Category: Music

What about the Change?

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

I don’t post about songs as often as I used to around here. But today, driving in to work, this old song by Steven Curtis Chapman really struck me (as it has many times). This is a prayer that I have that my life wouldn’t just be about all the Christian knowledge I have and the Christian activities I do, but about the real change effected by God’s grace inside my heart.

Here’s a Youtube video clip with the song and some suggestive images for reflection. I didn’t create it and don’t necessarily endorse every message it sends, but the words of this song and the message effected by the pictures really is important. This isn’t just for Christian store junkies, either. Each subculture of Christianity is susceptible to their own version of the trinkets and kitsch that they substitute for real life change.

The lyrics to the first verse and chorus follow the video clip.

The Change

Well I got myself a T-shirt that says what I believe
I got letters on my bracelet to serve as my ID
I got the necklace and the key chain
And almost everything a good Christian needs, yeah
I got the little Bible magnets on my refrigerator door
And a welcome mat to bless you
before you walk across my floor
I got a Jesus bumper sticker
And the outline of a fish stuck on my car
And even though this stuff’s all well and good, yeah
I cannot help but ask myself …

What about the change
What about the difference
What about the grace
What about forgiveness
What about a life that’s showing
I’m undergoing the change, yeah
I’m undergoing the change

Q & A: What About the Arguments against CCM?

~ Bob Hayton ~ 103 Comments

From time to time I get asked various questions through my blog contact form. I don’t always have time to respond. Sometimes, the question and my response seem appropriate to share with my wider blog audience. So I’ll begin a feature on my blog addressing reader’s questions. If you have any questions you would like me to consider for this feature, just contact me.

Reader’s Question:

I have read through your posts and the comments on music. I have found it very helpful as I have grown up with the fundamentalist view on music and it is extremely hard to shake. I have broadened my musical tastes, though, and have grown to be blessed by much of “ccm” and find it very God-honoring.

I know you are not an expert on the music debate but you have written much about it on this blog and have changed your own view point from the conservative to less so. Because of that I was wondering if you could answer a question I have. I feel like I can biblically counter much of the arguments thrown at me that condemn CCM. The one thing I have not yet been able to find an answer for is the argument that the beginnings of rock and roll as stated by those artists who wrote it was rebellion and illicit sex. I can say from my own experience that I am not driven to those things when listening. But I would be told that is personal experience and that that is a poor judge of truth. Their argument would be that the music itself is inherently rebellious and sensual as stated by even those who wrote it. I am curious as to if you have faced that and what you answer would be to that. It is hard to find people who I can discuss this with where I am currently so I appreciate your taking the time to read this and answer.

My Answer:

Great question. For starters, it should be said that fundamentalists don’t have a universal approach to music. I’ve experienced fundamentalist churches that utilize CCM music, or close to it, in their services but still preach from the KJB. Many fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches shy away from using CCM music in public worship, but don’t have as big of a problem with people listening to that music for entertainment or personal edification. But I came from a wing of fundamentalism that was very anti-CCM and that marshaled the very arguments you shared in your question, so I’ll try to share how I would respond.

I should also state that I prefer CCM music for my personal music listening. I don’t like everything I hear equally, but I would rather focus on God in my music than listen to just secular music. Not all Christian music is created equal in its emphasis on a clear, Christ-focused lyrics and a melody and rhythm that complement that. But a lot does. Our church too, uses a blended form of worship where we sing older hymns as well as contemporary songs and choruses. Last week I led the worship at our church and we sang “Nothing but the Blood” and “Holy, Holy, Holy” right alongside “Revelation Song”, and “Worthy is the Lamb“. We also sang
“Before the Throne of God Above“. We had an acoustic guitar, a keyboardist and an electric drum-set. Some songs the drums bowed out completely. (I help serve in a church plant, so we don’t have a permanent home – hence no piano).

Regarding the origins of rock and roll, I think you could say at one time the aura of rock and roll was all about sex. But that has changed over time. Tchaikovsky, along with other composers of classical music, had a horrendous personal story filled with homosexuality and aberrant behavior. Tchaikovsky’s music was described as “vulgar” and “supersensous”. But that stigma hasn’t survived to this day. So the association that rock and roll had with sex is something that can change over time. There was an association with free love and rebellion, too. But today it is just an art form. It’s something that plays at the dentist’s office and grocery store, not just at large, sexually-charged concerts.

Music without lyrical content, lacks the ability to communicate with specificity apart from cultural factors. A minor key means something sad to our culture, but something happy to others. When music is coupled with lyrics, then it has the ability, as a whole, to communicate with a degree of specificity that lets us judge it morally and accept or reject it.

