Top 5 | Our Rising Sound

November 24 2009

Top 5 Thanksgiving turkey dinner worship songs

Tagged Under : Delirious, funny, Jenn Johnson, Kathryn Scott, Kevin Prosch, Thanksgiving, Top 5, worship

(Report of original posted in 2008)

There are plenty of lists out there talking about “thanksgiving” worship songs, as in giving thanks to the Lord. That’s all wonderful stuff, but I think the question people are really asking is, what does the church have to sing about the actual Thanksgiving dinner. America has some of the best holidays, and thanksgiving dinner deserves to be sung about. Here are the top 5 worship songs for Thanksgiving dinner:

1. Hungry (Kathryn Scott)

This song is a perfect set opener, it acknowledges what we’re all here for. We’re hungry and we want turkey, it’s that simple. I think this song captures it perfectly:

Hungry I come to you for I know you satisfy
I am empty but I know your love does not run dry
So I wait for you, so I wait for you

Turkey always satisfies. Nothing better than a moist, properly cooked turkey, so I like the stance of faith this song takes and says, “turkey you will NOT run dry.” Lord knows there is also a lot of waiting, patience is so key on this holy turkey day. I end up repeating that last refrain over and over, “so I wait..for you…so I wait…”

2. O Taste and See (Jenn Johnson)

Romans 1:20 says that “God’s eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.” Nowhere is that more clearly seen than in turkey meat. This song challenges us to taste and see God’s goodness, his eternal power and divine nature inside that turkey. And just as Romans says, once we do, we are without excuse.

O taste and see that the Lord is good
O taste and see that the Lord is good to me
You have turned my mourning into dancing put of my rags and clothed with gladness

The “clothing of gladness” sung here is obviously a metaphor for gravy. I love to clothe my entire plate with gladness gravy.

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October 01 2009

5 ways worship music can be like bad hotel art – Part 3

Tagged Under : bad-hotel-art, leadership, theology, Top 5, worship

bad-hotel-art In Part 1 I discussed how dangerous it is for our worship to be uninspired and in Part 2 I talked about how often our worship music can be cheap and its impact on the gospel. For part 3 I’m going to discuss how safe our worship music can be.

3. Safe

The ugly art on my hotel room wall was meant to be as inoffensive, innocuous and unspectacular as possible. It’s vanilla, bland, no rough edges and probably shown to a panel of people making sure they see nothing that could possibly be misconstrued as inappropriate or offense. Hmm this is reminding me of about 90% of the Christian music I’ve heard, despite us writing for and singing about Jesus, the most offensive and divisive person in all of human history.

Music

Many would argue that our worship music should be safe, that the music should be as broadly appealing as possible. I understand the argument and even agree with the intention, but I don’t believe having a band play bland music accomplishes the desired goal. Safe, bland, plastic worship music may not offend your congregation but it certainly won’t captivate them either. I much more appreciate strong reaction to music either positive or negative, as opposed to apathy.

If we’re reaching diverse people in our community you can imagine how much diversity you have in music taste in your congregation. I’ve found trying to have a single band appeal to all those tastes is a lesson in futility. In my church context we hope to present multiple bands that each excel in their music style and don’t play safe. In that collection of bands hopefully we show that Jesus is glorified in through many different styles.

But whatever the style, if the fear of man (congregation’s response) is the motivation in your music rather than the gospel and the passion gifted to you by God, and safety and refuge are found in human approval rather than Jesus, well that’s an incredibly dangerous position to be in.

Lyrics

A quite similar situation is found in our worship lyrics. It’s almost like we want our congregations to be able to zone out and sing without even thinking about what they are singing. Why else would we have such a narrow context in worship and use so much stale language to communicate the glory of Jesus? When I listen to a lot of Christian music it sounds like the words were written during their lunch break at work. I don’t often get a sense of toil, struggle and meditation in worship songs on what should be sung and how best to deliver it lyrically. You can’t read the Psalms and not hear the struggle and toil in those words and stories.

One huge reason for this is the sense that many songwriters have that as long as it’s from the heart it’s good. Spill our guts and God is glorified. Can we engage our minds in the process? Can we worship with all our heart and all our mind? You can’t read the Psalms and not see David’s mind spinning around the majesty of God, the metaphors that bring it to light, the examples found on earth, the implications of it on our lives. God is so rich and when we take the safe, well traveled path lyrically I think we’ve disengaged from the wonder of God in either our hearts or minds, and sometimes both.

