Archives for category: worship

Of Worship And In Rainbows

November 28, 2007 //

Radiohead released their new album, In Rainbows, on October 10, 2007 amidst massive hype — not only because they are “the best band in the world” or that In Rainbows is an incredible album, but because the band chose to bypass traditional music outlets — both brick & mortar and online (even the mighty iTunes) — and release the album themselves direct via their website. And, nearly causing heads to explode at the executive offices of major labels worldwide, Radiohead has allowed fans to choose their own price/adventure for downloading this album.

If you want to download the album for free, turn to this page.
If you want to do the equivalent of making a two-foot hoagie out of cash and eating it, then turn to this page.

While there has been plenty of hyperbole about the imminent destruction of the recording industry as we know it (and some grousing about the “poor” audio quality of the download — more on this later), I wonder if what Radiohead has done doesn’t have implications for the church as it relates to worship music.

Perhaps that last statement needs some unpacking. In my experience in ministry with youth and young adults, I find that very few people have questioned whether or not it is ethical to download pirated songs from peer to peer file sharing networks — it’s just the way things are so get over it already, old man. In fact, I have often encountered indignation when raising the possible ethical concerns of such practices, especially when it comes to praise & worship music. One particularly outraged student told me, “Why shouldn’t I get these songs for free? It’s all to praise God, isn’t it?”

Certainly, there are some glaring problems in the contemporary Christian music industry, not the least of which is the the $18.99 or more one can often expect to pay for a worship CD at the local Christian bookstore. However, I remain unconvinced that piracy is the solution. But perhaps this is where the In Rainbows pay-what-you-want model has something to say…

I am very sympathetic to the plight of musicians, having had many friends struggle to make it as indie artists. Even musicians with good buzz who have released a few albums often need to hold down “real” jobs in order to pay the bills. I am a big believer in supporting great music and the people who create and perform it, which is why the whole piracy thing rubs me the wrong way. I could see how it would be burdensome for indie artists to try this, but wouldn’t it be something if some of worship music’s heavy hitters — the Tomlins, Crowders and Deliriouses — “resourced” the church by releasing an album (or even just an EP or single) directly to individuals and allowed them to pay what they felt was right?

In the end, perhaps part of what I’m feeling is the importance of personal connection. That’s what I loved about the DIY culture of indie rock from back in the day — during my recent trip back to Michigan I discovered a handmade zine that I had picked up at a show during college. The cover is made of sandpaper, and it was handstamped with the zine’s title, “Mine.” Immediate, direct, passionate — something is lost when we follow the big box worship model mediated by huge corporations with little or no vested interest in our communities other than shaking us down for cash.

Jonah Matranga has been using a sliding-scale payment model for awhile on his webstore. In true DIY fashion, Jonah fulfills all of the orders himself (and, usually, includes fun freebies as well!). His reason for doing so, in his own words:

For a long time, I’ve made it a point to have a personally-run webstore that makes it as direct as possible between us. I maintain it and send out all the orders myself, with occasional help when I’m drowning. Now that we’re in download-land, the infrastructure is finally really there on every level for an artist that wants to do their own grunt work to get the music out there, in a way that works for the people that like the art and want to buy it… It’s sad for me to see different middle-men entities coming in and taking money (and therefore raising prices) for not doing much but being a musical equivalent to Starbucks or Wal-Mart or McDonald’s; global familiarity over individual culture. So I’m trying to keep up with tech and make it work in fun ways… the rewards of direct contact outweigh any potential downsides for me, and hopefully for you as well.

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For your cost-free viewing enjoyment: Radiohead covering The Smiths (!) and Jonah’s video for “Not About A Girl Or A Place” (who knew an incredible indie-pop song would go so well with zombies?):

Categories controversy, design, indie, ministry, music, postmodern, reviews, worship

A Glorious Noise

November 5, 2007 //

Last Friday, our family went to see Architecture in Helsinki perform live at the House of Blues here in San Diego. The House of Blues has a “pass the line” policy, where concertgoers can be the first in line if they dine at the HoB restaurant. Because we wanted to make sure to get seats in the balcony, we ended up having dinner there before the show (which, it turns out, was pretty good). After dinner, we jumped the line and sat front row, center in the balcony.

Unfortunately, the first two acts were a serious letdown. Panther, which is essentially just one person, a delay pedal and a bunch of blips & bloops, was kind of fun for the first two songs. I think his music is more interesting in recorded form, as seen in this video clip for You Don’t Want Yr Nails Done. At least he brought along a live drummer. Glass Candy, on the other hand, was just a boy cranking out pseudo Kool & The Gang riffs on a half-size synth and a girl aerobacising and vocalizing in between the overly plentiful stage banter.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to indie kids discovering the dance floor. I mean, look at Matt and Kim. Some criticize them for being too precious, but it’s hard to deny their enthusiasm and joy. Check out their video for Yea Yeah and see if it doesn’t brighten up your day:

Our family loves all manner of live music, but even our daughter turned to me at one point during the Glass Candy set, frowned and shrugged. All I could do was shrug back. Things turned around quickly, however, as soon as Architecture in Helsinki took the stage.