There’s also the testimony you share about how you respond to CCM. It isn’t just an emotional response. There is a biblical principle that if you look at the fruits of something, you can know its character. The fruit in my life and my church of the best of CCM music with it’s God-ward focus, has been positive spiritual growth, not a tendency to carnality and sensuality.

I will also say that a person’s previous associations or personal prejudices will make it hard to adopt the style of CCM music for their own use. It can anyway. But for me, the music of 100+ years ago was just as sentimental and emotionally driven as today’s CCM. But the difference is I don’t respond to that, because it isn’t music of my generation. CCM does communicate and resonate with me powerfully, and has the ability to engage my whole being — emotions and heart and mind — in the power of the song. And that ability is something that CCM is using for good. I still think more emphasis on other emotions beyond praise and joy are needed in CCM music and music in the Church today. We need to bring back lament and Psalm-singing somehow. But I’m thankful for the blessing that CCM has brought to the church, particularly with the modern hymns and content-rich songs.

I’m sure my readers might be able to pipe in here and add their own thoughts. So, please take the time to share your thoughts here for the benefit of the one who asked the question, as well as to contribute to the conversation here for everyone’s benefit.

On Blended Worship: Intentionally Mixing Music Styles to the Glory of God

~ Bob Hayton ~ 9 Comments

A recent comment concerned music styles and the worship wars. The three way split, envisioned by the commenter included the following.

1) Those want to do nothing but maintain the status quo, whether that is the contemporary style that is now familiar (with no new forms like Christian rap), or a traditional hymn-focused style — this group wasn’t going to budge from their stance.
2) Those who want to move back to the psalmic/hymnic tradition handed down to us from the early church — this group was further described as “Conservative Christianity”.
3) Those who allow for anything within the worship service.

What is missing from this list is “Blended Worship”. Why is it that we have to worry about being “comfortable” in our style? What about loving others and using styles that are accessible to others? Certain styles or songs may move me more than others, but they may hit other people where they are at more readily than they do for me. That has been my view of the issue for the last five years or more, now.

On this front, here are some quotes from documents on worship from my old church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, pastored by John Piper.

Because we value the importance of old and new , historic and current, we will pray that “the Holy Spirit may lead us into ways of worship that are continuous with the historic witness of worship given to the church throughout its history in the world, and at the same time He may lead us into the discovery of new forms and patterns that meet the needs of the people of our day” (R. Webber, “Worship Old and New” ). We will continue to be a “both/and” people that cherishes all the richness and freshness that comes from God.

Because we value the importance of both head and heart in our worship experience , we will continue to fill our minds with Biblical thinking about God, others, ourselves, and life, while at the same time putting renewed and greater emphasis on giving expression to our heart’s affections for God during worship.

Because we value being a singing people with growing appreciation for diverse expressions of love for God, we will use as many musical styles and forms as are helpful to worship and respond to God appropriately, as we seek the “significant range” of “at-homeness” referred to in Fresh Initiative #2. We will encourage whole-hearted participation by the entire congregation in all parts of the worship service, as the defining sound of Bethlehem worship becomes the singing voices of all God’s people praising Him.

Because we value increasing in a humble willingness to support others whose tastes are different than ours, we will put understanding above accusation, forbearance above faultfinding,and Biblical unity above the demand for uniformity. We will create opportunities for God’s reality to be conveyed more powerfully by learning to affirm the forms and styles that edify our brothers and sisters. Our relationships of love for each other will lead us to patiently support and rejoice with those who appreciate other styles, believing that God is able to meet us in the context of any Christ-exalting worship style.

Because we value growing in appreciation of both fine and folk elements in worship, we will strive to affirm the strengths and avoid the weaknesses inherent in both forms. We will worship within the range of gifts that God bestows on us, never compromising spiritual qualifications for aesthetic considerations, as we pursue undistracting excellence in spiritual leadership.

Because we value a determination to welcome people different from ourselves for the sake of Christ, we will continue to embrace God’s call for visible manifestations of love toward each other and our neighbors, providing opportunities before, during and after the service to reach out to those God would have us touch.

Because we value being more indigenous to the diversity of our metropolitan cultural setting, both urban and suburban, we will seek ways to communicate and worship that allow for a significant range of diversity in those whose worship is driven by a passion for the supremacy of God in all things.

