David Crowder’s Fantastical Church Music Conference
May 3, 2010 Leave a comment
I love this promo video for David Crowder’s upcoming conference. Wouldn’t you love to go to this?
Great Songs: “Magnificent Obsession” by Steven Curtis Chapman
February 20, 2010 Leave a comment
I’m kicking off the “Great Songs” series with the song that has meant a great deal to me over the last couple of years: “Magnificent Obsession” by Steven Curtis Chapman. Steven is a tremendous singer, guitarist and songwriter, and this one is a gem. The song was released on his 2001 album “Declaration,” on my personal favorites. If I could choose one song to take with me to a desert island, this would be it; it represents my heart perfectly because I want my life to be defined by the pursuit of Jesus.
What makes this song great? The honesty, poetry of the lyrics, artistry and performance, the music, message – it’s the whole package.
Below is the album recording as well as a low-fi concert version. Enjoy!
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3.7-11)
Why Do Worship Leaders Close Their Eyes?
January 12, 2010 10 Comments
For those of you who to go church regularly and participate in contemporary worship, I have a question for you: Have you ever noticed that worship leaders and those who are singing and playing on stage sometimes close their eyes? This occurred to me tonight as I was leading worship at our Convocation service at St. Louis Christian College. I was on stage with the worship team and during the last couple of songs (“Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Revelation Song”) I noticed myself closing my eyes.
This has always seemed to be a natural response for me when leading worship, especially during slower, more intimate songs. But what does closing your eyes really accomplish?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I close my eyes or step away from the mic for a few moments it’s a way to focus on God and the meaning of what we’re singing. I guess it’s also an attempt to shut out my view of the people facing me. When you’re on stage with a guitar and a mic, and lots of people are in the congregation, it’s very hard to escape the notion that on some level it’s a performance. When I close my eyes I remember that this is for God, as well as the people.
I don’t claim to be anything special when it comes to leading worship. In fact, I feel a little bit rusty these days and have been longing for the opportunity to do it again week to week. But one thing I do know: it is tempting to overestimate the importance of the human factor in worship. It’s easy to “pump up” the crowd when you know the songs they love and what kind of things will draw a response from that particular group. But the point of worship is not to get people excited, it’s to help us re-tell and re-call the Gospel, which is the content of worship.
Worship leaders are like dinner hosts–we prepare the table and invite the guests, but it’s God who provides the actual nourishment. I think if we faithfully serve what God has provided, it frees us from having to rely on manufactured emotion to make worship worthwhile.
So if you see me on stage and I close my eyes while I’m supposed to be leading, it’s because I’m trying to remember that despite all the appearances of modern worship, it’s not a performance.
Further Thoughts About Online Church
December 13, 2009 Leave a comment
As a follow-up to my previous post describing my experience with the online service at Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, I wanted to share a few random thoughts:
Most Christians today still hold the mindset that we have to attend church in a physical location on Sunday morning. But this mindset has been challenged over the last couple of decades with mid-week worship (i.e. Willow Creek), Saturday night services, home groups, and now online church. Online church is simply one more addition to the growing number of alternative to traditional Sunday morning worship. Or is it? Is there something fundamentally different about attending an online service?
Yes and no. Probably the most notable difference (from a worship standpoint) is that you can’t participate in congregational singing while sitting at home. On the other hand, it’s also possible to sit in a sanctuary with 1,000 people and not participate either. In fact, you can pretty much do everything “alone” at a physical service if you want to. It is entirely possible to walk into church and not speak to anyone, sing, or participate in any other way. It is not difficult, especially at a large church, to come to a service and leave without speaking to a single person. My point is this: if your main criticism of online church is the fact that people experience at home alone in front of their computers, this solitude isn’t necessarily corrected just by being in a church building with others on Sunday morning. Attending a physical megachurch service doesn’t guarantee that you have any real relationships.
I would make the same case for communion. In most evangelical churches, communion is not really a corporate activity. We pass trays, we each take bread and juice, and it’s a very individualized thing. There is not much that is truly “communal” about it. That’s why I like celebrating communion in a fashion where you interact with people or have to get out of your seat.
What about the fact that Central doesn’t celebrate communion weekly? This seems pretty radical for a Restoration Movement church. I confess I don’t know why they don’t celebrate it weekly, but I assume they have good reasons for doing so. The New Testament doesn’t command weekly communion, but it was the practice of early Christians to do it weekly. I don’t think a person’s faith lives or dies by weekly communion. I prefer it weekly, and that’s what I have done my whole life, but there is no biblical command to do it weekly. Read more of this post
Going to Church Online
December 13, 2009 Leave a comment
One of my responsibilities as a Professor of Worship is to keep tabs on new developments in my field. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to try out “online” church. Over the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to visit a few different churches and share a little of what I experienced. Since I didn’t have any teaching or music responsibilities at my church this morning, I thought I’d attend church “online” and see what it was like.
Central Christian Church in Las Vegas is the only Christian Church I know that has an online service, so this was my default choice. They have two options: the online campus and the Facebook campus. I brought up both pages and the Facebook video stream seemed a little better, so I logged into FB and experienced the service this way.