Example

Your congregation is really struggling to deal with the recent diagnosis of cancer among members of your congregation and leadership and your pastor asks you to write a song about it. The safe thing is to sing about the goodness of God in heaven, God is the great physician and will heal, that we should cast fear aside and worship in joy. All true, but is there even a greater truth to be sung here?

The dangerous thing to do would be to sing of the goodness of God in cancer, sing of God as our healer and whether we are healed in the flesh or if we die that he’s healed our spirit and Jesus has reconciled us to the Father and that we fear nothing but God himself and worship in joy, but also through our pain, disappointment, sickness, success, failure, through all of it because we are obsessed with his glory.

Conclusion

Worship leaders, remember you serve the church and it’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. Serving them doesn’t mean gaining their approval though. Serve them by glorifying Jesus by singing about all of who God is. Do the music God has gifted you to play, given you the authority to play and given you a passion to play. Push yourself creatively in your music and lyrics to find new ways to tell the story of the gospel and majesty of Christ. Some people may hate your music, does that bother you more than compromising the conviction in your spirit? Some people may love your music, does that give you more joy that the smile of the face of God? Stop fearing man more than God. Stop seeking the applause of man more than the delight of Christ.

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Filed Under (Top 5, theology, worship) by Kyle

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September 18 2009

5 ways worship music can be like bad hotel art – Part 2

Tagged Under : bad-hotel-art, leadership, theology, Top 5, worship

bad-hotel-art Previously I discussed how our worship music can easily become uninspired or inspired by something other than the gospel and the person and work of Jesus. For part 2 I wanna focus on the cheapness of bad hotel art, how our worship music is very often cheap and how that impacts our presentation of the gospel. I will go through 3 reasons this happens, though there are plenty more and each reason below is probably worthy of its own post so hang with me.

2. Cheap

The value of the art hanging in the hotel is a direct product of what went into making it. What did it cost the creator of this art in time, effort and material? That value determined how much it sold for and to whom it was sold. What if each art piece was commissioned and an artist labored over each piece, meditated on what was required for the room, what would fit the context it would be displayed, what the audience needed to be presented with and how best to capture the beauty that was his inspiration? Well those art pieces would be much more valuable.

Worship leaders very often cheapen the gospel through our cheapened worship music and this happens due to a few reasons:

We don’t invest prayer and labor in our songs as on overflow of inspiration for the glory of Jesus and edification of the body, but instead seek the fastest route to receive our earthly payment.

For some the earthly payment might be an immediate emotional response. If you’ve been in church any length of time it’s not hard to perceive what people respond to in worship at an emotional level. There’s nothing wrong with an emotional response because it should be there, but it’s cheap if that’s the depth of the response and engagement, purely emotional. This kind of worship is very much like the seed sown on rocky ground(Matthew 13:20-21), it’s received immediately with joy but has no root in our spirits and when met with trial, fades away. I find this to be the evil, ripened, low hanging fruit in front of most worship leaders, especially those who serve in a charismatic environment.

Our earthly payment could also be industry success and respect amongst our peers, creative goals accomplished, the praise of our audiences, the list goes on.

We write music out of emotional desire and spiritual angst but never get around to presenting the gospel and the treasure…Jesus.

Our songs end up consisting entirely of supplication or even demands on what we want and what we feel. There’s not a problem with supplication and emotional expression as long as we don’t stop there, that should be prologue to the truth. We’ve presented the conflict but not the eternal truth in response and if we do that what’s the point? We’re just whining at the throne instead of worshiping and pointing people to Jesus.

If our worship songs do more to make the congregation empathize with humanity instead of see the splendor and majesty of Jesus than we’ve wasted our time and cheapened our worship.

We present a limited view of the character of God to suit the mood we wish to create and maintain in the church and worship service.

If our idol is joy, then we write and sing songs all about the joy found in Christ. But never sing about the cost paid for our freedom, the wicked deceit in our hearts and sin we must repent of. There’s bright lights, plenty of dancing and shouting, but never bowing, weeping and mourning.

Conversely we could idolize earthly dignity and cultural relevance and never sing for joy in the midst of trial and tribulation. Those in depression could walk in and engage in worship feeling comfortable in our somber presentation of the cross but never get confronted with the joy and victory in the resurrection.

In order for us not to cheapen our presentation of the gospel we can’t ignore aspects of God’s character just because it makes us or our congregation’s uncomfortable. If we do we’ve carved our own image of God and just in case you haven’t read the left hand side of scripture, it never ends up good for those that do that.