From the get-go, they brought a level of raucous joy and excellent musicianship that basically turned a bunch of motionless indie kids into Dance Party USA. Listeners are helpless to do anything except smile and dance. Our little one was a total trooper, staying awake as late as she could. She stayed long enough to hear her favorite song, Like It Or Not (or, as she calls it, “The Trumpet Song”) — a hopped-up conga-line singalong extravaganza, before we had to call it a night.

Just to pick up a thought I had started before, I really, really wish I could experience this kind of joy and freedom in our church music. Seriously, when was the last time a worship band caused you to spontaneously smile and start dancing? Architecture in Helsinki definitely has that DIY, everyone’s invited kind of indie vibe, but they are not sloppy in their execution — for being basically an ensemble band, they are extremely tight. And, because they are so good at what they do, they are free to enjoy the music and draw others into it. A nice template for our worship bands, no?

These days, it seems like a band’s image is as important as the music they create. So, it is refreshing to see a bunch of normal looking people, not particularly dressed up get up onstage and rock the set. It worries me when, on all of my worship discs, every person has radiant skin, straight teeth and perfect hair — I’m not trying to take away anything from these artists, but simply hoping that our communities are open to all kinds of people, onstage or otherwise.

As the psalmist says, “Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious.”

Categories church, communication, community, emerging church, faith, family, hooray!, indie, music, reviews, worship

NYWC 1: Freebies, Guitar Hero And War-Torn Nations

October 19, 2007 //

I joined the National Youth Workers Convention last night after a full day at church. While having the convention in town means I get to sleep in my own bed, it also means that I’ll be running back & forth from church and and a few other things. So, apologies for a somewhat less-than comprehensive look at NYWC.

A little while back, I had visited the Children’s Pastors’ Conference at the same location (the Town & Country) because my wife was attending. It was at the same location, but right off the bat I could tell that NYWC was going to be different. I’m guessing it was the giant screen Guitar Hero battles being waged in the ballroom hosting the YS store. While I was getting my convention bag, I was wondering why I kept hearing Rage Against The Machine.

Speaking of the bags, YS has done something really incredible. The convention bags come from a company called Freeset, who are “in business for freedom.” Each bag tells this story of freedom in North Calcutta. For 6,000 women, poverty no longer dictates that in order to provide for their children they have no other option but to sell their bodies in prostitution. Now, because they are paid fair wages and work decent hours through Freeset, they can break free from the cycle of degradation and poverty. As their site says, “Freedom has been passed on to the next generation.”

* * * * *

As I wandered through the massive exhibit hall, I tried to find the fine balance between looking at each booth long enough to figure out if I was interested not looking long enough to make eye contact with the people there in case I wasn’t interested. But, like a good youth pastor, I do love the freebies — and this exhibit hall is a treasure trove of freebies! I gathered a nice water bottle, two t-shirts, a couple of pens, several devotional books and magazines and even a DVD in my first day of hunting-gathering. I’m also entered in several drawings to win an iPod.

An aside: The only time I’ve ever won anything in a contest was in high school. I was listening to the local alternative radio station when a contest in which the tenth caller would win an awesome prize would win. Eagerly, I called into the station. I was surprised when I dialed the phone number and I heard ringing rather than a busy tone, even more surprised when someone answered. Breathless, I asked whether I was the tenth caller. Confused, the DJ asked to which contest I was referring. I explained what I had heard and we put two and two together and realized that I had been listening to a program I had taped (perhaps a primitive form of podcasting?). The DJ got such a kick out of the mixup that, although the original prize had long been claimed, he offered me an alternate prize — an Anthrax VHS cassette. Embarrassment won the day, though, and I never went in to pick up my winnings.

* * * * *

I had a great conversation with the good people at the Invisible Children booth. Invisible Children began when three college students filmed a documentary giving a glimpse into the horror of the twenty-year Ugandan war, in which children live daily in the real fear of being abducted and forced to fight and kill as part of these warring armies. You can see an Invisible Children clip online here.

