music

Christmas Night of Worship

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It’s been a while since I attended a night of worship, but I think tonight qualifies as my first ever Christmas Night of Worship. There’s something powerful about declaring the might and majesty of God out loud with a multitude of other believers, especially in the season where we celebrate the arrival of Emmanuel who forever altered and changed the course of history.

There was a good mix of old and new with songs that were overtly Christmas-themed and songs that weren’t but felt very appropriate in the context of Christmas worship. It was the first but I believe not the last as I hope that this will be the new tradition at The Church at Avenue South going forward.

This is why gathering as believers is so vital. It’s one thing to praise God by yourself, but something almost miraculous happens when we stir each other in worship and community. Hearing all the other voices emboldened me to want to sing louder and more passionately.

I’m so thankful for such an amazing staff and worship ministry at my church. Not only to come up with the idea but to pull it off in the midst of a crazy and hectic December schedule blows my Baptist mind. I feel so blessed to call Ave South my church home.

I hope and pray that you belong to a community that doesn’t shy away from singing Scriptural worship music. I hope that you will be intentional this season about singing as loud as you can, whether you consider yourself a good singer or not. After all, the Bible tells us to make a joyful noise.

Being able to sing on key and in tempo is not a requirement to make a joyful noise. You don’t need a music degree or even any musical knowledge at all. All it takes is a heart full of gratitude and a reckless boldness to open your mouth and let your praises pour forth. The sweet aroma to God isn’t from the perfect pitch or the beautiful melodies but from hearts so captivated by grace that they can’t help but sing.

Spinning the Christmas Spirit

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For those who keep up with these blog posts of mine, you know my new favorite hobby is spinning vinyl. In non-hipster lingo, that means playing records. Now that we’re in Advent season, I love being able to drop the needle on a Christmas LP and let it take me away.

I have a mix of old and new, standard and obscure, secular and sacred. It’s the soundtrack for the season. So many of these songs take me back to my earliest memories of when I was little and hearing them for the first time. Suddenly, I can see some of the faces that had faded from my memory. I remember names I’d forgotten and miss those whom I loved who aren’t here anymore.

I love how even the most secular of artists will include a sacred selection or two. After all, it’s impossible to have Christmas without the Christ-child smack dab in the center of it all. I get that the season has been secularized and commercialized into insanity, but the music always seems to bring me back to the true meaning of what Christmas is all about.

I’m sure one of the reasons so many love music is that music originated in heaven and will be one of the first things to greet the new arrivals in heaven the moment they slip into eternity. Music is the language of heaven, so any music, no matter how far removed from its sacred origins, is a shadow and a reminder of what’s to come. I believe the best of the music here will be among the songs we’ll hear and sing around the throne of God.

So I’ll be spinning those Christmas records from now through Christmas until at least the Epiphany on January 6. Maybe even beyond if I don’t get tired of them by then. And I’ll be loving every minute of it.

Wise Words from Rich Mullins

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Rich Mullins would have turned 70 today. Instead, we remember him and celebrate his legacy 28 years after his untimely passing in 1997. I sometimes wonder how much more great music he could have produced had he lived longer, but I’m thankful for the catalog of great albums and songs he left behind. Songs like Awesome God and Sometimes by Step are still sung in churches and youth groups and retreats all over the world.

I ran across something Rich wrote that was an interesting take on happiness. He definitely marched to the beat of his own drummer and didn’t conform to anyone else’s idea of normal, but I suppose that is what makes his music so memorable and lasting. Here’s what he wrote:

“1. Forget about finding happiness. Happiness is not worthy of your search.

2. Bake a cake – a really rich cake, preferably from scratch and especially if you are an inexperienced baker or a tested, tried, & notoriously awful cook. The value is in the baking more than in the cake.

3. Call up some enemy of yours and invite that enemy to eat the cake with you. If the cake is good you may lose an enemy and gain a friend. If the cake is bad, at least vengeance is sweet.

4. If you can’t think of a single enemy, then call up a friend. Invite your friend over to eat the cake with you. If the cake is good the favor may be returned. If the cake is awful your friend may go buy one from a bakery for you. If you are without any enemies or friends, take your cake to an old folks’ home. Eat it with them! If the cake is good you will no longer be without friends. If the cake is terrible you will no longer be without enemies.

Finding a friend, making an enemy – now those are things worth pursuing. Happiness may come tagged on – but even if it doesn’t, at least you will have done something and established some relationships.

5. Memorize Isaiah 40 or the first Psalm or Psalm 91. Read the closing chapters of the Book of Job. Meditate on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). Write out one of the Prison Epistles (Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Collosians) and send them to some other unhappy person.

All of this may not make you happy but it will tell you how to be holy. Once you tie that knot you may find yourself in a position to be made happy.

6. Work hard. Clean something. Find new and more space-efficient ways of folding your clothes. Rake someone else’s yard for them. If you are unhappy maybe you can help someone else be less so.

7. Go back to the third chapter of Lamentations and then repeat after me:

“It is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear
The yoke while he is young.
Let him sit alone in silence
For the Lord has laid it on him.”

