Where music, culture and worship meet.

This blog examines, reviews and discusses how worship is being lived out in culture and in the church. We tackle everything from songwriting techniques in corporate worship, to interviewing worship leaders and pastors, to reviewing the last big rock concert.

July 30 2008

Poll: In general, how should worship music relate to culture?

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If you’re new to this blog you’ll notice I like doing a poll on a certain topic before I take my thoughts to the world. The idea of how worship music should relate to culture is one I’ve wrestled with for a long time and still do now. I’m interested to see what kind of thoughts we have out there on this. Let’s make sure we have our definitions agreed upon first.

  • Countercultural - Purposefully exhibiting behavior in opposition to the dominant culture which it resides in.
  • Subcultural - Behaving as a distinctly different culture which exists within another culture and that has not been assimilated. A subculture tends to be oblivious to or unconcerned with the dominant culture in which it exists and just carries on in its own culture bubble.
  • Unicultural - I made this word up. What I mean by this is exhibiting the same behavior as the dominant culture in which it resides.

I’m letting you choose more than one answer because I know I would. Obviously the “every way” choices are mutually exclusive so only pick one answer if that’s your choice. I’d love to hear your explanation of your choices in the comments. I’d suspect a disconnect in many of our ideas of what should be the case and what is the case. So let’s hear those gripes as well. Let’s get this party started.

In general, how should worship music relate to culture?

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July 29 2008

1 Question Interview: What’s Next? by Joe Day of Mars Hill

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What’s Next?

Joe DayThis one question I am asking various worship leaders and pastors. The context is what’s next in corporate worship but beyond that no guidance has been given for appropriate response. Part 3 of this series is Mars Hill Worship Pastor Joe Day’s response.

Joe Day is husband to Jentry, father to his 9-week-old twin daughters Brynn & Chloe, and is a worship pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA where he leads his band The Northern Conspiracy. By day he’s a designer at CrashShop.com and is known to destroy Otter Pops with astounding regularity. He can be found at:

We’re blessed to have Joe respond to this important question and his response is below:

While I can’t really say with any authority what is next on a grand scale I can share what’s next at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

Making Worshippers

This really is the essence of the gospel as it plays out in people’s lives. The reality is we were made to worship and we never cease worshipping. We worship Jesus or we worship things Jesus created (idolatry). Since we are fallen, it’s quite likely that we will not worship perfectly, rather from time to time, season to season idolatry will creep in.

What’s next? My prayer is simple: that Jesus will will be the sole occupant of the throne of our hearts. For us, idols are not generally statues of gold on a shelf, but idols are anything that occupies a seat of power in the throne room of our affections.

At Mars Hill, our idol has been indie cred and the result has been worship services that feel more like a rock show than a gathering to praise our Lord & savior Jesus Christ. What’s next for us is walking in repentance and recovering the joy of adoring Jesus individually and when gathered as the church in corporate worship.

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July 28 2008

Poll Wrap Up: Non-Christians in worship bands?

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Last week we kicked off a poll asking “Is it ok for non-Christians to play in worship bands?” So far the results are very interesting, 50% say no it’s not ok, and the other 50% either say yes it’s ok, or in some cases it is ok. You know you have a good poll question when you split 50/50 in the results

This past Sunday I had a meeting with my worship team that would have been absolutely disastrous had any of my team not been a mature Christian, being discipled and united in vision. Perhaps some other time I’ll blog about that meeting, which was one of the most amazing moments I’ve ever had in ministry. For now I’ll talk about why I think it’s important that if we are leading a congregation in worship that only mature, discipled, called and gifted Christians do that.

The criteria we use for any position of leadership uses this set of criteria in order of importance:

  1. Character
  2. Calling
  3. Gifting

Anytime we get those 3 things out of order we put our self in a dangerous situation. I’m not even going to discuss the practical problems and dangers though they are many, instead I’ll focus again on what’s more important and that’s the spiritual problems. I’ve played in a lot of worship bands and many of the times not all were mature, discipled, called Christians. Some of those were gifted and effective musically but none of them had a chance of being effective spiritually because we were modeling that gifting was more important than character and God’s calling. If confronted with that we surely would have said, “no no we don’t believe that“, but then why are we modeling that?

Some might say, “but we’re a missional worship band so for us it makes sense.” To that I’d say then it’s even more important for you to get this and not have non-Christians on your band. Because now the lost is looking at you, and from experience, here’s the 1 question they’ll have that you’ll never be able to answer:

  • How important can it be to give your life to Christ if that’s not even a requirement to lead in the worship of that same Christ?

Please re-read that question if you didn’t get it the first time. Now re-read one more time. Worship leaders, let’s model what’s right, let’s not compromise in what’s most important in the kingdom to which your worship band should be leading people to. I’m not promoting legalism, maybe there’s some confluence of circumstances that it makes sense, I’m just saying let’s examine the heart of the issue and keep an eye on what’s most important.

Thanks everyone for all your feedback, I value it greatly.

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July 28 2008

Pastor Greg Laurie’s son Christopher passes in car accident

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Christopher LaurieDevastating news out of Hunington Beach CA, Christopher Laurie, son of Pastor Greg and Cathe Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship, died in a car accident this past Thursday morning(7/24/08). He leaves behind his wife Brittany, daughter Stella, brother Jonathan and Christopher and his wife were expecting another baby in November.

This through me for a loop this weekend as I was raised in Southern California and was quite familiar with their church. Make sure and spend some time praying for the Lauries. Harvest Christian Fellowship has established the Christopher Laurie Memorial Fund in lieu of flowers, proceeds will go to Christopher’s surviving family. You can leave a comment for Pastor Greg at his blog.