road to mainstream acceptance and charges of selling out if they ever hit it big.
Just ask members of Sixpence None The Richer, who started on a Christian music label but broke into pop stardom with 1999's decidedly secular "Kiss Me."
The group - whose name comes from a C.S. Lewis essay on religion - has faced the question that nags many mainstream performers who sing about spirituality: "So are you a Christian band or not?"
The answer: No. Well, sort of.
"We don't consider ourselves a Christian band," said Jay Swartzendruber, publicist for the five-person band. "But we do see life through that Christian lens."
Cue confusion among fans and the media.
On the Web site for the hard-rock band Creed, band members devote much of the "frequently asked questions" section to addressing whether they're a Christian band.
Lyrics on the group's 1997 debut album - "My Own Prison" - contain frequent references to God and faith. But they insist they aren't a Christian band and have so tired of the question they decline most interview requests (including one for this article).
"People want to put that label on them," said Creed manager Jeff Hanson. "Creed's not running away from that, but they are doing their own thing. There are so many bad role models, I think Christians are probably happy to get what they can."
So why is it such a big deal whether musicians call themselves Christians in a country where most people say they identify with the faith?
"That's a good question," said Frank Breeden, president of the Nashville-based Gospel Music Association. "America no longer acts like a Christian nation. Today's approach toward religion is very postmodern. Most Americans do believe in God but don't want to endorse one religion. They prefer the cafeteria plan: Christianity is one of many faiths."
In other words, Jesus Rock doesn't sell.
"When people are confronted with that, it puts them face-to-face with a lot of issues that are hard to deal with: hell, eternity, fall from grace. In this society we don't talk about that kind of stuff," said Jerry Williams, programming director at WVFJ-FM, Atlanta's largest Christian radio station.
But when Christian musicians score a crossover hit that doesn't mention God, the genre's faithful level charges of selling out.
"There's people who say they want to have their cake and eat it, too, walking the line and having it both ways," Hanson said.
Dabney Gordon, 14, listens almost exclusively to Christian pop even though most of her friends at a Christian private school prefer Eminem or Britney Spears. She complained that bands have to choose between morality and commercial success, and often they pick rock stardom.
"I don't think it's pleasing to God," she said of bands that downplay their Christian roots. "It's a little disappointing to me. But our world always wants to talk about sex and things like that. That's what people are interested in, so that's what they buy."
Swartzendruber said the Christian music industry itself is to blame for the difficulty Christian bands have reaching the mainstream. Managers want every song to be "a three-minute sermonette," he said, and artists are allowed little creativity.
Like many Christian bands, Sixpence was put on a church tour, but band members complained of pressure to give religious speeches after they played. Those expectations put up a wall between secular and religious acts and drove Sixpence from its first label.
"We're not preachers," Swartzendruber said. "But there are some very narrow-minded believers who think the message, not the music, is the only thing that's important. It's an inbred community, a small fishbowl."
WVFJ's Williams agreed, but said it's changing.
"There are people who want to count the Jesus-per-minute references, but I don't think that's the majority anymore," he said.
"Just because a band isn't as overtly spiritual on some albums, it doesn't mean they're turning their backs on their faith. Christian bands used to be called on the carpet if they got away from the message. Now some people are disappointed if the big hit doesn't mention Jesus, but they're more accepting. It just takes time."
NEW TESTAMENT PRINCIPLES FOR MUSIC
It glorifies God but minimizes man, 1 Cor. 10:31, John 3:30.
It is instructional, not merely emotional, Eph. 5:18-20, Col. 3:16, 1 Tim. 3:16.
It conforms to righteousness, not carnality, Rom. 12:2, Col. 2:8.
(Ps David Brown, Oak Creek, WI)
A company president who had been given tickets for the performance of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony couldn’t attend, so he passed them to his Total Quality Management consultant. The next morning, when the president asked the consultant if he had enjoyed the concert, he was handed the following memo:
1. For considerable periods, the four oboe players had nothing to do. The number should be reduced and their work spread over the whole orchestra, thus eliminating peaks of activity.
2. All of the 12 violins were playing identical notes. This seemed unnecessary duplication, and the staff of this section should be cut drastically.
3. No useful purpose is served by repeating with horns the passage that had already been played by the strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated, the concert could be reduced from two hours to twenty minutes.
4. If Schubert had attended to these matters, he would probably have been able to finish his symphony after all.
________
Source: Chapnotes
Friday September 7 8:57 AM ET
Metro to Play Music for Suicidal Passengers
CALCUTTA, India (Reuters) - The Indian city of Calcutta will start playing calming classical music at its subway stations from next week as part of a campaign to prevent passengers from trying to commit suicide.
Twenty-six people have died jumping onto the tracks in front of trains since Calcutta Metro Railway started operating in 1984, S.C. Banerjee, a spokesman for the city's underground system, told Reuters.
"Fifty-nine people have attempted suicide and, out of this, 26 people have died. This is of great concern and we will try to prevent suicides by playing calming Indian classical music at our 17 stations from next week," Banerjee said.
Six people have committed suicide so far this year at various subway stations on the network, which carries more than 70 million people each year.
