Top 20 Challenge

Greetings, fearless blogophiles. I need your help. The task is simple: to come up with 20 easy-to-sing, guitar-friendly songs for a church plant which is just establishing a music ministry.

But, as with all good reality TV, THERE'S JUST ONE CATCH!

You have to have some stuff in there that people who may or may not have been around in Pentecostal churches up to 20 or so years ago might know. This makes it a little trickier...

Here is my list, but I'm really struggling on good old Pentecostal-friendly stuff. I need your help - please comment!

Servant King

The Heavens shall declare

Amazing love

There is a Redeemer

Consider Christ

Highest Place

Never Alone

Hallelujah to the King of Kings

Let your Kingdom come

In Christ Alone

Jesus, your blood and righteousness

May the mind

How deep the father’s love

My Hope is built

In His Image

Amazing Grace

Be thou my vision

Before the throne of God above

Rock of ages

When I survey

Rule #9: People are unlike robots

'These aren't like Daft Punk. We wanted ones like Daft Punk...' Image from here

Perhaps in the distant future, the distant future - but not now.

So we can't expect people to instantly shift into singing mode. If part of what music does is give articulation and expression to an emotional response to God, we probably need to pay closer attention to music as:

1. Emotional

and

2. Responsive

1. Music seeks to elicit and give expression to our whole-personed (including emotions) response to God as he is revealed in his word. But when I first walk into church, whatever emotions I am experiencing probably have more to do with the fight I just had in the car on the way to church, or my concern about whatever has been happening all week, than they have to do with what God has done for me in Christ. Either that, or I'm just in 'getting stuff done' mode - I have been rushing to get the kids in the car, get to church, find a park, etc. etc. I need a little time to unwind and refocus.

I think this is why singing a few songs in a row is a good idea - people are just like that. Music in church isn't the same as a gig, but people are people everywhere. And if you go to a gig, the band isn't expecting people to be going crazy and loving it during the first couple of songs. They take a few songs to warm people up. We should think about doing something similar. (You might like to check out this post on Sydney Anglicans to a similar effect)

2. Music is responsive. It's not just a way to get everyone to come and sit down because the service is starting now! It's how we corporately respond to what God tells us about what he has done for us. I reckon this means we need something to respond to before we can sing - we need a testimony of God's faithfulness: someone's personal testimony of God's grace to them during the week, a passage of Scripture, etc. Otherwise while we are singing I am just expected to kind of mentally recall all that stuff and respond to whatever I can dredge up - if I can even be bothered. In real life, I reckon what most often happens is I stand there singing the first song, thinking about something else. Give me something to respond to when I'm singing.

People aren't robots. We don't instantly shift mode. We need both motivation and time to switch into a mode where we will be able to sing in a whole-person kind of way to God and one another.

PS - sorry about the long silence, I'll try to keep the momentum up a little better...

For the lulz?

Image from Bosta, via flickr

It's incredible what you can get people to sing if you just bung it in a hymn.

At St. Dorcas' the other day no-one blinked an eyelid as we sung about the Ancient of Days, who is apparently 'pavilioned in splendour and girded in praise'. And here I didn't even know it was possible to 'pavilion' something. Come to think of it, I could even have been pavilioned unawares for some time, to the mirth of those around me. How embarrassing! Not to mention that in the same song 'angels delight to hymn thee above'. It seems that just about anything goes if you're 'hymn-ing' God.

Maybe all this is a big joke at our expense - somewhere out there is a secret society of Christian songwriters giving each other little challenges.

'I bet you can't get them to sing the word "ineffably".'

'I bet I can...'

Re:Sound

Here is a link to the new Mars Hill, Seattle music site.

These guys are really creative and cool. This is the best church music I've ever heard.

There's not heaps up yet, but why not head over there and check it out?

Also, search for 'Mars Hill Church: Music' in the iTunes podcast directory - heaps more great stuff available there.

Rule #8: Songs are unlike Venetian biscuits

You can never have too many Venetians. The ultimate Nanna biscuit, created by the LORD to perfectly complement a nice cup of tea. Some say they are the only element of the Creation which remains unaffected by the Fall. As long as there is tea, the prospect of 'one more' will be undeniable.

