Whenever I tell people that I don’t like praise & worship music, they usually take it as a sign I have a dark, empty void where my soul should be, like a vampire or a zombie or a Facebook employee, and so I’m most likely doomed to hellfire and damnation.
I try to explain that my feelings are related to musicality rather than spirituality, but it’s hard to make that argument while people are throwing crosses and wooden stakes at me.
Luckily, I found this handy video that does a pretty good job of explaining why I feel like I do. If you’re like me and you don’t like church music, share it with your friends who are worried about your immortal soul.
Round table topic here for sure. (Perhaps a Comeauxes/Andersons/Williams game night sub-event?) So intriguing, and I have tons of thoughts.
What if authentic worship for some (most?) IS Jesus Culture-y?
What if allowing worship musicians to go full on Umphrey’s McGee/Sigur Ros WOULD overinflate egos instead of glorify God?
Why DON’T we sing more Kirk Franklin?
How WOULD the corporate worship masses respond if we invited Brooklyn Tabernacle into our praise/worship sets?
Why must there ALWAYS be soft, sustained chords during corporate prayer?!?!?! (Daniel and I have a chord progression track we play when our family prays at home. We just can’t truly get into the mood without it.)
Worship is all about heart posture. Sometimes, when I get to feeling this way about it all, I just pause the melodies in my mind and speak the words. I think our church has done a fairly decent job of ditching the “Ah, ooh, oh…” songs and has really worked on being intentional in the songs they choose. The “musicking” isn’t really super evident, but I give kudos for intentional lyrics.
One last thing. It’s interesting that Adam isn’t a practicing Christian. (So…would that make him not-a-Christian?…) I think he most definitely brings up some very valid points,–points with which I quite agree–but after hearing that he’s “not necessarily practicing,” I can’t help but re-hear him now with a Christ-less-ish worldview. And that changes things a bit.
This is good. Real good.
I don’t listen anymore either.