Banerjee said the music has been composed by a local musician who is concerned about the suicides.
"Hopefully, people contemplating suicide will listen to our music and see our posters and get diverted from killing themselves at the stations," Banerjee said.
Posters have been put up in the city's 17 stations urging people to chose life over death.
"I don't like to die in this beautiful world," reads one poster in Bengali, quoting the words of Rabindra Nath Tagore, an Indian poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913.
An anonymous American bidder paid $920,000 at a Paris auction Tuesday for a violin crafted by Italian master instrument-maker Antonius Stradivari in 1714. A second Stradivarious, said by experts to have been made in 1698 but modified afterwards, was purchased by an anonymous European bidder for about $716,000, French auctioneers Drouot said. The sales were the high points of Tuesday's auction of 115 stringed instruments and bows at Drouot's Paris headquarters.
Auctioneer Jacques Tajan had predicted before the sale that the violin made in 1714 -- which he described as an exquisite instrument -- would sell for between $583,000 and $833,333
"If it sold for a million dollars, this would make me very happy," he had said.
Stradivari's violins are extremely rare and fetch extraordinary prices when they come up for sale.
A British woman paid about $617,000 in London in June, 1995, for a Stradivarius for her 10-year-old daughter, a music student in Germany.
Master Violinist Joshua Bell emerged from the Metro and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript-a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money and began to play.
For the next 45 minutes, in the D.C. Metro on January 12, 2007, Bell played Mozart and Schubert as over 1,000 people streamed by, most hardly taking notice. If they would have, they might have recognized the young man for the world-renowned violinist he is. They also may have noted the violin he played - a rare Stradivari worth over $3 million. It was all part of a project arranged by The Washington Post - ”an experiment in context, perception, and priorities-as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste. In a banal setting, at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”
Just three days earlier, Joshua Bell sold out Boston Symphony Hall, with ordinary seats going for $100. In the subway, Bell garnered about $32 from the 27 people who stopped long enough to give a donation.
________
Source: Preaching Today
==================================
Another version, adapted from an email sent by Jack Hammell of Ledgewood Baptist Church (NJ):
In Washington , D.C., at a Metro subway station on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, 1,097 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about 3 minutes a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.
About 4 minutes later the violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. At 6 minutes a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
At 10 minutes: A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.
The musician played continuously for 45 minutes. Only seven people had stopped and listened for a short while. About twenty gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The musician collected a total of $32.17.
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.[*] He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a Stradivarius violin worth almost $4 million. Three days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the audience paid an average of $100 to sit and listen to him play the same music.
This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.
This experiment raised several questions:
* In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
* If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
* Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made..... how many other things are we missing, as we rush through life?
________
Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his article on this experiment, which had been secretly videotaped.
[*] Actually, one bystander did recognize him.
*
[see also HolwickID #35385]
[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]
Each week, music ministers of all denominations face the same dilemma: trying to select the music for Sunday's church service.
It's a problem that requires careful attention, but one that can be solved by asking a simple question, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Tom Nettles believes.
"Is the music we're singing worthy of teaching?" Nettles asked a group of seminary students during a special discussion on corporate worship. "Is it something that you could turn to your neighbor and sing and think you're instructing them in truth? This is something we need to look at carefully."
Joining Nettles at the symposium was Carl Stam, associate professor of church music and worship. Stam contended that the entire church service -- including the sermon -- should be viewed as a form of worship. Too often, Stam said, pastors try to split the service into two parts -- worship and preaching.
"What they mean by worship is everything that happened on Sunday morning except the sermon," he said. "They'll say, 'In our worship this morning, we did this.'"
Both men contended that the average church service omits certain elements that should be included, such as the reading of Scripture and the reciting of historical confessions.
"We're specifically told [in the Bible] to read Scripture," said Nettles, professor of historical theology. "One of the things that is so absent in so many of our services is just plain reading of Scripture. I think we should start worship services with the reading of Scripture [so that the church can] set the focus on the authority right from the beginning."
The reading of Scripture, Nettles said, would cut down on "the necessity of [the pastor] being a talk-show host and trying to entertain people to try to gain their attention" at the beginning of the worship service.
Stam said that ministers should embrace their "faith heritage" by teaching the congregation historical confessions. This, he argued, would serve as a form of education for the church members. Stam said that ministers should not ignore all of the teachings of a particular group in church history -- such as the Puritans -- simply because its members went astray in one particular doctrine.
"What is it that we believe?" Stam asked. "Do we despise the work of the desert fathers, the Reformers and the early Puritans -- who had so much of it right? Do we despise what our grandfathers and grandmothers were doing in worship a hundred years ago? ... We should embrace it. We should embrace what is good and true."
Nettles mentioned a few statements of belief that can be confessed, such as the Nicene Creed, the London Confessions and the Baptist Faith and Message. Too many modern churches have omitted confessions simply because they don't view them as entertaining, he said.
"Lift out of them things that the church can confess together," he said. "Preach on these things, and then also go into the literature of the church, get out hymns and songs and contemporary music that focus on these doctrines."
Nettles contended that a pastor and a music minister should plan church services with the education of the congregation in mind. He said they should choose various doctrines -- such as justification and glorification -- and have a goal of teaching the members. The songs and the sermon should then reflect the particular doctrine.
