June 02, 2014
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I’m not much of a music fan,
but I watched this latest season of The Voice and I was stuck by the
repetition of lyrics in the more current songs. Almost without exception they
were saying the same phrases over and over and over again. It was as though I
was listening to church praise songs — minus the praise. Entertainment wise I see similarities not
only in the repetition, but with the drums, clapping, and extended arms waving
in unison. It has the feel of a trend, but I’m trying to decide if the church followed
the pattern of the secular model, or vice
versa. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Ro 12:2 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Compare these “wordless” praise songs to the many Psalms which are actually lyrics to songs. None of these Psalms are just a few words repeated over and over. Psalm 136 comes the closest, but it’s repetitiveness is limited to every other line. The curiosity repetitious lyrics raise in me isn’t so much whether or not the authors followed the world’s lead, but whether the repetition is due to no talent or no life. Well…as in, “Get a life,” I mean… I think.
-----I can not get over how the kind of people who fill up on these mindless rhythms walk in ways so opposite to the Lord’s. Over and over Jesus was talking about how the greatest amongst us was the most the servant. He preached about this concept of laying down your life for others. The flow of attention from self paid to others was matched by His habit of tending to the burdens others actually came with to Him. I never read of Him stepping up to the blind man and healing his hearing, or to the lame man and opening his eyes. He addressed the needs others actually had with what they actually needed. And He never, ever pushed a blind man aside to seek a lame one or intimidated a lame man in front of Him into scooting aside so He could heal a deaf one that wasn’t even there, but just might come sometime. These wonders of the wordless songs must have learned their service from bad bus-boys instead of Jesus. They could only see the hymns the church has fed upon for decades and centuries as a table full of dirty dishes. They take the cake for their desire to tidy the table, but their ogreish insensitivity blinded their minds from seeing the meal already on the table as what is yet nourishing partakers still at the table. So anxious to reset the table were these naughty bus-boys that they even poked and jeered at those yet enjoying “the good old meal.” “If you don’t like what we’re replacing your music with, go somewhere else!” Godly attitude!
-----Every time I hear one of these contemporary tunes in our church service I have to battle my way through thoughts of keeping company with such types by singing their preferences. This struggle for me is especially unfortunate because some contemporary songs are not repetitive and are so good they will be tomorrow’s classics. Moreover, much of the writing and promotion of contemporary music has been done in hopes of drawing more people into the church. That’s laudable.
-----But intentions are no more valuable than the feelings they rest upon. Effects are what matters. Unarguably, ill effects of the contemporary-music-shove intermingle with its good effects. That is the way everything in this world seems to work. Of course, I thought things were supposed to work different than the world in the church. But when we keep dragging the world’s ways of doing business into the church, how can we be entirely surprised when the effects wind up being the same?
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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