8. Reread the 23rd Psalm and remember that if the Lord is your shepherd, then you are in a lush pasture. You are by a still stream. If it seems otherwise to you, it may be because you would rather be happy than be God’s. If this is so, then you have more reason to be happy than anyone. God has chosen you – ungrateful, decadent you – and being His is a joy and a happiness that goes beyond anything else you may seek, and in your folly settle for. God will (in His mercy) make you discontent with anything less than Him.

So we have only one step left…

9. Rejoice.”

My Favorite Ending

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“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle).

That’s what I think heaven will be like. It won’t be the same old same old. It will keep getting better. We won’t just sing the same old songs about God. I believe that there’s so much to learn about an infinite God that we will still be learning new attributes to His character and singing new songs throughout eternity.

Sometimes I envy those who have gone to glory because their faith has now been made sight. They behold with their eyes what they had prayed about and sang about and wrote about and longed for with all their might. I know for me it’s just up the road and around the bend a bit. Whatever happens from here, heaven will be so amazing that whatever I go through to get there will have been worth it.

And Jesus will be there. As much as I long to see those I love who have gone before me, none comes close to the longing in my heart to behold my Savior face to face and hopefully hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Vintage CCM Vinyl

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I wrote a year and a half ago about how I love collecting all the old CCM (that’s Contemporary Christan Music for the uninitated) vinyl, especially from the 70s and 80s. It seems almost sacrilegious that in Nashville of all places these records could be so criminally undervalued and underappreciated. I mean, Nashville is supposed to be the center of the Bible belt in the United States of America.

But that’s where we are. Most people even the churches around Nashville, have no knowledge or appreciation for the history of Christian music. Most have no idea that it even exists. But for those select few who know and grew up around it, their childhoods were awesome.

I still love going to record stores and thrift stores around town to hunt for vintage CCM. There’s nothing more fulfilling than flipping through the bargain bins and pulling out one or two classic Christian artists from back in the day.

Better yet, when I drop the needle and some of those great songs hit me from the speakers, I am instantly back in time to when I first heard them. I can vividly remember what I was thinking and feeling at the time. I can usually remember all or most of the words.

I consider myself a child of the 80s because that’s when I really discovered music. I heard a lot of CCM music from my church youth group days and with much thanks to my youth pastors who went out of their way to introduce me to a better faith-based alternative to the music of the day (most of which seems tame compared to music these days).

I remember the kids I knew used to say their first concerts were to artists like U2 or Motley Crue or Ozzy Osbourne. My first ever concert was Sandi Patty. I know, I know, there goes my street cred, but there it is. That was my music growing up. I distanced myself from it for a bit, but I’ve come full circle again to loving the music that taught me so much about God and the Christian life. So much of my theology is from those songs.

I’m thankful for the music that made me who I am. I love how even though some of the artists aren’t in music anymore and some have even passed away, their music still lives on and still speaks a better word. May that be our legacy as well.

Worship Music

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Back in the day, the debate was whether to use hymns or praise choruses in church. Lately, a lot of churches have decided that it doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition. You can do both.

As a child of the 80s and 90s, I have a nostalgic love for all the old praise choruses, but lately, I seem to be drawn back to hymns. I really love when you can take a hymn and give it a little more modern arrangement. That really makes the powerful words stand out even more.

I will say that if you pay attention to the rhyme scheme of the old hymns, they were always dead on. Every line rhymed exactly. Praise choruses? Not so much, but at least it was close most of the time. With the later modern worship music, not so much.

I really like some of the new songs, but I have to confess that some of the rhymes are really forced and don’t really rhyme at all. But that’s probably me being a little OCD. Besides, that’s not really the point of a worship song.

C. S. Lewis said that a good worship service is one where you were so focused on God that you don’t remember the sermon or the songs as much as you know that God was there. I’d add that a true worshipper knows that worship is more than just singing songs. He or she can truly sing from a heart of gratitude and praise, regardless of whether the song is an ancient hymn or a recent worship song because what matters isn’t the style or the arrangements but the God we’re singing about.

Maybe next Sunday will be another 90s throwback worship set. Maybe it will be all hymns. Or maybe it will be a blend of new and old. Regardless, I want my eyes to be on Jesus, not the setlist. That’s what truly matters, after all.

Keith’s Legacy

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It’s hard to believe that Keith Green went home to be with the Lord 43 years ago today. What amazes and saddens me even more was that he was only 28 years old at the time. He was able to accomplish so much and leave behind a legacy of music and ministry in such a short amount of time.

I think Keith would be grieved at the current state of the American Church. He’d see that so many people and churches that profess to follow Jesus now teach a kind of universalist message that the Apostle Paul would call another gospel. So many have surrendered their core beliefs for the illusion of fitting in and conforming to the culture. Sadly, even entire denominations have gone away from true faith.