Nettles list four goals for planning a corporate worship service, that it should be spiritual, simple, clear and Christ-centered.
By spiritual, Nettles said, "We're not to consider our church successful if we have simply imposed the program on the church. The church [may be] functioning very well, but we have no knowledge of what is going on in the hearts of people."
Pointing to 1 Corinthians 3:1-2, Nettles said simplicity also should be a goal.
"Sometimes we hear language like, 'We have to do something to make the gospel exciting,'" he said. "There's not anything you have to do to make the gospel exciting. Anything you try to add to the gospel is a distraction from it. The gospel is transcendently powerful and beautiful."
Nettles added that "there's nothing we can do to jolt [the lost] into that in which the truth itself will not do under the power of the Spirit."
The goal of clarity in worship is one reflected in 2 Corinthians 4:1-3, Nettles said. In that passage, the apostle Paul says the focus should not be on him, but on Christ. Likewise, Nettles said, the focus of worship should never be on the music minister or on those who are singing.
"People must know exactly what we're saying [and] why we're saying it," he said. "The focus must be on the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel."
By Christ-centeredness, Nettles said he meant that "we must recognize that our knowledge of the triune God is mediated through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why I do not think it's wrong to speak of Christ-centeredness in worship, as long as we recognize that we are not somehow thinking that there is great ambiguity about the person and work of the Father and the Spirit."
In summarizing his view on corporate worship, Stam used a tent and its stakes as an allegory. Many elements of worship act as stakes -- among them being prayers, baptisms, songs and the celebration of the Lord's Supper -- but all of them should be focused on bringing glory to God in Christ Jesus. Christ, Stam said, is the tent's center stake.
Stam argued that any form of worship can be inappropriate if Christ is not at the center. Examples of this, Stam said, are denominations that have abandoned biblical doctrine but have put their social ministries -- serving food to the poor, clothing the needy -- at the center of their worship.
"I contend that the only appropriate focus for all of these is the glory of God in Christ," he said.
*
We were in our seats, waiting for the curtain to open in this great, family-oriented stage show. I knew it had to be show time - the lights went down, and unobtrusively the live band quietly filed into the orchestra pit. Most people were focused on the stage, but I was fascinated by something I saw going on with that band. One woman in the band had the arm of a fellow band member in her arm. She was obviously leading him to his position at the keyboard. Finally, I realized with some amazement that the keyboardist was blind. He put on his big headphones and, as the curtain opened, he started playing with all his heart. It was awesome.
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "The Music That's Always There."
I tell you, it was really inspiring. That musician cannot see - but he can still hear the music ... he can still play the music! I hope you can, too - no matter what limitations you're facing right now.
Look at the model Paul and Silas gave us in our word for today from the Word of God in Acts 16, beginning with verse 25. The preceding verses tell us that these two missionaries have been attacked by a crowd who were incited by false accusers. The Bible uses these words to describe what Paul and Silas had to go through: they were "stripped," "beaten," "severely flogged," and "thrown into prison." Then the Bible says they were put "in the inner cell" and their feet were "fastened in the stocks."
Now, that is enough to beat the song out of anyone. But according to our word for today, "about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them." The Bible goes on to report that when an earthquake shook that prison, the jailer himself came running to Paul and Silas for help. And he and his whole family came to Christ that night!
There's something very compelling about someone who refuses to be taken down by the worst of circumstances, who can still hear God's "music," who can still play God's "music" no matter what. Now, that "music" is a positive attitude - that quality of "unsinkability" the Bible calls joy -the "music" is conversation that keeps finding things to thank and praise God for instead of things to complain about.
Maybe you're in a season right now when you've been sidelined. You feel set aside, held back or restricted. You're in a situation or maybe you have a condition that is making you very aware that you're really limited. Not all prisons have physical walls. It's easy to get frustrated, self-pitying, negative and bitter. But you can choose, as Paul did, to continue instead to enjoy your Lord ... to still make His music for others. In fact, people will listen to what you have to say about Jesus because of what you're going through.
Centuries ago, the poet Richard Lovelace wisely observed, "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." He went on to say, "If I have freedom in my love, and in my soul am free, angels alone, that soar above, enjoy such liberty." Now, your soul can be free, no matter how imprisoned the rest of you may be.
Paul later said, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair ... struck down, but not destroyed." (2 Corinthians 4:8) Yes, he had a lot to handle - but that didn't stop him from hearing God's music; from playing God's music. No matter how blinding, how deafening, how paralyzing your situation, the music of God is always there for those who choose to hear it.
Poem - "To Althea, from Prison" by Richard Lovelace
________________
Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. 'Practical Answers to Real Life Issues'
*
MANILA - A Filipino man was killed and his friend seriously wounded after they sarcastically applauded a student for singing Frank Sinatra's classic "My Way" off-key, according to a newspaper report.
The 21-year-old student felt insulted when the victims clapped after he sang the song at a karaoke parlor in downtown Manila, the reports said Monday.
After getting into a fight with the student's friends, the victims left the parlor to avoid trouble but were ambushed outside and shot by the student who was later arrested. Newspapers have said Philippine karaoke parlors have been removing "My Way" from play lists because fights frequently broke out -- for unfathomable reasons -- when the song was sung.