I pray that we labor over our worship songs for the glory of Jesus, that we’d present the gospel and our treasure Jesus in every song we sing, and that we wouldn’t carve our own image of God to worship but worship Him for all that He is.

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September 11 2009

5 ways worship music can be like bad hotel art – Part 1

Tagged Under : bad-hotel-art, leadership, theology, Top 5, worship

bad-hotel-art As I was sitting in my hotel room in Boulder CO this week I noticed the just awful art hanging on the walls. It got me thinking why on earth would the hotel put this kind of art up knowing full well how appalling it is? As I thought about it, I realized the reasons were exactly the same reasons why much of worship music can so easily become “bad art.” I want to dive into those reasons and like any average blogger I’ve divided those reasons up into 5 separate posts. First way worship music can become like bad hotel art…

1. Uninspired

The art in this hotel came from no deep well of desire or conviction, no sense of calling, honor or worship to anything great. It’s just something to get the job done efficiently and fill wall space.

As worship leaders very often in our own song writing or leadership we operate not from an overflow of the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts, but from a desert and dependence on our flesh and we end up filling space just the same. We fill that space in our hearts with idols and we fill space in worship sets with things that satisfy the flesh. We can end up doing nothing out of a holy spirit inspired conviction, thirst and desire to see Jesus glorified, but more to see that the obligation is met and that people are satisfied.

When leading worship becomes an obligation instead of an honor, we’ve likely either forgotten what Jesus has done or we hold the ultimate prideful, sin infested position that what he’s done is not enough to warrant anything better from us. Romans 12:1

“Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship.”

Maybe we’ve lost view of God’s mercy, maybe God’s grace is no longer sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) and something else is now inspiring us and motivating us. Idolatrous inspiration has a lot of deadly fruit, the least of which being bad art. If the gospel isn’t motivating and inspiring us, then our works are useless, they’re death to ourselves and at the least, quite harmful to others.

Inspiration and motivation is a heart issue, don’t fill space with idols, let Jesus ruin you and the gospel inspire and motivate all you do.

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June 26 2009

Top 5 Favorite Michael Jackson songs

Tagged Under : Michael Jackson, Top 5, video

In remembrance of Michael Jackson who passed yesterday, I thought I’d do a Top 5 with my favorite MJ songs of all time. I grew up singing and dancing to Michael Jackson, I have a lot of respect for his music ability and a lot of sadness for how he lived his life.

1. Thriller

Where else is there to start. The best music video of all time, an incredible song and it gave me nightmares when I was a kid, but I loved it.

2. Smooth Criminal

Another epic video, will anyone ever be able to do music videos like this guy again? I doubt it. Great song as well, I can always jam to this song.

3. Billie Jean

Man I can remember dancing to this song in my room. This video always tripped me out, I still don’t think I really get it. But talk about epic, sidewalk lighting up, I mean…brilliant. I can’t say enough about his sense of melody, it’s incredible.

4. Dirty Diana

I’ve never been in a concert atmosphere like this and I really wonder if I’ll ever have the opportunity in my life to experience it. And no I’m not going into the Jonas brothers teenage mosh pit.

5. Beat It

This was back in the day when gangs just had break dancing battles to settle turf wars. Simpler times.

Farewell Michael, you inspired me as a kid and I’m not sure this world will ever see or hear anyone quite like you again.

Folks what are your Top 5 MJ tunes?

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Filed Under (Top 5, music, video) by Kyle

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June 05 2009

What’s the worst thing in your iPod?

Tagged Under : Boyz II Men, Dawn Penn, Dirty Vegas, Duncan Sheik, funny, Haddaway, music, Randy Travis, Top 5

I realized as I was listening to my iTunes on shuffle is that I have some real garbage in there and I don’t know how it got there. My tweet about it got some feedback that I wasn’t the only one with this issue. So I want to know, what tracks in your music collection have you throw up in your mouth a little bit each time it comes on and make you wonder how that sick song crawled into your rotation? The following are the worst 5 songs in my collection and I have no good excuse for why they are in there:

1. Haddaway – What Is Love?

If I were a sketch comedian I might have an excuse. But Night at the Roxbury was cool like what 10 years ago? My only defense is I have this track unchecked. A brief moment of sanity in an otherwise bat crazy decision.

2. Dawn Penn – You Don’t Love Me

Wut the….how the…where the….why is this track within 10 laptops of me? Some one slipped me a rufee and popped this in my iTunes and somehow rigged it so it comes on EVERY TIME I shuffle. There’s only a couple acceptable raggae artists and this isn’t one of them.

