June 13 2008
Should we not demonstrate musical excellence in church?
Tagged Under : Bob Kauflin, John Piper, Michelangelo, music, sacrifice, Sistine Chapel, Tim Smith, worship
Yesterday I posted the video of Tim Smith’s interview with Bob Kauflin and I must say how blessed I was by listening to the interview. I respect both of those men and value both of their insight. I mention in the same post some of the wonderful things that were brought up and I’ll blog more on those in a bit. The first follow up I have though is a disagreement in application of musical gifting in the church.
Around 34:50 of the interview. Bob says,
“…in the church I’m never going to achieve, or want to achieve the degree of musical excellence that I’m probably capable of, because I don’t think all that musical excellence will serve the glory of Jesus Christ in the gathered church.”
I would simply ask, “Why not?” The implication here is musical mediocrity will serve the glory of Jesus in the gathered church and I just don’t buy that at all. I think we’re all grateful Michelangelo didn’t have this attitude when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Surely those in worship would be distracted by the beauty of his art and the level of excellence he demonstrated. Surely it would have been better for him to paint in a more mediocre way so as not to draw attention to the art. Of course not, I don’t think there are many who would make that argument. The Sistine Chapel is one of the world’s greatest artistic expressions of worship ever created, if not the greatest. It’s easy to see the folly in this logic with other forms of art, but for some reason many make this argument when it comes to music.
Bob goes on to refer to something John Piper calls “an undistracting excellence.” Which states that “you are so excellent at what you do that no one really notices” but instead notices how great God is. Before I get rolling here I want to point out, I’ve never read John Piper’s thoughts on this, I’m only commenting on what Bob communicated in the interview. I love John Piper, and Bob Kauflin for that matter, and will certainly look for some text or audio on this topic to see what John has to say.
Now, while I agree fully that our focus should be completely upon the greatness of Jesus I disagree that the better you are musically the more of a barrier you become to that purpose. I also disagree that art is in someway a “distraction” from worshiping God. Our art should be a reflection of good, great and loving God just as our lives should be a reflection of Christ as the image bearers of God. Art is an expression, and to pick a point on a the scale of excellent artistic expression and say, “beyond this point you’ve expressed too well and now you’re a distraction” I think is pretty silly. Quite honestly I find mediocre and poor expression much more distracting than excellent expression and I think most would agree.
Looking at a crappy painting on a wall doesn’t reflect anything of God to me. Looking at the Sistine Chapel however reflects the beauty and majesty of God, not of Michelangelo. Listening to a bunch of mediocre musicians lead worship music by playing an uneven time, singing out of key, and writing terribly boring and poorly crafted melodies does not “better serve the glory of Jesus Christ.” Now I’m not saying Bob is saying this, but what other option are we left with?
We either strive to improve, play our best and craft the most beautiful music we can in response to God giving us the best of himself in his Son, or we stop working at our craft and say this is good enough for God and the body of Christ. I say the latter is not a good option as Malachi 1:7-10 warns, we must offer our best sacrifice of praise. This also means using all wisdom in crafting beautiful but singable songs for the body to unite in. It’s possible folks, we don’t have to sound like Grade C musicians in the church to unite the body, please believe me…please!
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When I got to that part of the interview, I took it to mean that Bob wasn’t pursuing musical excellence as a goal: he won’t achieve the excellence that he has the potential to achieve because he won’t be striving for that excellence as a goal.
I interpreted his statement as saying music will not take priority over Christ. If he is going to be the best musician he is capable of being, that is going to take some sacrifice in other areas, and for Bob, I believe he meant that he would spend less time with Christ to achieve that.
I don’t mean this to sound rude at all but I think you took him the wrong way.
Perhaps Bob wasn’t trying to express that. That’s why I attempted to confront the idea and not Bob himself. So Bob served more here as inspiration for a topic, and this viewpoint is one I know many in the church believe and Bob even gives some examples in this interview. So certainly I give Bob the benefit of the doubt, or even if he does disagree with me and I didn’t take him the wrong way that’s fine too. I’m sure we don’t line up on everything.
I think that we always go back to the heart. If we are putting musical excellence above the real goal of worship we are getting into a tenuous situation. At the same time mediocrity is not something to be striving for either. I would rather have mediocre musical talent with a heart after touching the heart of God then excellent musical ability that has excellence as the main goal. Of course this is not what you mean and I know that, because really we would much rather have musical excellence with a pure heart for touching God over either of the other two. I think what I am trying to say is I can see both the supposed point of the guy in the video and what you are trying to convey Kyle.
Certainly God uses mediocre musicians in powerful ways in worship, I pray that I could be one of them. I completely agree that the heart is what’s important in honoring God. That being said we have to look critically at how we are doing that, where we are failing to honor God in our lives, especially as leaders. As worship leaders our leadership in music is our physical expression of our hearts so if the 2 aren’t lining up there’s a problem. I offer here that our hearts should be to offer our best sacrifice of praise. That doesn’t mean that we’ll all play guitar like Jango or sing like Jeff Buckley, but it’s just that we are offering our best. But if our attitude is one of, my best is a distraction or not appropriate for the church, then I think we’ve missed the point and incorrectly applied a pure desire, not being a distraction, to our artistic expression of worship.
BTW I meant Django
But at the same time I think there is a question of accessibility. As a worship leader I agree with Matt Redman in the idea that you are the Lead Worshipper. Some times as a musician striving for excellence the music and the worship time becomes inaccessible and to a point esoteric. There can become a point where the musicianship gets in the way leading worship I think. Really musicality is only part of the picture in leading worship and that you would rightly argue that it is that part of the picture that we are most letting slide. My guess is that Boob is warning against a pendulum shift to far that way and you are lamenting a pendulum shift too far towards mediocrity.
I would argue that if musicianship is getting in the way of worship than you aren’t operating out of excellence. Much in the same way a raging, finger tapping solo every 10 seconds is technically harder but musically worse. So Bob seems to say, beneficial restraint is “not achieving musical excellence”. I would say, beneficial restraint IS musical excellence. As the old saying goes, the notes you don’t play are as important as the notes you do play.
It seems to me that Bob is saying the same thing you are: it’s all about the heart of worship using music as a medium, not about achieving the best music as a priority over actually worshiping God.
I know that Bob has said that playing our instruments SKILLFULLY, as it says in Psalm 33, is something to keep in mind. But in the end, it’s all about playing skillfully for His glory, not for musical excellence’s sake.
I think that’s what Bob is trying to convey and if that’s the case, I agree with him.