The song seems to drive many drunken men to commit anything from slight physical injuries to homicide, reports said.
In a remarkably similar incident last November, one man was killed and another wounded when a brawl broke out in a karaoke bar in northern Manila, once again apparently sparked by the quality of singing.
*
Ludwig von Beethoven, one of the world’s greatest musicians, was born into a musical family in Germany. As a child he spent many lonely hours practicing his music every day.
By the age of eleven he was already composing his own music and conducting an orchestra. In his late teens he went to Vienna for further study. There he reached fame though not fortune.
One evening as he was out walking, he passed a cobbler’s house where he heard someone inside practicing one of his compositions. As he stopped to listen, he overheard a girl say that she wished she could hear a real musician play it properly.
Beethoven went into the house and, noticing the young lady at the piano was blind, offered to play the piece for her. He did so for her for more than an hour and while he did, darkness fell and the lone candle in the room had gone out.
Outside in the night sky the moon shone brightly and sent its radiant beams glistening into the room where Beethoven sat playing beautiful music. He was so inspired by the appreciation of his music by the young lady and the beauty of the atmosphere in the room that he composed his famous “Moonlight Sonata.”
[Story probably apocryphal — RGH]
When he was 48, Johann Sebastian Bach (who died 250 years ago today) acquired a copy of Luther’s three-volume translation of the Bible. He pored over it as if it were a long-lost treasure. He underlined passages, corrected errors in the text and commentary, inserted missing words, and made notes in the margins. Near 1 Chronicles 25 (a listing of Davidic musicians) he wrote, “This chapter is the true foundation of all God-pleasing music.” At 2 Chronicles 5:13 (which speaks of temple musicians praising God), he noted, “At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence.”
As one scholar put it, Bach the musician was indeed “a Christian who lived with the Bible.” Besides being the baroque era’s greatest organist and composer, and one of the most productive geniuses in the history of Western music, Bach was also a theologian who just happened to work with a keyboard.
He was born (into a family that in seven generations produced 53 prominent musicians) and schooled in Eisenach, Thuringia — at the same school Luther had attended. Johann Sebastian received his first musical instruction from his father, Johann Ambrosius, a town musician. By age 10 Bach was orphaned, and he went to live and study with his elder brother, Johann Christoph, an organist in Ohrdruf.
By age 15, Bach was ready to establish himself in the musical world, and he immediately showed immense talent in a variety of areas. He become a soprano (women weren’t permitted to sing in church) in the choir of Luneburg’s Church of Saint Michael. Three years later, he was a violinist in the chamber orchestra of Prince Johann Ernst of Weimar. After a few months, he moved to Arnstadt to become a church organist.
In October 1705, Bach was invited to study for one month with the renowned Danish-born German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude. Bach was so enamored with his teacher, he stretched the visit to two months. When he returned to his church, he was severely criticized for breach of contract and, in the ensuing weeks, for his new organ flourishes and harmonies that accompanied congregational singing. But he was already too highly respected to be dismissed.
In 1707 he married a second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, and went to Mulhausen to become organist in the Church of Saint Blasius. After various moves and prominent jobs, he finally settled down in Leipzig in 1723, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Maria died in 1720, and the next year he married Anna Magdalena Wilcken, an accomplished singer. She bore him 13 children, in addition to the seven he’d had by Maria, and helped copy his music for performers.
Bach’s stay in Leipzig, as musical director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas’s church and school, wasn’t always happy. He squabbled continually with the town council, and neither the council nor the populace appreciated his musical genius. They said he was a stuffy old man who clung stubbornly to obsolete forms of music. Consequently, they paid him a miserable salary, and when he died even contrived to defraud his widow of her meager inheritance.
Ironically, in this setting Bach wrote his most enduring music. For a time he wrote a cantata each week (today, a composer who writes a cantata a year is highly praised), 202 of which survive. Most conclude with a chorale based on a simple Lutheran hymn, and the music is at all times closely bound to biblical texts. Among these works are the “Ascension Cantata” and the “Christmas Oratorio.”
In Leipzig he also composed his epic “Mass in B Minor,” “The Passion of St. John” and “The Passion of St. Matthew”–all for use as worship services. The latter piece has sometimes been called “the supreme cultural achievement of all Western civilization,” and even the radical skeptic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) admitted upon hearing it, “One who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it here as gospel.”
After Bach’s death, people seemed glad to wipe their ears of his music. He was remembered less as a composer than as an organist and harpsichordist. Some of his music was sold, and some was reportedly used to wrap garbage. For the next 80 years his music was neglected by the public, although a few musicians (Mozart and Beethoven, for example) admired it. Not until 1829, when German composer Felix Mendelssohn arranged a performance of “The Passion of St. Matthew,” did a larger audience appreciate Bach the composer.
In terms of pure music, Bach has become known as one who could combine the rhythm of French dances, the gracefulness of Italian song, and the intricacy of German counterpoint — all in one composition. In addition, Bach could write musical equivalents of verbal ideas, such as undulating a melody to represent the sea.