3. Dirty Vegas – Days Go By

Ok yeah I get it, it was a big hit for a while. But I never even liked this song. I’m chalking this one up to some friend’s wedding I dj’d and they made a special request. I can’t be held responsible for this.

4. Duncan Sheik – On a High

I must have been on a high when I purchased this one. Yes kids, the evidence comes back this was purchased by me. This proves total human depravity more than any other experiential evidence ever could.

5. Boyz II Men – End of the Road

No this isn’t cool, not even in a reminiscent sense. Confession: I remember playing this in the background as I talked to ladies on the phone when I was in middle school. I was Leon Phelps smooth. Double Halfway confession: I actually did this first in the 5th grade to a much worse song that I will take to the grave. I’ll never tell, my mom reads this blog for heaven’s sake. Mom aren’t you amazed I made it through?

one more as a special bonus…

6. Randy Travis – Open the Eyes of My Heart

If Jesus would have opened the ears of my head up I would have nothing to do with this track. This officially marked Open the Eyes of My Heart covers had run their course. The Randy growl going into the chorus does bring a smile to my face for all the wrong reasons. Lord I apologize, I should have stopped at 5.

Ok so let’s hear it, don’t be embarrassed we all have our musical skeletons in the closet. What’s the worst in your collection?

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Filed Under (Top 5, funny, music) by Kyle

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April 21 2009

Top 5 Kevin Prosch worship songs

Tagged Under : Kevin Prosch, songs, Top 5, worship

prosch I wanted to profile some of the great worship leaders that have helped shaped me, my music and how they look in the church setting. I can’t think of a better person to start with than Kevin Prosch. As a young man and budding musician Kevin’s music was so inspirational to me by his honesty, transparency and language he chose in worshiping Jesus. It was like nothing else I’d heard. The emotion, passion and truth he brought to each song was apparent not just in his performance but in the lyric. He revolutionized worship music and pioneered an entirely new wave of worship music through his writing at the Vineyard. I had the pleasure of meeting Kevin a few times and he’s one of the most humble men I’ve met in my life and is still in my prayers.

Here are what I view to be the Top 5 worship songs Kevin has released.

1. Even So Come (Even So Come)

One of the most beautifully written acoustic worship songs I’ve heard. The lyrics dance between powerful proclamations of God’s power and promise to desperate please and appeals to a loving God. I can rarely hold it together when playing this song. This song certainly stands the test of time.

2. Come Let Us Return (Reckless Mercy)

Like most of Kevin’s early work, a really simple song taken right out of the scriptures. Kevin is a master at taking text straight out of scripture and putting incredible melody to something seemingly unfit for corporate verse. Not many “contemporary” (I hate that I just said that) worship leaders attempt to take on the biblical texts Kevin did. Again, truly stands the test of time.

3. Psalm 102 (Reckless Mercy)

Another example of singing straight scripture and how powerful it can be in corporate worship. I hope the more charismatic/contemporary/whatever worship leaders remember their roots here and come back to this more and stop singing so many experiential verses. There is no greater revelation than the gospel, don’t ya think it would benefit the body to sing it more? I do. This song is a good intro to Kevin’s rhythmic creativity. It wasn’t just his melodic sensibility that made his songs great, but his rhythmic creativity brought such a freshness to worship.

4. His Banner Over Me – (Touching the Father’s Heart Vol. 10)

I don’t see how I could have this list and leave out his most popular song. For me it doesn’t stand the test of time, but it had it’s time and purpose and without a doubt edified the body greatly. It was in regular church rotations for many many years and deservedly so. I remember quite a few banner waving dance frenzies to this song(God help me). Good opportunity to plug Top 5 things I miss about 90s worship.

5. God is So Good – (Reckless Mercy)

Simple melody, powerful proclamation lyrically, killer vocals, creative arrangement, passionate performance, yup that makes for a great song. Another one of his songs that got heavy heavy play for many years. I think this is due for a new arrangement and even while writing this post I’m getting very much inspired to work on some new arrangements of a few of these.

Kevin is re-releasing 3 of his albums, Tumbling Ground (Black Peppercorns), Kiss the Son and Journeys of Life. He also has his cds available for sale on his site, even some digital versions available.