Sunday morning worship is a corporate expression of our passion for the supremacy of God. We sense God’s leading to develop fresh expressions of this passion that 1) allow for a more focused and free lingering of love in the presence of the Lord; 2) reflect musically the diversity of our congregation and our metropolitan culture; 3) interweave the values of intense Godcenteredness and more personal ministry to each other in the power of the Holy Spirit. The following clarify our worship distinctives at Bethlehem:

We will continue with one common worship service format, “that with one accord [we] may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our worship life will have a “defining center,” with significant range on either side of that center, resulting in a broader worship life than in the past that people can comfortably call “home.”

The mingling of historic and contemporary music No church or service can be all things to all people. But we do not value stylistic narrowness. We believe there are affections owing to God that different tunes and different texts and different genres may awaken better thanothers. We will strive to be who we are without exalting our own tastes as the standard of excellence or power. We will see God’s guidance in each worship setting to be both indigenous and stretching.

The last paragraph was excerpted from What Unites Us in Worship, and the other paragraphs were excerpted from Bethlehem’s Philosophy of Worship. There is a lot more in the philosophy document than what I’ve shared, but these sections focus on “blended worship”.

What do you think? Does your church emphasize a “blended worship” style?

Reformed Rap: The Sound of the Reformed Resurgence

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

Christianity Today recently highlighted Reformed Rap and Hip-Hop. Click here, to see a PDF of an entire page describing the key Reformed artists and this new phenomenon.

Some of the key rappers include: Trip Lee, currently a pastoral intern under Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church; Marcus Gray (Flame), studying for a master’s degree in biblical counseling at Southern Seminary; Curtis Allen (Voice), an assistant pastor in Maryland; Shai Linne; Timothy Brindle; and LeCrae. All of these men are involved in ministry beyond their music, and all are affected deeply by Reformed Theology.

Here are a few excerpts from CT’s write-up.

SPOTLIGHT: Reformed Rap and Hip-Hop

Not since Maranatha! and contemporary praise emerged from Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in the 1970s has a genre of Christian music become so associated with a specific stream of evangelicalism. And while not all Christian rappers are Reformed, nor do all see themselves as preachers and teachers working in a musical medium, the growing edge of the movement is explicitly taking its cues from Calvinist leaders. Several tracks have included direct references to (and even sermon clips from) John MacArthur, John Piper, C. J. Mahaney, and other pastors, and Curtis “Voice” Allen’s recent rap on the Westminster Catechism (with theologian D. A. Carson) went viral in March””as did his Heidelberg Catechism rap last October.

Is it the sound of Reformed resurgence?

While hip-hop has become a staple of young Reformed conferences, it’s not yet the dominant sound and it rarely appears in Reformed churches, said D. A. Carson. “I doubt that hip-hop with Reformed lyrics will ever become a primarily congregational corporate worship medium. It is a performance medium, and as such it is very useful for communicating with certain groups of people. . . . But that does not make it inappropriate for the more limited goals that it achieves quite strikingly at the moment.”

“The genre allows the rapper to cram loads of biblical and theological content in a single verse. I think we love hearing the Scripture “˜preached’ lyrically. Second, there is a “˜cool factor,’ which has helped bridge generational and cultural divides. But we can’t explain this without acknowledging the sovereign workings of God.” “” Thabiti Anyabwile, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman

“Reformed hip-hop is a theologically driven masculinity movement. It says no to the prom songs to Jesus in CCM, no to whiny emo Christian music for hipsters, and no to empty, shallow, individualistic Christian music lacking theological content produced out of Nashville.” “” Anthony Bradley, associate professor of theology and ethics at The King’s College and author of Liberating Black Theology

Many conservative Christians, and fundamentalists in particular, refuse to endorse rap music or hip-hop of any kind. They cannot think of the genre without its cultural associations with a sinful lifestyle. But conservative evangelical leaders see the value in this music and the movement under-girding it. John Piper has interviewed LeCrae personally, and Desiring God has produced a three part video interview of him as well. Desiring God partnered with LeCrae’s Reach Records for a Don’t Waste Your Life tour. Mark Driscoll has interviewed LeCrae too, and Mark Dever interviewed Voice and Shai Linne (see the video here).

I’ve highlighted this musical phenomenon before (here and here), and I encourage you to listen to the music before rejecting it out right. I have a CD by Timothy Brindle entitled Killing Sin, which is basically John Owen’s On the Mortification of Sin translated into a new medium. Shai Linne has a CD called The Atonement which explains in depth the intricacies of limited atonement, substitutionary atonement and more. The music requires a high degree of lyrical intricacy, poetry and a command of language, not to mention an artistic sense. The songs these men are producing are excellent and filled with God honoring lyrics. Check out Reach Records or Lampmode Recordings for audio samples and lyrics.

I pray the Reformed Rap movement will continue to pick up steam and influence the hearts and minds of many people for Christ.