But music was never just music to Bach. Nearly three-fourths of his 1,000 compositions were written for use in worship. Between his musical genius, his devotion to Christ, and the effect of his music, he has come to be known in many circles as the “Fifth Evangelist.”
I once heard historian Randall Balmer tell a story about the time he and his wife decided to take ballroom dancing lessons. They learned to count out the patterns of steps and tried to coordinate their feet while at the same time remembering the sequence of steps for each dance. Learning the form of a dance can be more stressful than it is relaxing, especially for a beginner.
He then recounted an incident that took place shortly after their dancing lesson. They were on a routine shopping trip, and as they pushed the cart down the fluorescently lit aisle, a song began playing over the p.a. system that meant something to them. Caught up in the emotion brought on by their song, Balmer and his wife began to dance in the aisle. It wasn’t a dance that the dance instructor would have recognized; the dance was their own expression of the love they shared.
Couples who are truly proficient in any kind of ballroom dancing could perform a graceful dance without any music. To waltz, one need only keep count in series of threes and follow the steps; music is not essential. While I imagine that a perfectly executed waltz is a thrill to perform (I wouldn’t know), the dance that Balmer and his wife preferred was the one in the supermarket. In their dance class, they had been trying to keep track of the beats. In the shopping aisle, they were following the music.
I believe this is as good an illustration as any of the difference between legalism and faith lived out. The first sees a list of rules and tries its best to conform to the rules, to keep in step, and to avoid mistakes. Legalism is often deeply sincere. It may not spring from a desire for superiority, but from a genuine desire to learn the dance.
The alternative to legalism -- I’ll call it “living faith” -- may produce results that are nearly identical to the fruit of legalism. People who live by faith will conform to many rules, and faith leads to all sorts of righteous acts. But while legalism is the imposition of external behaviors, living faith springs from the Spirit.
Does your faith feel like an exhausting effort to keep up with an impossible beat? If so, you might be living with a legalistic mindset, forgetting the love that is meant to be at the heart of the life of your soul. God is not waiting around for us to get our act together; He is wooing us, and He wants us to experience his love. If we don’t really know or taste his goodness, our attempts at righteousness will bring us nothing.
The psalmist entreats us: “Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music” (Psalm 98:4). God doesn’t want outward conformity; He wants us to be so full of his glory and goodness that we can’t keep still. If you’ve learned to dance without music, slow down and listen. God has spoken to us. Let his promises and his pledge of faithfulness guide your steps, and you will find that a dance will spring to life.
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Copyright © 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #2887]
The Man in Black has met the Man in White. All the tributes offered to the now-deceased singer/songwriter Johnny Cash have one thing in common: He was just different from other celebrities. And yet, the Hollywood/Nashville axis just can't quite seem to put the finger on what it was that made him stand out in the bright lights of American show business.
Johnny Cash once joked of all the times a fan would say to him, “My father was in prison with you.” Of course, the Man in Black never really served any serious time in jail, but he never could shake the legend of a hardened criminal on the mend. People really seemed to think that he had “shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
That's probably because of just how authentic and evocative his songs of prison life were. “Folsom Prison Blues,” for instance, just seems to have been penned by someone really lying on a jailhouse cot listening to a train whistle in the night. “There's probably rich folks eating in a fancy dining car/They're probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars/Well, I know I had it coming/I know I can't be free/But those people keep a'movin, and that's what tortures me.”
The reason the prison imagery seemed real is because, for Cash, it was real. He knew what it was like to be enslaved -- to celebrity, to power, to drugs, to alcohol, to the breaking of marriage vows, and to all the temptations the recording industry can parade before a man. He was a prisoner indeed, but to a penitentiary of his own soul. There was no corpse in Reno but, for Cash, there was the very real guilt of a lifetime of the self-destructive idolatry of the ego.
It was through the quiet friendships with men like Billy Graham that Cash found an alternative to the vanity of shifting celebrity. He found freedom from guilt and the authenticity of truth in a crucified and resurrected Christ. And he immediately identified with another self-obsessed celebrity of another era -- Saul of Tarsus. He even authored a surprisingly good biography of the apostle, with the insight of one who knows what it is like to see the grace of Jesus through the grid of one's own guilt as a “chief of sinners.”
And yet even here Cash was different. He sang at Billy Graham crusades and wrote for evangelical audiences, but he never quite fit in with the saccharine mood of pop evangelicalism. Cash never seemed “perky” enough for Christian television. Nor did he fit with the trivialization of cultural Christianity so persistent in the country music industry, as stars effortlessly moved back and forth between songs about the glories of honky-tonk women and the Old Rugged Cross.
Perhaps this is why Cash, to the day of his death, remained an object of fascination for a youth culture that knows nothing of “I Walk the Line.” Twenty-two-year-old pop sensation Justin Timberlake, beating Cash for a prize at the MTV Music Awards, claimed that there should be a recount.
Cash's Christian life was, to be sure, a mixed bag. And yet, there is something in Cash's authenticity that evangelical Christians would do well to emulate.
