Theology | Our Rising Sound

March 26 2009

John Legend sings about cheating Christians

Tagged Under : John Legend, Matt Chandler, sin

cheating

I’m a sucker for some R&B, I dig John Legend. But the thing about R&B is the lyrics are usually the most blunt, abrasive ways to communicate a story. Metaphors and poetic phrasing are of no use to the R&B community. They just go to the basest level of language to express themselves, which is certainly efficient if not tactful. How else do you explain “I wanna make love in dis club“? Tell me how you really feel Usher.

John Legend has this song called Number One, which is sung from the perspective of a cheating boyfriend basically telling his girlfriend to stop whining about him cheating, in fact the opening line is:

You can’t say I don’t love you just because I cheat on you

I always found the song grossly comedic and had a fun time singing it with my wife in the car in jest. But as I was singing the chorus I got convicted that I’ve sang this same chorus to God many times, with the same pathetically transparent BS that John sings with. Tell me if you’ve ever sung this to God during worship:

You know that I love You
There’s no one above You
I said it the last time, that this is the last time
Don’t make me over
Cuz I can be faithful
You’re my number one, You’re my number one

We carry on “struggling” in sin, willfully choosing ourselves over God throughout the week, walk in on Sunday and sing this weak love song claiming that “this is the last time.” We should stop making promises to God we have no intention or ability to keep. Matt Chandler addresses this topic of “white knuckle struggling” where in our flesh we just grit our teeth and repeatedly promise to never do it again. Only to fail time and time again. But as Paul said in Romans 9:16

“So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

How do I need to continue to rest in the Holy Spirit and to continually place myself in his hands to form me and shape me. I can’t do it on my own no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I want it. Religion is a tricky thing, it’s constantly at our heels, presenting itself as some new level of spirituality. Take me back to your heart Jesus, I have no righteousness in myself.

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Letter to pastors: Stop complaining about worship songs

Tagged Under : Bob Kauflin, church, Jonathan Dodson, songwriting, the Resurgence, theology, worship

Recently Jonathan Dodson wrote an article at Resurgence talking about why many worship songs about God’s love are cheap. Jonathan’s main complaint is against “Jesus is my boyfriend” worship songs that in his eyes paint at the very least a narrow and more likely inaccurate view of why God loves us. His contention is we must understand the anger and justice of God to fully understand his love and that God is almighty God, not our boyfriend. I agree 100% with what Jonathan says, I don’t think we know God’s love unless we understand grace and to understand that we need to understand justice and how it meets on the cross.

I also agree with Bob Kauflin when he talked about the importance of theology to musicians and songwriters. There are plenty of bad worship songs theologically, there are plenty I won’t play that are good musically but not lyrically. I think most can agree on that point, maybe not the specific criteria since our theology will differ, but at least that there are bad worship songs that shouldn’t be played.

But here’s the trend and attitude that’s bothering me as a worship leader, elder and songwriter and let me put this in big bold letters and address pastors directly.

Dear pastors,

1 song can’t explain every aspect of God’s character

If given the task to write a 4-5 minute worship song of God’s love I’m not going to be able to explain the full story of original sin, God’s wrath, the incarnation, death on the cross and resurrection. It’s just not possible to hit the entire story of scripture in a song. So please stop evaluating each and every song with the entirety of scripture and God’s character as the measuring stick. If given the opportunity you could find theological omission in every song ever written. And if we followed your critique we wouldn’t have any songs to sing.

I don’t have 45 minutes to go through each hermeneutic method, to explore the greek and hebrew texts and talk about the historical and cultural context inside my song. I know you do every Sunday at your pulpit as you should, that’s what we need you for, to guide, teach and encourage us theologically. But I as a worship leader and songwriter operate under different restrictions, many shared but many not.

Totality of the worship song rotation should bring theological context

Each individual song will only illuminate a very narrow aspect of God’s character, it will direct our worship in a way that seems theologically narrow when viewed in isolation. Just as if I took a 4-5 minute segment of your sermon it may seem theologically narrow. I know you guys complain about You Tube videos taking you out of context, yet you frequently turn around and do the same to your worship leaders.

Let worship leaders build a rotation of worship songs that glorify and exalt Jesus in different ways, all for who He is that together gives the body a faithful representation of Christ and his church. If you think you need a song that talks about justice, don’t tear down the songs about mercy, just have your worship leader write or introduce a song about justice. The problem isn’t too many songs about mercy and grace, it’s too few about justice and propitiation. (there aren’t too many poetic ways to rhyme with propitiation, that may be why)

In conclusion, elders, pastors, theologians, work with your worship pastors, encourage them, pray for them, give them ideas on new songs that will fill in the theological gaps of your worship. Stop making fun of all the songs and let’s write more good ones. Being a critic is cheap, being a faithful artist is challenging and worship leaders need your support.

Sincerely,

Worship Leaders

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Presbyterian vs Catholic Church Sign Debate

Tagged Under : church, debate, funny, pictures, sign

In the spirit of this political debate season we bring you the first annual Church Sign Debate. We have 5 questions we’ll be asking the Presbyterian and Catholic church, let’s get started. If you want to keep up on other news like this, subscribe to the RSS feed.

1. Do dogs goto heaven?

Do dogs goto heaven?

2. Does God love dogs?

Does God love dogs?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Tim Smith interviews Lecrae - lyrical theology in hip hop

Tagged Under : culture, hip hop, interview, Lecrae, Mars Hill, rap, Tim Smith

Hearing a talented rapper talk about the need to fuse systematic theology and hip hop and train church leaders who have poor theology is just mind blowingly awesome. Lecrae discusses the difficulties in reach a hip hop culture so rooted in idolatry and sin. These are the kind of interviews that make me excited to be in the church. I posted video from Mars Hill Church a few weeks back showing Lecrae leading a song in the actual worship service which was amazing and powerful. I could tell from his lyrics he values scripture, doctrine and real hard truth and this interview is just tasty tasty icing. What a great interview, enjoy.