Book Excerpt — Singing the Songs of Jesus: Revisiting the Psalms by Michael LeFebvre

~ Bob Hayton

I’m reading through a new Christian Focus book entitled Singing the Songs of Jesus: Revisiting the Psalms by Michael LeFebvre. In this book, the author explains why singing the Psalms was so precious to saints through all ages, prior to the rise of the 18th century hymnwriting movement. LeFebre succeeds in making the Psalms come alive and in equipping the modern church with tools for recovering the use of the Psalms.

I wanted to offer an excerpt which has captivated me. LeFebvre describes the difference between singing to Christ, and singing with Christ. He avers that when Christians sing the Psalms, we are singing with Christ in a unique way.

You can learn more about the book at Christianfocus.com, and in the next couple weeks, I’ve heard this book will be showcased at their new Christian Focus Booknotes blog, too.

Without further ado, I provide an extended book excerpt. For more, you’ll have to get the book!

In the Gospels, Jesus often took the Psalms to his lips as his own praises. He sang Psalm 41 as his own song: ‘My close friend in whom I trusted…has lifted his heel against me’ (Ps. 41:9/John 13:18). He sang Psalm 118, not as a common experience of God’s people but as his own experience as our true king: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’ (Ps. 118:22/Matt. 21:42). Jesus identified himself as the anointed king in psalm 110: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand.”‘ (Ps. 110:1/Mark 12:36). In these and other examples, Jesus frequently showed himself to be the Son of David by taking the Psalms of David to his lips as his own songs (e.g., Matt. 27:46/Ps. 22:1; Luke 23:46/Ps. 31:5; John 2:17/Ps. 69:9).

In fact here is Jesus’ own explanation about his relationship to the Psalms of David:

As Jesus taught in the temple, he said, ‘How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’ David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son (Mark 12:35-37, quoting Ps. 110:1)?

Jesus says that David wrote Psalms for a descendant who would be greater than himself — the coming Christ. In the Holy Spirit, David understood that his songs would ultimately be taken up by the Christ.

Peter makes a similar point in his sermon at Pentecost. Peter preached from a string of Old Testament texts, including several Psalms (Pss. 16, 89, 110, 132)…. According to Peter, David wrote the Psalms ‘knowing’ that God had promised the Christ would come from his line. And he wrote Psalm 16 ‘foreseeing’ the resurrection of Christ. The Psalms were born out of the experiences of David and his heirs, but David wrote with awareness of the coming Son of David who would ultimately take the Psalms to his lips as our perfect king and songleader.

From the beginning, the Psalms were composed for Jesus — as his songs. No wonder the New Testament church never set the Psalmbook aside. They took up the Psalms in great delight, singing in them with Jesus.

Let me offer a word picture to anchor this principle. Imagine that a friend of yours has invited you to a concert. A famous choir is in town, and your friend bought two tickets. As you slip into your seats in the concert hall, a one hundred voice choir lines the platform before you. And the music begins. The singing is superb. It could not be better. It is such a pleasant evening, you and your friend decide to return the next week for another concert.

The next week, you return to the hall and find the same choir singing again. This time, however, a world famous tenor is going to be on the platform with them. As you sit in the audience listening, you are entranced by the beauty of the soloist’s voice, surrounded majestically by the hundred-voice choir behind him. Perhaps you will come again another time to hear more.

What is the difference between these to, imagined performances? In the first, the audience is listening to the voices of a hundred singers. The song is the choir’s song. In the second performance, however, the audience is listening to the voice of one singer accompanied by a hundred others. But it is the one singer in front who stands under the spotlight. His song is being performed, and the rest join him in singing it.

In Christian worship, God is the audience of our singing. Many congregations today see themselves as that hundred-person choir singing to God. They imagine that they stand as a mass of worshipers, singing their songs of faith to him. That is the expectation behind modern hymns and praise songs. Modern hymns do not say, for example, ‘What a friend I, Joseph Scriven, have in Jesus.’ Hymnwriters compose songs for the congregation to sing as their song to God, with the song’s original author and his experience disappearing from view.

This is where the Psalms are radically different. The Psalms are composed for a use like the second performance imagined above. Our divinely appointed leader, King Jesus, leads our praise. Jesus sings his own songs in his own words (composed prophetically for him). They are his praises of the Father which he calls us, as his subjects, to join him in singing. Rather than disappearing from view, we are supposed to sing in conscious identification with Jesus as our Psalm leader, and with his experience of the cross and resurrection before us.

[emphasis added, from pg. 51-54]

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Christian Focus Publications. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

You can pick up a copy from Amazon.com, Monergism Books, or direct from Christian Focus.