While other Christian celebrities tried -- and failed -- to reach youth culture by dressing in heavy-metal get-up or feigning teenage street language, Cash always seemed to connect. He recorded Nine Inch Nails songs lamenting the ultimate futility of pursuing an “empire of dirt” that will come to nothing at death. When other Christian celebrities sought to down-pedal sin in favor of upbeat messages about how much better life is with Jesus, Cash sang about the haunting tyranny of guilt and the certainty of coming judgment. An angst-filled youth culture may not have understood guilt, but they understood pain. And, somehow, they sensed Cash was for real. He didn't sugarcoat or “market” the Gospel like a game show host. Instead, he resonated honestly with human pain and pointed to the climax of history coming in the triumph of Jesus of Nazareth.
One of Cash's final songs was an eerie tune based on the Book of Revelation. His haunting voice sang the question: “The hair on your arms will all stand up/At the terror of each sip and each sup/Will you partake of that last offered cup?/Or disappear into the potter's ground/When the Man comes around.” Cash's young fans -- and his old ones too -- may not have known what he was talking about, but they sensed that he did. They recognized Cash as a sinner like them, but a sinner who mourned the tragedy of his past and found peace in One who bore terrors that make Folsom Prison pale in comparison.
The death of a sinner like that is a rich opportunity for teaching about sin, death and the mercies of an all-forgiving Messiah. As for Cash, he is no longer a celebrity. But he is still singing about sin and redemption, and he has different lyrics. He is singing, with the redeemed of all ages, “you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10, ESV).
And maybe, just maybe, one small segment of the chorus to the Lamb began this morning with one last introduction: “Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.”
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Russell D. Moore is assistant professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
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The raging debate over worship music has surfaced in a most unlikely place - within the Churches of Christ, which bear the historical distinction of shunning all musical instruments in worship. Over the past two years, at least five major congregations associated with the Churches of Christ have added instruments to some worship services, according to the Christian Chronicle, a 60-year-old Church of Christ newspaper. They illustrate the ages-old tension between making the gospel message “user friendly” and defending the purity of “the truth once delivered to the saints.”
More than a century ago, Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians fought the issue of instrumental worship to a resolution, remodeling their sanctuaries to accommodate organs and pianos. Since the Jesus Revolution of the 1960s, guitars, drums and amplifiers likewise have gained acceptance in many Protestant churches, as Christians adapted musical styles to the marketplace.
The Churches of Christ, claiming about 2 million adherents, is by far the largest fellowship prohibiting man-made instruments. But other smaller groups, such as Primitive Baptists, have resisted as well.
The doctrine is based on the conviction that all congregational practices and structures should meticulously emulate the patterns of the New Testament, which reports nothing of musical instruments in worship. For the same reason, Churches of Christ shun denominational labels. There is no formal structure or authority to the Churches of Christ beyond the local congregation, and even the capitalized “C” is avoided in the name -- Churches of Christ -- assigned by religious demographers.
Because of the decentralized nature of the Churches of Christ, there is no way to measure the extent of the pro-instrumental trend. But the discussion is widespread enough that the issue is being re-examined with an intensity not seen in more than 100 years.
Five large churches in the denomination which have added instruments to their worship report substantial growth in attendance and say the change was driven by the need for evangelism. Indeed, the desire to reach out to a music-saturated culture is at the heart of the debate.
One new Church of Christ, still in its formative stages, recently asked a Baptist music professor to lead the congregation in a Bible study on instrumental worship. Paul Richardson, professor of music at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., declined to name the church. But the professor said “at least part of” the congregation “was open to examining its traditions in light of biblical and historical scholarship.”
Since the New Testament gives little instruction in worship, Richardson said in an e-mail interview, the basic theological issue is: “How do we handle what we don't know?”
One extreme position is to do only what is explicitly allowed by Scripture. At the other end is the view that whatever isn't specifically forbidden in the New Testament is permitted - though always with the limitation imposed by other doctrines.
Richardson said most Christians “find our lives, our ethics and our worship in the category of 'adiaphora' - [the Greek term for] things neither commanded nor forbidden by Scripture, about which we must make decisions according to 'the best light given us.'“
That absence of instruments in the early church may have been influenced, ironically, by Greek philosophy. The Greeks argued that emotions stirred by music could be dangerous.
In later centuries, Richardson said, instruments became part of the Roman Catholic Church “about the same time as instruments became widely accepted by society at large.”
During the Reformation, clear divisions began to emerge. Some groups influenced by Martin Luther retained the instruments. Those influenced by John Calvin placed strict limits on music in worship. Still others, influenced by Ulrich Zwingli, disallowed music of any sort.
Calvin's influence was greatest among Baptists and the Churches of Christ. He placed three restrictions on music in worship: scriptural songs only (mostly the Psalms), human voices only, and unison singing only.
“Most Churches of Christ and Primitive Baptists long ago gave up the restrictions on text and part-singing but cling to the one against instruments,” Richardson pointed out.
Different Baptist groups traveled differing routes. For example, Seventh-day Baptists, strict sabbatarians who know a thing or two about defending a minority position against steep odds, were early promoters of hymn singing, despite criticism from other Baptists.
At various times in Baptist history, instrumental worship was rejected because it was practiced by the Church of England, which persecuted the free-church followers like the Baptists. Organs were often rejected - and later violins - because they were used to provide worldly entertainment.
