Bob Kauflin | Our Rising Sound

June 25 2009

Can Christians honestly critique each other’s music?

Tagged Under : Bob Kauflin, music, review

I was flipping through some music reviews of some worship albums and I just had to laugh because there’s no such thing as a bad review. Well actually there is, if the review is out of 10 stars, 10 is great and 9.5 is awful, they just don’t get any lower. This same attitude exists in worship bands and church leadership as a whole. Leaders many times have to walk on egg shells cause they feel if they critique the persons gifting or execution that person will get offended and leave.

As leaders we can’t be paralyzed by a fear to critique. The root of this fear is really idolatry in that our gifting is our value in the kingdom and when someone critiques it we feel devalued in the kingdom. I’m not trying to go Dr. Phil on you, but seriously why can’t I love my Christian brother and critique what he’s trying to sell me? How far does this go, am I offending someone because I didn’t buy their album?

On a twitter conversation I was having Fred McKinnon mentioned that many people’s policy is:

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”

I agree with his assessment and know that to be the case, but it’s way off in my estimation. What a bunch of babied, insecure in the gospel, little musicians we are if we have a policy of, “hey if you don’t like every single aspect of my music and aren’t prepared to just rave over it all, then don’t say anything“.

I’d like to point out an example of a honest review I did of a Sovereign Grace Christmas cd. I was worried how it would be received, but I thought it would be a disservice to Bob Kauflin if I didn’t review it honestly. I tried to give encouragement on what I thought was done well and honest, specific critique where I thought it was not done well. I was probably insensitive on some points and could have phrased things better. But even with that, Bob responded incredibly well, responded with grace. I don’t think Bob started questioning his value to the kingdom or thought I should live in eternal damnation. Bob correct me if I’m wrong

Do you feel like you’re sinning against God or injuring your brother if you critique their music/gifting? Are you afraid to do so? Do you think that’s healthy? Am I an insensitive jerk?

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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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Our Rising Sound contributing to Worship.com blog

Tagged Under : blog, Bob Kauflin, news, Scot Longyear, the Resurgence, Worship.com

I’m pleased to announced that Our Rising Sound will now be contributing on the Worship.com blog. If you haven’t been over to Worship.com make sure and subscribe to the blog feed, there are a lot of great articles and a wide variety of contributors including, Bob Kauflin, Scot Longyear (I follow your lead) and the Resurgence. I’ll certainly need to dress appropriately and behave myself over there with that crowd. There is no change of content on this site, business as usual here, but now some of the posts will also appear on Worship.com.

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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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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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Video: Tim Smith interviews Bob Kauflin

Tagged Under : Bob Kauflin, interview, Mars Hill, Sovereign Grace, Tim Smith, video, worship

Resurgence posted a video interview with Tim Smith, worship leader of Mars Hill Church, recently interviewed Bob Kauflin, Director of Worship Development at Sovereign Grace Ministries. It’s a good long interview with a lot of great topics discussed, so make sure to watch the whole thing. I just want to point out a few points that were made that I find very poignant.

Tim explained the culture in Seattle and how stoic and passive people are even at rock concerts and how that culture is mirrored in their church. Tim asked how physical expression in worship might be impressed upon the congregation without going overboard and have physical expression just as habitual as non expression. Now I’ve heard this a few times from the Mars Hill worship leaders and I really appreciated Bob’s response. Bob explains how a non-christian should notice in the church something more significant happening than a rock concert. That the transforming relationship with Jesus Christ has made this church respond in major ways.

The important idea here I think is that sometimes we are so concerned in the church now with engaging with culture and not freaking out the lost that we forget we are supposed to be counter cultural in many ways. We shouldn’t measure our worship to rock concerts, because what we’re doing is orders of magnitude greater in not just importance but in life impact and purpose.

One of the great takeaways from this interview is this gem:

“I’m not called to lead a worship experience…I’m called to build a worshiping community.”

That statement is so rich and true, so much to talk about there, inspiring a few more posts I think. let me know what you guys think of the interview.