The service opened with a worship set, and as you’d expect, the music was very good. The worship team opened with a really creative blending of “Joy to the World” and Chris Tomlin’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” that began with the string riff from Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida.” It was a brilliant arrangement. The rest of the set was fairly standard guitar-driven modern worship, but done well. I was intrigued by their cover of Mercy Me’s “Little Drummer Boy,” and thought it was interesting to use as a congregational song. (On a less spiritual note, I also thought one of the guitar players looked a lot like Jon Favreau, the actor and director of Iron Man, but that’s beside the point.)
So how does it work to participate in group singing in the comfort of your home? I guess it depends on your perspective. I turned the sound up a little louder for this section of the service to try and duplicate the feeling of being at church. This worked to some degree, but the bottom line is that you can’t really duplicate congregational singing sitting in front of a computer alone. I did, however, really enjoy and appreciate the music and sang along part of the time.
After the music the worship leader encouraged people to greet one another, and said hello to people attending online. (I said hello to the others attending the Facebook service – I recall there were about 13 of us.) Then there was a video just for those online, and host mentioned that around 4,000 people had given their lives to Christ via the online campus, and over 2,300 had followed through with baptism. The host also encouraged us to donate online and thanked those who give online on a regular basis. He also mentioned that about 3,000 people a week attend an online service at Central. Read more of this post
Engagement Trumps Information Overload
November 19, 2009 Leave a comment
This semester (which is just about to wrap up) I’m teaching a course called “Theology and History of Worship.” Yesterday’s learning topic dealt with sacred space in worship–how the people, furniture and symbols of worship are arranged to best allow people to engage with God and one another. I had planned on doing a lecture, but then decided to approach it a different way. Since the lecture would be based mainly on the reading they had done (I would be reviewing the main ideas and adding more info), wasn’t this a little redundant?
I came up with this instead: I wanted them to put into practice the things they had learned through the reading, and what I would briefly review in class. I had them get into 3 groups, with this assignment: design a worship space for a particular area and tell us why you designed it that way. What are the theological and practical reasons for your choices? Group 1 designed a sanctuary for an urban church meeting in a leased office space, Group 2 designed a space for a suburban church plant, and Group 3 designed space for a rural church youth ministry that emphasized the arts.
The results were interesting, and the students took it more seriously and engaged in the process more than I expected. A couple of the groups were very detailed in their designs. I was pretty impressed.
I’ve only been teaching for a few years, and have a lot to learn (trust me on that one, or just ask my students!). But one of the things I do know is that active learning (participation and engagement) allows students to interact with and process what they learned from reading and lectures. The lecture format can be done effectively by some teachers and for some topics, but I am learning some new, different, and often more effective approaches to help students learn.
By the way, here is good quote I used in class: “Space, it has been argued, needs to be redemptive space. It needs to reflect the work of salvation, which we celebrate. Therefore, adequate space for gathering, for the hearing of the Word, for the celebration of the Eucharist, and for music and the arts that accompany these acts is a priority. The major shift that has taken place in worship space is the shift from longitudinal space to a more centralized space, a space in which the worshipers become participants. ” (Robert Webber, Worship Old & New, 146)
Michael W. Smith Interview, Part 2
November 9, 2009 Leave a comment
Here is part 2 of an interview with Michael W. Smith, courtesy of worshipideas.com. Short but sweet.
For those who haven’t heard his classic song “Agnus Dei,” here is a clip.
A Visit to “The Journey” Church (St. Louis)
November 1, 2009 2 Comments
I had the past couple of Sundays off from my normal church responsibilities and took the opportunity to visit a couple of area churches. Last weekend I visited The Merge, a church plant led by a couple of friends and colleagues, Scott and Lisa Womble. That was a great experience (I’ll post about the visit soon). This morning while my wife was working (she unfortunately has to work Sunday morning once in a while), my son Ben and I visited The Journey, on Kingshighway near Hwy. 44 in St. Louis. We visited the 11:15 a.m. service at the main Tower Grove campus.
I wanted to visit The Journey because I’d heard some exciting things about their ministry. It’s a relatively new church plant with multiple locations in St. Louis. Lead pastor Darren Patrick founded The Journey in 2002, and the church is part of the Acts 29 church planting network.
On my way to the church I drove right past it because the building (a former Catholic church) blends so well into the neighborhood. On my way back around the block I noticed where all the people were headed and followed suit. We had to park a block away because of the number of cars parked on the street around the church (definitely a good sign).
The sanctuary was about two-thirds full when we came in, but was almost full later in the service. The congregation consisted of what appeared to be people in their 20′s and 30′s. The worship songs were familiar to me (except for one or two) and the worship band did a great job with the music (which was very guitar-driven but with more of an acoustic feel). I would guess there were about 300 people there.