All those historical precedents support one of Richardson's theories: “We are all Amish!”
“We all have some idealized culture that we find more faithful to the living of the gospel as we understand it,” he elaborated. “That culture is typically one in which we never lived, though we have sought to preserve it in some way to 'protect' the faith.”
Yet, he argued, Christian discipleship includes the need “to present the gospel faithfully in the culture in which we live without binding it to the culture.”
In every area of Christian living, Richardson suggested, there is a need to look at any issue from three approaches -- theology, aesthetics and pragmatics. But they should be addressed in that order, he advised, giving theology first priority.
“Much of the debate in the 'worship wars' is the result of starting the discussion with aesthetics or pragmatics instead of theology,” he explained. “If the New Testament shows us anything it is that the church organizes itself and carries out its mission in a variety of ways, more or less appropriate to its culture. About the only unity that can be found in the churches of the New Testament is the confession 'Jesus is Lord.’ And that was plenty to bring them into conflict with their surrounding cultures.”
“The New Testament tells us very little about worship,” Richardson added, “and what is there is descriptive rather than prescriptive, in my reading.”
“However, it tells us a great deal about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the destination of all things, the Christian life and how we should treat others, both in and out of the faith. This should be the way in which the New Testament shapes our practice of worship.”
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In Austria, labor unions were up in arms. No, they didn't want higher wages or better benefits. They wanted the stores where their members work to stop what they call “psychological terrorism”: The incessant, nonstop playing of Christmas carols. And they said stop them or else.
Gottfried Reiser, a leader in the anti-music campaign, said that after ninety-nine repetitions of “Frosty the Snowman,” store employees “become aggressive and develop an aversion to Christmas music.” By Christmas Eve, at home with their families, “they can't stand 'Silent Night' or 'Jingle Bells' one more time.”
Well, I can relate. Every year, we seem to hear Christmas carols earlier and earlier in November. By December 25, you become tone-deaf — I mean, I love Christmas carols, but too much of a good thing is too much.
The sad result is that even our most beloved holiday hymns are stripped of their power to move us. They become trivialized by the sheer, endless repetition.
May I suggest that you and your family spend some time this Christmas exploring some unfamiliar holiday music — ancient carols that help us understand how Christians through the centuries have communicated the meaning of Christmas through song.
For example, there's a 300-year-old English carol called “Up Good Christian Folk and Listen.” The song includes these lyrics:
Tell the story
of the glory.
God came down
at Christmastide.
In barely one minute this carol tells almost everything we need to know about Christmas.
Then there's the fifteenth-century German carol, “Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming.” This hymn emphasizes an essential part of God's nature — His faithfulness:
Isaiah 'twas foretold it, the Rose I have in Mind;
of Mary we behold it, the Virgin mother kind.
Through the prophets, God promised that a Savior would arise from the line of Jesse. In the fullness of time, as the apostle Paul put it, God kept His promise.
Reflecting on the meaning of the Incarnation should be the goal of every Christian in this season. It's the season of the year to recall Jesus' first coming in humility and to meditate on His second coming in glory.
Music is a rich part of this tradition, which is why exploring how faith as expressed through song is a wonderful way to meditate on the real meaning of Christmas.
So when the commercialized, overworked sound of, say, Alvin and the Chipmunks attacking Christmas carols makes you want to commit acts of violence to the sound system — or at least say, “Bah! Humbug!” — try sampling some of the music that has brought Christians closer to God for centuries, music that “tells the story of the Glory.”
FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:
• “Shop workers demand Xmas muzak compensation,” Ananova, 3 December 2003.
• “Xmas cheer makes Austrians sour,” BBC Online, 4 December 2003.
• Listen to “Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming.” You can also listen to it here.
• Visit Beliefnet's “Virtual Choir Festival“ for more recommendations.
• Evelyn Bence, Spiritual Moments with the Great Hymns (Zondervan, 1997).
• See the BreakPoint commentaries, “'The Word' at Christmas,” “Handel's Masterpiece,” “More than Pretty Music,” “The Broken Organ,” and “Recycled Music.”
• M. Moore, “Whatever Happened to Singing?“ BreakPoint Online, 5 December 2003.
• Michael Snyder, “Holy Invasion,” BreakPoint WorldView, December 2003.
• John Fischer, “The Scandal of the Dancing Christ,” BreakPoint Online, December 2001.
• William J. Tighe, “Calculating Christmas,” Touchstone, December 2003.
• Visit the White House “Season of Stories“ web page.
• Candace Z. Watters, “Adding Meaning to the Holidays,” Boundless, 11 December 2003.
• Budziszewski, “Unmerry Christmas,” Boundless, 11 December 2003.
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Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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Last time, we discussed how hymns are sometimes used in worship merely for sentimental reasons - and why that approach is wrong. Does this mean hymns have no place in a church seeking to attract and reach unbelievers? Let's see...
I recently received this insightful email from someone who reads Worship Matters:
"I think the problem with [the whole question of hymns vs. praise choruses] is that people in each camp tend to think the other group is not worshiping if they don't sing their particular style. While I prefer hymns, I do not think they are a prerequisite for worship. What happens the week before the worship service has more to do with worship on Sunday than the style of music in the service. If we are not right with God we cannot worship him whatever we may do in the 'service.'"