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The late evening Worship Together concert featured Matt Maher and Michael Gugnor. While I have seen their names around, I haven’t really had a chance to listen to either one of them. [edit] ~~It seems that Matt Maher’s big hit is his version of Tomlin’s “Your Grace Is Enough.”~~ Matt is best-known for the song he co-wrote with Chris Tomlin, “Your Grace Is Enough”

Before Marko pointed out that Matt was actually the co-author of “Your Grace” and not just someone re-doing the song, I was thinking about the American worship industry’s strange fascination with making big hits out of cover versions of current praise songs — particularly when there is not much substantively different between the versions. Blessed Be Your Name, Here I Am To Worship, Beautiful One and Hang On To You immediately come to mind as recent examples.

The fact that I did not feel a connection with Matt’s songs does not reflect on the level of his performance or execution. His songs are great and he has a nice, clear voice. Rather, I think my heart has been moving in different directions when it comes to worshiping through music. While Matt was leading, I tried to reflect on what songs I do help me worship God. My mind wandered over to Sufjan Stevens’ rendition of the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

So, it was with great pleasure that I received Michael Gugnor Band’s first song which was, of course, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It was nothing like Sufjan’s pared down, intimate take; no, this take featured drum loops, soaring guitars and sweeping synth lines. They took to the stage with passion, and were greeted with folded arms and what appeared to be mostly scowls. I think the youth pastor crowd is pretty tough. In fact, after their concert, I told the band how much I enjoyed their set — but what I really wanted to say was, “Tough crowd, eh?”

But they certainly won me over. I love the fact that they seem to genuinely enjoy playing, and they wore their hearts on their sleeves in worshiping God. On their most recent CD, which I picked up at the merch table afterwards, the track “Fly” features what I imagine must be the only banjo solo meets Queen-referencing harmonized guitar solo in the worship industry. It didn’t hurt their appeal to me that their t-shirt I purchased doesn’t even say their name. It simply reads, “God is green” — incorporating a tree and recycling symbol. Gotta love a worship band that promotes stewardship of the earth!

Categories asian american, church, design, faith, music, worship, youth ministry

Remedy Drops, Asians Rejoice!

October 3, 2007 //

A note of disclosure: I am a big fan of David Crowder’s work. My wife and I once took a couple of college students and drove two and half hours from northern Jersey into the wilderness of Long Island to attend one of his concerts. Like many others, I was thoroughly impressed with their last release A Collision — for its epic scope, indie rock ramblings (and extra long titles!) and for the circumstances under which the album was released (the album as a response to death, just as the band lost their close friend and pastor Kyle Lake).

The highly anticipated follow-up to A Collision (if we skip over B Collision, the ’06 EP of B-sides and other miscellany), Remedy, was released on September 25th. Though I understand the sentiment behind CCM Patrol’s review of Remedy — and I definitely appreciate their honesty (and, often, bluntness) in reviewing much of the music that is released in the Christian market — I was certainly not disappointed with this album.

Reviews are highly subjective. In fact, part of the fun of reading reviews is vehemently disagreeing with them (and later grumbling about what a bunch of cultural Philistines those reviewers are). As Marko wrote in his review of Remedy, when I listen to this album, I picture myself singing this in company of those who love the King (to borrow a Crowder phrase). One of my most powerful times of worship in the context of singing along with other people happened several years back at one of the Thirsty conferences. DC*B was leading their version of Thank You for Hearing Me, and right at the moment in which the distorted guitar kicks in (if you’ve heard the song, you’ll know what I’m talking about), thousands of earnest worshipers lifted their hands in unison. So, you will not read an impartial, detached, “pure” review of the album from me — it is virtually impossible for me to separate the experience of listening to the album from the experience of being there.

One interesting phenomenon surrounding DC*B is their popularity among Asian American youth — Korean American kids, in particular. As Andrew Beaujon writes in his book Body Piercing Saved My Life (which I also recommend), “…for some reason its members don’t fully understand, the David Crowder Band is huge among Korean Americans. They were due to play a large Korean church in New York City a few nights later and had recently played for a mostly Korean crowd of eleven thousand in Los Angeles.”

I actually had a short email correspondence with Crowder, which included a brief discussion of their popularity with Asian American kids. DC*B puts on a high energy show with lots of goofy fun. I was at their concert in LA that Body Piercing mentions, and one of the highlights of the evening was when Crowder broke out his shiny red keytar and challenged the crowd to make a louder noise than the Neil Diamond concert in town. You have to love a worship leader than gets all up in Neil Diamond’s grill. In all seriousness, though, I believe it is precisely this goofiness, freedom and spontaneity that appeals to Asian American youth. At home, for so many Asian American teens, their value is in direct proportion to their performance. There is very little room to make mistakes — after all, Johnny Kim down the street plays first-chair violin, is president of his youth group, and won a governor’s award for academic excellence — and he does everything his mother tells him to do, and he’s waltzing into Harvard a year early… on a full scholarship, no doubt.