Pastor Tim Interviews Lecrae from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

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Desiring God Conference: The Power of Words

Tagged Under : Bob Kauflin, conference, Daniel Taylor, Desiring God, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Paul Tripp, Sinclair Ferguson, video

My pastor sent me the link to the upcoming Desiring God conference and I was blown away by the material. The full title is “The Power of Words and the Wonder of God.” The speaker list and topics are incredible.

Sinclair Ferguson - “The Tongue, the Bridle, and the Blessing: An exposition of James 3:1-12” This is going to be incredible. Some amazingly difficult scripture here.
Bob Kauflin - “Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing.” I love Bob Kauflin and have received so much encouragement from what he has to say. This session is going to be critical, foundational worship doctrine and man am I looking forward to it.
Mark Driscoll - “How Sharp the Edge? Christ, Controversy, and Cutting Words.” Are you kidding me? Set aaaand spike! This will be intense, Driscoll will bring the heat on this topic. There will be a firestorm on You Tube if they release video of this sermon, guaranteed.
Daniel Taylor - “The Life-Shaping Power of Story: God’s and Ours.” Never heard of Daniel Taylor, but this will be a good songwriting session whether he realizes it or not.
Paul Tripp - “War of Words: Getting to the Heart for God’s Sake.” - This is going to challenge the heck out of me. I’m scared to be in this session actually.
John Piper - “Is There Christian Eloquence? Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross.” I’ve never heard Piper preach in person, I’m incredibly excited to get there.

Another part of this conference that will be awesome are all the panel discussions. I loved the Q&A sessions at Mars Hill Continuous Worship conference and I expect some great discussion with these guys.

In a strange way I think this conference will shape, assist, speak into, clarify, instruct, guide my leadership in worship more than any other conference I’ve been to. Even though this isn’t particularly about worship. I don’t know if you’ve realized that I’ve been posting a lot on that topic in this blog but lyrics and truth mean a lot to me in worship. I need to do a better job at building a community of worshipers (as Bob would say) by not just leading a rocking set but singing truth that unifies our body, glorifies God and promotes wellness in our souls by singing hard truth.

If this promo video doesn’t get you pumped, there’s something wrong with you, go seek help.

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U.S. religion: even “Christians” see other ways to heaven

Tagged Under : church, culture, songwriting, theology, worship

Heaven There has been a lot of mention in various blogs about the recent survey report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. It was incredibly revealing, maybe not shocking though as many have seen the clear trends nationally and globally. But never the less, it was painful to be confronted with some of the facts. Here’s a few that caught my eye:

66% of Protestants believe there are other ways to heaven than through Christ
11% of Protestants who claim the existence of God is an absolute certainty, say it isn’t very important to their lives
27% of Protestants do not believe in hell

The survey results should be sobering for church leadership and certainly is for me. A professor from Rice University summed up the report in an article well by saying,

“The survey shows America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only 3 inches deep.”

That is just a beautiful way of describing a horrific reality. It makes me examine what I’m doing as a worship leader to either contribute or combat this. Am I leading hundreds of people every week in singing a wide variety of songs that only go 3 inches deep? Do we sing songs that confront the notion that there is no hell, that there is a way to heaven besides Christ, or that Christ life, death and resurrection shouldn’t be that important to our lives? I sure hope so.

I think the important thing as a worship leader is to get prayerful and purposeful not just in our sets but in our leadership of our teams and songwriting. We focus a lot on unity, singability, melody which are all important, but what good is unity without truth? More specifically, essential truth. What the findings in this report tell me is not just that 66% believe in other ways to Christ, but that 66% feel comfortable showing up to church with that lie and aren’t confronted by truth.

I have no desire to lead such weak and sanitized worship that the flesh and lies of the enemy aren’t offended. In the coming weeks I’m going to start a series of posts on how our phrasing and word choices in worship lyrics can contribute to essential biblical truth. No ambiguous language, no vague interpretation, no confusing imagery.

If you have any examples of worship songs you feel do this I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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Can we sing songs of worship to the Holy Spirit?

Tagged Under : Holy Spirit, lyrics, Tim Hughes, worship

Tim Hughes has posted an interesting question on his blog raising the question, “Can we sing songs of worship directed to the Holy Spirit?.” I think the question is more interesting in its choice of phrasing and inference then the actual answer to the question. We should all agree that we can’t sing any songs of redeemed worship but through the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And if we can agree that worship is a response to God rather than self instigated, than the direction of our worship becomes evident by whom we are responding to.

The question posed implies a dissection of our theological view on the trinity. But to me that question is working of an improper assumption that redeemed worship(I quite purposefully distinguish between redeemed/fallen worship) could be “directed”, employed, engaged in, taught or experienced by, to or through anyone but the Holy Spirit. Our model of a perfect life of worship is of course Jesus Christ and Luke 10:21 gives us insight into how Jesus worshiped in a trinitarian life:

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”

The Son worshiping the Father, full of joy, through the Holy Spirit. Jesus was also full of and led by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1-2). I don’t think we should be fearful of addressing the spirit of God we are to be filled with and led by. For it’s the same spirit that gives us the ability to worship the Father, Son and Spirit at all.

Tim does acknowledge this in his blog and points to more of a practical question of lyrical content.

“…can we sing ‘Holy Spirit, glorify Your name?’”

I don’t think we have any basis for removing worship of 1 part of the trinity. From a trinitarian view that would be to deny the worship of God entirely, and that my friends, I don’t intend to do.