Did you catch that last sentence? In other words, if church members are in conflict with one another over musical style, it's unlikely God is going to be honored in the way He desires. God uses more than musical style to draw people. He uses our lives, attitudes, and relationships, too!
To sing worship music from more than one generation is, in part, to communicate our larger identity as the people of God. We hail from many backgrounds, families, races, and tastes, but now we are joined together through the blood of Jesus Christ, who has reconciled us to the Father AND each other. Christian faith is not about being a certain age or liking certain music or living in a particular time and place. Christians are part of a magnificent legacy that began unfolding thousands of years ago, and will continue throughout eternity. To narrow our vision exclusively to a small, culture-bound slice of that history is to embrace a kind of spiritual poverty.
Author Marva Dawn comments, "Not only is the idea of taste as an entry point [into the church] wrong biblically, but also it is extremely destructive of genuine community, fosters an independent view of the local congregation, and reduces worship simply to a matter of preferences instead of an entering into God's presence in the company of the church throughout space and time" (Reformation and Revival, Vol. 9, No. 2, pg. 71).
Building on those thoughts, here are three reasons for using hymns in congregational worship.
1. To serve older Christians.
Familiar hymns can enable more mature saints to worship God in spirit and truth. It gives them opportunities to worship without struggling through music and words they have difficulty understanding or relating to.
2. To help Christians and non-Christians grow in their perspective.
All Christians, and certainly unbelievers as well, need to know that God is bigger than their current understanding of Him. Wise leaders will use words, phrases, and images from older hymns as jumping-off points for further explanation or discussion. For example, addressing God in 17th century English (Thee, Thou, etc.), while initially foreign, can also communicate God's transcendence and "otherness."
3. To promote an attitude of honor and deference.
In a true community, everyone makes sacrifices. No one's preferences are met ALL the time. God's Word commands us to "accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God" (Ro 15:7). Jesus taught that in laying down our lives for the gospel, we find true life. Yielding our preferences is a gateway to the joy of loving others like ourselves. So, including hymns in an otherwise "contemporary" worship service communicates the importance of honoring others, and expresses a culture of respect and appreciation that few people experience outside the church.
These issues are not always easy to work through in the context of a local church with a specific history (and perhaps some unresolved offenses). But God WILL be glorified in His Church. He is eager to produce a people "who with one heart and mouth [will] glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ro 15:6).
In the next column we'll look at whether or not using hymns quenches the moving of the Holy Spirit.
Until then, may every breath you take be a fresh reminder of God's mercy.
For nearly two millennia, the Gospels' passion narratives have inspired memorable works of art, the most recent example being Mel Gibson's film THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.
Gibson acknowledged this artistic tradition when he said that he wanted his film to be a “Caravaggio in motion.” His reference was to the sixteenth-century painter whose use of contrasting light and dark gave his depiction of biblical scenes a sense of urgency and intensity.
It's almost impossible to imagine the history of Western painting without the art inspired by the Passion. Da Vinci, Tintoretto, Giotto, and El Greco are but a few of the great artists whose definitive works depict the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday.
What's true of painting is certainly also true of music. Johann Sebastian Bach set the passion narratives in Mark, Matthew, and John to music. Unfortunately only the latter two survive. Of these, it is his ST. MATTHEW'S PASSION that sits atop the Western musical canon.
First performed on Good Friday of 1729, the work is almost sacred opera. Soloists sing the words of Jesus, Judas, and Pilate, while another soloist, called the “Evangelist,” narrates the story. These interactions are punctuated by choral settings of well known hymns.
Two-and-a-half centuries later, another Christian composer, Arvo Part, set JOHN'S PASSION to music. The influential music magazine GRAMOPHONE called the result, PASSIO, a work “that transcends the doubt and nihilism of [our] age ... “
While Bach and Part are telling the same story and share the same faith, the results are very different. One reviewer has characterized PASSIO as a music of “massive stillness.” Whereas “Bach celebrated the human voice for its expressiveness, Part turns it into an instrument.”
Bach's expressiveness and Part's stillness combine to help the listener more fully appreciate what happened on that first Good Friday. That's why Christians owe it to themselves to become better acquainted with their work and the other art inspired by the Passion — art that can help us transcend the doubt and nihilism of OUR age.
FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:
• Bernard D. Sherman, “Performing Bach's St. Matthew Passion,” reprinted from Early Music America, Fall 2001.
• Geoff Chapman, “Passion and power from pen of J. S. Bach,” Toronto Star, 5 April 2004.
• See BreakPoint's viewer's guide for The Passion of the Christ for talking points about the film.
• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040227, “Art that Transcends: The Passion of the Christ.”
• M. Moore, “The Word More Sure,” BreakPoint Online, 9 March 2004.
• M. Moore, “Seeing with the Eyes of Music,” BreakPoint Online, 9 August 2002.
• Roberto Rivera y Carlo, “Springtime and Signs: Lent and Holy Week,” Boundless, 10 April 2003.
• Ned Bustard, ed., It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God (Square Halo Books, 2000).
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Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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