Twitter honorable mention: Raise Up the Standard (Come to the Light), Save Us Oh God (Touching the Father’s Heart Vol 10.), Come Down (Palanquin), Highest Praise (Come to the Light)

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Filed Under (Top 5, worship) by Kyle

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February 24 2009

Top 5 things I dislike about being a worship leader

Tagged Under : church, leadership, Top 5, worship

I’d like to start by pointing you to my post on Top 5 things I love about being a worship leader. It truly is an incredible honor, responsibility and blessing to be a worship leader and something I am forever grateful for. It’s really difficult for me to come up with 5 things I dislike without immediately feeling like they pale in comparison to the incredible blessing it is. Even in the trials I hold firmly to James 1:2

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds

That being said I don’t pretend that there aren’t trials and that there aren’t difficult moments. Here are what I see as the top 5 negatives about being a worship leader:

1. You become #1 or #2 reason why people leave the church

You and the preaching pastor will be the alpha dogs as far as reasons people leave the church, in most cases. As much as I joke about this, it does bother me. I understand that there are plenty of churches, better churches than ours for some and that I have to be true to what God’s called and gifted me to do. But when I hear of people leaving because they can’t stand the music, as much as I try to roll with it, it does sting. Not from an artistic standpoint, that rolls of me quite easily. I know lots of people will dislike my music, that’s not what’s important. But I do have to pray a lot about have I failed as a leader to reach out, teach, relate with, minister to these people that are leaving.

On another level I’m glad I’m not immune to some disappointment and hurt when I hear of people leaving because of me. I don’t want to be some ministry zombie. It doesn’t change the truth, vision and mission I’m charged with, but I don’t want to ignore or neglect what I can do to become a better minister and worship leader.

2. Managing creative types can really stink

Artists, and I use that in the broad sense, are the most sensitive, emotional basket cases on the planet. Heaven forbid you tell them they need to practice more, or that they aren’t in tune, or their song isn’t very good. Who am I to judge them and their God given talent? How dare I quench the spirit! *sigh* I am sooooo blessed to have a team of mature Christian men and women who are all leaders in our church in many more ways than music. For me those days are behind me, although once we start building some more teams, there may be more of those days ahead. I’ve been in some pretty awful situations and lemme tell you, they are all too often the norm in the modern church.

There’s a lot to be said about how you organize and run a worship team and develop artistic talent and spiritual maturity. We’ve done polls on this blog about letting non-christians in on worship bands and such and I’ve learned a lot from my past failures on this topic. I could write a valuable e-book on all the ways not to put together a worship team.

3. As you excel in music, you get accused more of not “getting” the heart of worship

If I were to go up on stage with a junky acoustic, with an average band in support, sing in and out of key but do it with passion, nobody is going to accuse me of focusing on music and idolizing it. But if I practice, prepare, write and do all the things necessary to have a tight great band, get up on stage, sound great and do it with passion. There will be a lot of people that say I don’t really understand the heart of worship and that I emphasize musical excellence to a point of idolatry.

I just find it so ill-conceived that the measuring stick for some looks like, poor music quality = band has a heart after God, great music quality = worship leader wants to be Christian celebrity and doesn’t truly get worship. Let me be clear that I just want to be a good stuard and faithful to what God has placed in my hands. The conviction I feel from God on being lazy, inattentive and wreckless with the gifting and gift of this church body placed in my hands far outweighs your weak accusation, so you’ll have to excuse me while I ignore it.

4. Inability to have a single focus in worship

As a worship leader there’s a lot of responsibilities and trains of thought you have to manage in your head while you are leading a song. From song arrangements, to time management, to engagement of congregation, following where the Spirit is leading, taking cues from the sound booth, signaling your band, the list goes on. When you are the primary worship leader for a congregation and leading 99% of the time you can quickly miss being able to be in the congregation worshiping instead of in front leading worship.

Taking breaks is important and we’re working towards multiple bands at LCC.

5. Walking away feeling completely satisfied

This has less to do with being a worship leader and more about my personality. But I wish I could go through a Sunday, drive home and just feel like,

“Man what a great worship time, sounded great, God moved, the body was united and everything went well.”

Instead, no matter how good it goes I go home feeling like,

“I can’t believe how bad I butchered that one song. The mix sounded like crap today I know it. Lots of strange stares on that new song.”

I wrote a post about the mind of a worship leader the day after that explains a lot of my thought process.

It’s something I’m trying to get balance in, but I am super critical of myself and it’s not often I leave with a satisfied feeling and I’m never completely satisfied. But I do rest in that God will accomplish what he wants to accomplish through these weak hands, I have confidence that His faithfulness, not my talent, is my shield.