After the music came the Scripture reading from 1 John 3.1-10. I found this interesting because in most evangelical churches, the preacher reads the Scripture as part of the sermon. I liked having it read separately before the sermon–this somehow conveys a bit more authority and seriousness of Scripture. The women who read Scripture concluded it with a firm “the word of the Lord” (a nice touch that reminds us it’s God’s Word). Another interesting touch was the repeated reference to page numbers in the pew Bible, which was the ESV translation. This is the first church I’ve seen use the ESV for pew Bibles (score!). Nice touch.
Lead pastor Darren Patrick delivered a great sermon on dealing with sin in our lives. I believe it was about 45 min. long. He is a great communicator and has a very down-to-earth style. He has a gift for combining great biblical content with very practical application. He is very easy to listen to, which I consider a great compliment to any teacher or preacher. The sermon ended with several application questions for personal reflection.
I really enjoyed the communion time. One of the leaders/pastors gave a few brief instructions, they we were directed to come to the front, where several people held a loaf of bread a cup of juice.Ben and I stood up to get in the line closest to us. I tore a piece from the loaf, dipped it in the juice, and headed back to my seat. I loved taking communion this way.
The only real discernible difference between what I normally experience as part of a Restoration Movement church, and the Journey is that they didn’t offer a traditional “invitation” at the conclusion of the sermon. People were instead invited to talk to a church leader or pastor after the service. I assume if someone wants to become a Christian they would take the initiative to speak with someone from the church. Or perhaps there is something I missed. This approach seems fine because the process for someone coming to faith can happen a variety of ways. Church history tells us this much. The traditional “invitation” time is an innovation that has been around less than 200 years. There’s nothing wrong with it, of course; it’s just one approach among many that Christians throughout history have used.
The thing that impressed me the most about The Journey was the seriousness with which they approached worship. You hear a lot these days about young adults (and the Gen-X crowd) being turned off by traditional Christianity, but the worship I experienced this morning took a serious, hard-hitting approach to God, the Bible, and the need for obedience. Mr. Patrick’s sermon didn’t pull any punches.
In my view, the contemporary evangelical church has misread this generation (which is my generation). We aren’t looking for a church that soft-sells the Christian faith or portrays it as an easy road. On the contrary, young (and young-ish) people are drawn to a faith that is deep, meaningful and doesn’t pretend to offer easy answers to life’s pressing problems. They are looking for connection, meaning, and a transcendent connection with God. This partly explains why people are increasingly drawn to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. While The Journey is still solidly evangelical, this group of believers seems to be doing something right in reaching a generation that has basically lost interest in traditional Christianity. Surely there is something we can all learn from this.
Michael W. Smith Interview from WorshipIdeas.com
October 28, 2009 1 Comment
My apologies for my absence on the blog lately. I’m back today with a short but great clip of an interview with Michael W. Smith by Don Chapman, founder of worshipideas.com. Worshipideas.com is a great site with tons of helpful tips for music and worship leading in the church, and Don sends out a weekly email with a helpful article. This is a site that is definitely worth checking out.
I have seen Michael in concert countless times over the years and appreciate his heart for worship and the local church, despite being a superstar in the world of Christian music. He is the real deal, and you see a wonderful glimpse of his heart here. I love his comment that worship leading is all about disappearing.
Thank You, David Crowder!
September 30, 2009 2 Comments
Last Tuesday the David Crowder Band released its new CD called “Church Music.” I must say, it’s very different, even for DCB. Crowder has penned some great worship songs in recent years, although only a small number of them are really corporate-worship friendly. His music (at least in my opinion) is for the most part too difficult for the average congregation to sing.
But congregational songs have not really been his main purpose, I don’t think. The area where DCB truly excels is the marriage between cutting-edge music, creativity and lyrics filled with great theology. In this area they are basically in a league of their own.
My intent here is not to do a review of the CD, but I will say this: the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It has many layers than you can only appreciate after multiple hearings. I would describe the style as some kind of blend of techno/rock/pop/dance. This is not my normal cup of musical tea, but for this record I had to make an exception.
There is a short but great interview at Christian Music Today with David Crowder. Here is great excerpt:
Question: Are you the epicenter of the band’s creative process, or is it a collective effort?
Crowder: I make up rules for a particular project and then give assignments based on these rules. The music of the church has been most effective at articulating faith for groups of people when it has embraced the language and art of that particular group of people. So we had to embrace what is going on within pop music. Pop music has moved more urban in the last decade and yet most progressive church settings are still trying to capture U2 and Coldplay. Not that they aren’t relevant, but when you have hip-hop producers like Timbaland producing rock bands, the trend should be considered.
One of the rules this time was that all of the music must first be composed in a computer. Then the rules stated that we must destroy what we made and recreate it with organic instrumentation. I felt like this would keep us from straying too far from where we’ve been and also allow for some of our rock and indie rock influences to be audible.
A couple of other rules were that songs had to lead into each other. Also, each must contain a nod to a formative moment within the history of music in the church, and these moments must appear on the album in historical order. It’s a musical puzzle.
I love it! The whole CD is like one long symphonic composition, although in modern musical form. This is some of the best the church has to offer in its music: cutting-edge, creative, with an awareness and appreciation of theology and history, and in a form that connects culturally. Thank you, David Crowder!
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