Our Rising Sound

July 30 2008

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

Tagged Under : culture, poll, worship

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.

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Poll Wrap Up: Non-Christians in worship bands?

Tagged Under : band, church, missional, poll, worship

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:

Character
Calling
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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Poll: Is it ok for non-christians to play in worship bands?

Tagged Under : band, church, poll, worship

I’m talking about normal congregational worship bands, leading on Sunday morning. What do you think, is it ok for non-Christians to be in the band? Answer the poll and then chime in with comments for a detailed explanation. I think I actually know more worship leaders that let unsaved people in the band than the other way around. That doesn’t influence my opinion, but I want to know yours so let’s hear it!

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Poll: Have you ever left a church primarily because of music style?

Tagged Under : church, poll, worship

I promise I have no way of finding out who you are based upon your answers. So let the anonymity of the internet comfort you so that you may answer truthfully. And then hopefully you are convicted and repent publicly See the poll in the right hand side bar of the page and if you feel like you need to justify your answer then feel free to comment.

Where music, culture and worship meet.

July 30 2008

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

Tagged Under : culture, poll, worship

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July 28 2008

Poll Wrap Up: Non-Christians in worship bands?

Tagged Under : band, church, missional, poll, worship

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July 22 2008

Poll: Is it ok for non-christians to play in worship bands?

Tagged Under : band, church, poll, worship

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May 09 2008

Poll: Have you ever left a church primarily because of music style?

Tagged Under : church, poll, worship