The New American Hymnal [NAH] - Post 2

Music is a weapon.  It can move people to do what the the song writer and singer wants the listener to do.  Rage Against the Machine comes to mind, in this context.  "No mater how hard you try, you can't stop us now!" Rage was one of those call to arms bands.  They wanted their music to make a change in people to stand up against those things that could be changed.



Where is that in our worship music?  Wouldn't God want Rage to be on our side?  To make people's hearts change for the better, not to just come together in a brick box and wave their arms around.

Christian music has lost its way.  I had a discussion with someone, and he said that Christian music was marketed to Christians, and it got my gears turning.  I quickly agreed and responded with "Why is that right?  How does that do any good?"

I do not believe in Contemporary Christian music.  There is no such thing.  There is, yes, music that is played on radio stations that have labeled themselves as family friendly, and Christian.  However, John Q. Citizen isn't going to listen to the Christian station because it's not playing the music he listens to on his iPod.  He's going to tune into the alternative station, or the R&R station, or the Pop station and listen to whatever they give him to listen to.  There is nothing in it for him to listen to Christian radio because he isn't Christian.

Jesus went to the people and explained things in parables.  It was a way for people to understand His teachings, and it worked.  Look at the first church in Acts 2.  However, what are Christian artists doing?  They are using our own language, our own words, to try and preach a gospel lost to generations because we're not using their own language.

In this tone, then, Christian artists are not doing God's work, they are making money.  Now before I get hate mail from Michael W. Smith (which I totally would print and frame), I understand people need to make money.  People need to have a house over their head, they need to feed their families, and if they can do that and worship God, convert millions, then everything is okay, right?  How are you following up on those converted?

Let me get back onto the path before I digress too far.

Christian speaks speak to Christians about Christ.  That's like a cookie maker talking to another cookie maker, about cookies.  Big deal.  However, if a cookie maker could talk a brownie baker (alliteration, a go-go) into become a cookie maker by using terms a brownie baker could understand, then we have progress.

If I printed my blog out and gave it out to Christians at a church, they would have a completely different reaction to it, as if I had done the same to non-church people.  That is because I am not trying to convert with my message, I am trying to build up the body that should be converting.

A speaker will write a speech differently for his audience, but Christian musicians just do the same thing every musician does before him: preaches to the chior.

Christian musicians market themselves to Christians so they will sing their songs during worship, to make people want to come and worship at their shows.  I went to a Skillet concert where people worshiped with them, and then bought their albums to go home and listen to them.  I can't think of many people who pop an album into their Victrola and raise their hands in praise for 45 minutes.  I've done it once, during a very hard time, and that's because music moves me, and speaks to me, but it wasn't all Christian music, it was secular music that spoke to me as well, sometimes even more so.

On my way home last night, a song came onto the radio that the Holy Spirit said to me "listen".  It was a song I had heard plenty of times, and last night the lyrics touched me like I had never felt them before, and I raised my hand and I sung at the top of my lungs and worshiped.

I was on a local rock station.

With that in mind, I decided, after the song went off and I composed myself a bit, that on Wednesdays I would be posting a secular (a word us Christians call songs we'd never play in church) song that rings as a beautiful praise and worship song.

Grace and Peace,
Jesse