But songs aren't really like that. You can have too many. A bloated song list will make it harder for both musicians and congregation to get familiar with songs. For the musos playing something for the first time in 6 months will be like playing it for the first time, for the congregation a new member might still be having the uncomfortable 'I've never heard this song in my life' experience 6 months after they join. Not ideal.

Cutting your list can:

1. Give you a great opportunity to cut the rubbish

2. Remove the unwanted side effects mentioned above (increasing the standard of music and the accessibility of your music to newcomers)

3. Make the prospect of getting a music ministry off the ground (if you're church planting or just singing along to CDs at the moment) realistic

If you have a list of 40 songs, and sing 4 songs on a Sunday, you can still go for a whole term without repeating a song once.

So you're planting a church on a desert island (or something). You can only take 40 songs with you. What will it be?

Why not post a comment with what you reckon should make the cut for the top 40. Feel free to attack other people's choices, and I'll post up a list once all the blood has dried.

Rule #7: 'Worthy' needs a predicate!

Worthy of what?

You can't just be 'worthy' in general!

It doesn't mean anything!

It's like saying, 'I'm about to.'

'About to do what?'

'Nothing, just about to.'

I get it, it's some kind of shorthand for Rev. 4. But God is worthy of things in particular - he is worthy to receive glory and honour and power.

Perhaps also worthy of better grammar...?

Irritable nerd out.

Song Review: Consider Christ

Consider Christ, the source of our salvation

That he should take the penalty for me

Though he was pure, a lamb without a blemish

He drank the cup that was reserved for me

My Lord and God, you are so rich in mercy

Mere words alone are not sufficient thanks

So take my life: transform, renew and change me,

That I might be a living sacrifice

Consider Christ, that he could trust his Father

In the garden of Gethsemane

Though full of dread, and fearful of the anguish

He drank the cup that was reserved for me

Consider Christ, for death he has defeated

And he arose, appeared for all to see

And now he sits at God's right hand in heaven

Where he prepares a resting place for me

I originally didn't think much of this song. Tenuous rhyming, wandery melody, the true-but-'how did these words ever get into a song?'-inducing line 'Mere words alone are not sufficient thanks'. But the more I think about it, the more I like it.

The way I see it, songs can be to God or about him. The former is vertical: a corporate prayer to God, the latter is horizontal: the group encouraging one another with truths about God.

Consider Christ has got them both. In the verses address the congregation addresses itself. 'Consider' is an imperative directed to those around me. What we urge each other to consider is the objective work of Christ - his atoning sacrifice, his perfect trust, his resurrection and present heavenly rule. We aren't driven by subjective 'Jesus, you're exactly what I'm looking for' kind of concerns. This is Jesus, doing his own thing, and we just look in wonder.

But brilliantly, this is saved from being an abstract exercise in theology by considering Christ's objective work at exactly the point it affects me. The final word in each verse is 'me'. The believer is encouraged to reflect on the fact that Christ's atoning sacrifice deals with my sin, his faithfulness is for my benefit, his heavenly rule is exercised for my good as he prepares my place with him and God. There is a perfect balance between letting the concerns of the gospel set the agenda (what Christ has done for me, not how he meets my felt needs) and picking up the point at which, by faith, that work of Christ benefits me (not just what Christ has done over there somewhere, but how that relates to the believer right now).

Then the chorus is a prayer to God in response to the objective work of Christ (which by faith becomes my subjective reality). There is praise and thankfulness, but a recognition that not only our words but our lives must be affected by what Jesus has done for us. However, the song doesn't imagine that we have the power to change - rather, we ask God that he would change us by his power so that we become living death - our every act of living is an act of dying to self for the sake of living to God.

Our encouragement to one another to remember what Christ has done for us seamlessly becomes a prayer together to God, asking him that the reality of Christ's work would do what it is supposed to - change our lives. Beautiful.

Having said that, I reckon that this song is going to need a tune re-write pretty soon if it's going to kick on (and I think that it should kick on - it deserves to become a classic). So, who's up for it?