So, when Crowder urges these kids to whistle along and get a little undignified as they connect with our God who loves them just as they are, something deep within them responds. Remedy therefore is an appropriate metaphor for our community as well — despite the veneer of perfection and achievement, we are an awful mess on the inside. For too many of us, the internal pressure builds up until it explodes in rage, binge drinking, or worse. What a sight it is when captives are genuinely freed in the presence of the King!

Remedy is definitely simpler in approach than A Collision — no rock operas or postmodern parenthetical asides on this album. However, Crowder continues to write simple lyrics that are deceptive in their depth. Take this beautiful line from their reworking of O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, “There are so few words that never grow old… Jesus.” Or these words, from the title track:

Oh, I can’t comprehend / I can’t take it all in

Never understand / Such perfect love come

For the broken and beat / For the wounded and weak

Oh, come fall at His feet / He’s the remedy

Plus, how can you deny a worship album that features a track with the Nuge himself melting faces with his song-length solo in the background?

Categories asian american, church, hooray!, music, reviews, second-generation, worship, youth ministry

The Boyfriend’s Back (And You’re Gonna Be In Trouble)

September 20, 2007 //

Although I am inclined to listen in on conversations about worship and music anyways, lately I have noticed quite a few people weighing in on this issue. There seems to be a growing dissatisfaction with the state of modern worship music. In particular, many have taken the infamous Jesus Is My Boyfriend genre to task. John Stackhouse, a professor from Regent College in Vancouver, Canada, weighs in decisively in his post Jesus, I’m NOT in Love with You. Albert Hsu, author of The Suburban Christian, shares his insights in Pitfalls of Romanticizing Worship.

While Stackhouse’s post is a bit of a polemic (more on that at the end), both he and Hsu point to the underlying problem of emphasizing the individual over the community in expressing our worship and love for God. Stackhouse shares this insight:

But the New Testament never calls Christians Jesus’ fiancées or his brides. Instead, it is the Church collectively, and only the Church as a whole, that relates to Jesus this way–just as individual Israelites did not relate to Yhwh as so many spouses, but only the nation of Israel as nation was his beloved bride

However, it was Albert’s post that spoke most powerfully to me. His nuanced historical perspective on individualism and romanticism, along with his biblical insight, provided quite a bit about which to think. In many ways, individualism/romanticism is the cultural air we breathe. We are born into it, and sometimes it takes a voice calling out in the wilderness to wake us up. As Hsu writes:

Culturally, I think that when we Christianize romantic motifs in our worship, we often merely substitute one idolatry for another, rather than challenging the very validity of romantic love as a controlling narrative in our culture.

To borrow a phrase from Brian McLaren, we must stop and consider what story we find ourselves in. This is an essential question: What narrative controls us? Is it the story that says even if you were the only person on earth, Jesus still would have died for you? While I think I understand the heart of this well-worn story, it is firmly rooted in the individualism and romanticism that Albert describes in his post. And, if Jesus pretty much exists for my personal happiness, what are the consequences for our worship together? From my experience, this ends up being a room full of people (whether it is ten or ten thousand) who are singing the same song but, despite being completely lost in love with Jesus, are completely disconnected from one another. They are physically together but miles apart in their hearts.

Or, do we understand the story and reign of God as being much, much larger than the scope of our individual lives?

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In his criticism of the “love song to Jesus” genre, Prof. Stackhouse says, “it gives me the homoerotic creeps to declare that I am ‘in love with’ another man.” At first glance, this seems to be an honest expression of his discomfort with these kinds of lyrical expressions of love and adoration to Christ. However, what he writes immediately afterwards gave me pause, “And I don’t apologize for saying so.”

As Jamie Arpin-Ricci observes, this second sentence “seems to suggest to me that he considered how some might take this comment, but still felt it appropriate to say it.” Honest expression is one thing, but it should not be considered burdensome, especially for someone of Stackhouse’s erudition, to find a better way to express this feeling. It saddens me that so many in the Christian community have trouble distinguishing between being “real” and being rude.

Perhaps it is that rebellion within us that cannot stand it when someone shows us where we have gone astray. Instead of humbly acknowledging our mistakes, we launch into defense mode — justifying and responding with our own counteroffensive, “Well, I’m insulted that you’re insulted by my words.”

All too often I see people, especially when confronted with their own racist or prejudicial attitudes or actions, respond with a self-righteous, “Well, should I have to think of what everyone will think every time I say something?” Of course, it is unreasonable for us to expect people to consider the feelings and experiences of every other human being on the planet — but there is something to be said for a general sense of empathy and understanding, especially coming from followers of Christ. And often, this line of reasoning is used as a cover for laziness — it’s easier to fall back on the broken default setting than to actually change the way we speak, think or interact with others.

Categories church, controversy, ministry, music, worship