I don’t think for one moment that Keith Green was perfect. He himself would admit as much. However, he did more to call people to repentance and faith in Jesus than just about anyone else. He begged and pleased for people to get right with the Lord. He also begged and pleaded for lukewarm churches to recover their first love and not be asleep in the light when so many outside their stained glass windows are perishing without Christ and without hope.

But I believe as always that there is a remnant that is faithful. As in the early Church and all throughout history, there has been a small core of true believers who have kept the gospel message alive even when it was unpopular or even deadly to do so. People all around the world are holding on to the message of Christ in the face of persecution and martyrdom. I think Keith would be so proud of them.

I love that I have all of his albums but one. I can put them on my turntable and drop the needle and instantly Keith, yet though he were dead, still speaks. His message and the message of all who have come after remains just as true and timely now as it was back in 1982 and down through all the centuries before that.

May we hold true to the Apostles Creed and the Gospel, and may all who come behind us find us to have been faithful.

Tried and Trusted Old Words

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As I get older, the more I appreciate the old hymns. I get that some may have trouble getting past some of the archaic language with all the thees and thous floating about. But there’s some sound theology in those stanzas that has brought comfort to so many down through the decades.

One that I discovered not that long ago is a hymn that I probably have never sung in any church, but the words are powerful. This speaks to all those who are in a dark night of the soul or going through a difficult season:

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His holy will abideth;
I will be still whate’er He doth;
And follow where He guideth;
He is my God; though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me by the proper path:
I know He will not leave me.
I take, content, what He hath sent;
His hand can turn my griefs away,
And patiently I wait His day.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His loving thought attends me;
No poison can be in the cup
That my Physician sends me.
My God is true; each morn anew
I’ll trust His grace unending,
My life to Him commending.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He is my Friend and Father;
He suffers naught to do me harm,
Though many storms may gather,
Now I may know both joy and woe,
Some day I shall see clearly
That He hath loved me dearly.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Though now this cup, in drinking,
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it, all unshrinking.
My God is true; each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
And pain and sorrow shall depart.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to Him I leave it all” (Author: Samuel Rodigast (1675); Translator: Catherine Winkworth (1863).

The Joy of the Hunt

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I love a good afternoon spent thumbing through stack of vinyl. There’s just something about the joy of the unexpected, never knowing what you’ll find. Of course, I love finding those rare, hard to find, collectible records. But for me, finding LPs that take me back to my childhood are just as valuable.

I call my record player a turntable time machine, because music is the closest to being able actually to travel back in time to the year the album was created. So many dormant memories can reawaken upon the dropping of the record needle and the first notes of the first song on the first side.

If you didn’t grow up in the 70s, you may not be aware of a band called Candle that did a lot of Christian music for kids. The one I know best and love most is Music Machine, a sort of musical adventure through the fruits of the Holy Spirit. It’s good music for kids because it’s music that anyone can listen to, young or old.

Music that’s meant for only kids, just like books and television shows or anything else, usually aren’t good books. I think C. S. Lewis said that. I should be able to revisit a childhood favorite and still be engaged by it if it’s any good.

But for me, the best treasures are often the ones I find in the bargain bins or sometimes even in the free bins. So much of my collection is definitely in the $10 and under category. I think that’s because what determines value most isn’t always money. The price tag doesn’t automatically equate to worth or importance. And that goes for so many other things outside of music and records.

So the hunt will continue for me for a while. I hope you will share your own unique and interesting finds by posting in the comments. Happy listening!

Reason to Sing

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As you may or may not be aware, I have music perpetually playing in my head all the time. I mean All. The. Time. Like from the moment I wake up until the moment I finally fall asleep. Every now and then, I have a random song that I haven’t heard in a while that sneaks into my mental playlist. Or sometimes I think God puts a song in my mind that speaks above the volume of everything else.

One song, Reason to Sing, is from the group All Sons and Daughters. The confessional lyrics are raw and honest in a way that most current worship music is not. I believe it’s from 2013, so it’s not ancient or really all that old, but the lyrics speak a timeless truth to all those feel like lives shattered on the floor. I hope it will speak to you as it has spoken to me over the years:

“When the pieces seem too shattered
To gather off the floor
And all that seems to matter
Is that I don’t feel You anymore
No I don’t feel You anymore

I need a reason to sing
I need a reason to sing
I need to know that You’re still holding
The whole world in Your hands
I need a reason to sing

When I’m overcome by fear
And I hate everything I know
If this waiting lasts forever
I’m afraid I might let go
I’m afraid I might let go oh

Will there be a victory?
Will You sing it over me now?
Your peace is the melody
With You sing it over me now?

I need a reason to sing
I need a reason to sing
I need to know that You’re still holding
The whole world in Your hands
That is a reason to sing

I will sing, sing, sing to my God my King, ‘fore all else fades away;                                       
I will love, love, love with this heart in me, for You’ve been good always” (Leslie Jordan, David Leonard, Alli Rogers © 2011 Integrity’s Praise! Music/BMI and Integrity’s Alleluia! Music/SESAC (both adm at EMICMGPublishing.com), and Simple Tense Songs/ASCAP CCLI # 6092351).