The Following is a transcript of some words I brought to PC on worship and church music.
Enjoy!
This is the first time they’ve let me up here alone… Devanne and I spoke a couple times in The
Journey, but it was always a teamwork thing. Don and Randy wanted Devanne to
keep me in line but Devanne is down there now. So this is a big deal. I want to say that I stand here and speak
from a place of humility. I know most of
you have been following Jesus many more years than I have and I’m 27. So I am
young in my faith. Even though a person grows up in the church, they don’t grow
up with a spiritual awakening until later. So my spiritual age is more like
ten. So that is the posture that I speak from.
But Devanne and Don and Randy are here and they are my anti rambling
task force. They have a shock collar tied around my ankle for when I get off
track. So if you see some weird antics…that explains them. So this is an honor, except they didn’t give
me the wireless headset mic. They made
me talking into this one. So I guess if
I do good today, maybe they will one day give me the wireless one… it’s okay I
think that one looks like it has a booger on the end so I didn’t want it
anyways.
We are in the middle of a series on worship and the hope
that this series will expand our view of what worship is way beyond the walls
of the church, and in this conversation about what worship is beyond music, I think it is worthwhile
to acknowledge that our worship is still quite often expressed within the context of music. So that is
what this morning is about, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be part
of this series because, even though I have stepped back a bit from leading in
church, church music is one of my biggest passions. I love music and singing
and the fact that we can sing to our God and that He finds joy in our songs is
just incredibly inspiring to me. If I’m not singing at church, I am singing at
home; which is actually better for me because I don’t have to worry about
sounding good. I believe that God looks past my creaky voice and my messy music
and just enjoys the heart that I offer. Which is very refreshing because us
people evaluate each other based on what we can see and hear of a person; which
is often all we have to go on. But God
knows our heart. It is so liberating.
Worship and church music are these realms that are a little
mysterious. We don’t talk about this topic much and I think that might be a
good thing, because if you talk about mysterious things too much, they lose
their specialness.
So I’ll start with a bit of my story and the perspective
that I come from. I live in quite a bit
of tension. On one hand, my greatest love is singing. I grew up singing in
church, I have studied worship leaders since I was 17, I have been involved
with church music almost every weekend for the past ten years, I have read
books on worship leading, I’ve taken music classes and guitar lessons. I’ve
been touched deeply during worship and heard things from God that moved me to
tears. Music and especially church music have been one of my greatest
loves. To keep a balanced perspective,
I’ve heard Ivor Meyers, and Brian Neumann and read Samuel Bacciochi and learned
what they all have to say. On the other hand, I have been, and I am still
critical of this whole idea of singing together. For one thing, it’s weird. It
is downright strange to stand with people together and sing. It’s awkward and
too vulnerable to be within my zone of comfort. When I read the bible, I can’t
find anywhere Jesus telling us to sing. He commands us to make disciples and
heal the sick and cast out demons, but He never got around to telling us to go
to church every weekend and sing together. Especially when I see the thousands
of dollars some churches spend on sound systems and light shows and fog
machines, it seems so far away from the command to clothe the naked and feed
the hungry. So there are these questions that linger in the back of my brain.
So this tension has started me on a journey to really find
out what church music is all about and why it is so significant. I admit that back in 05 when I first showed up
here and started leading worship in The Journey I really had no idea what I was
doing. (many people think I still don’t…and that’s okay) At that point, I was
fascinated by church music and I was learning, but I had no clue. It wasn’t
until about a year or two later that I started digging a little deeper and
asking more questions that I started to understand that church music is about
so much more that standing on a stage and singing about Jesus. There were a few
private times of worship and a few like this in a church where God invaded my
heart in ways that he never had before and I realized that in a musical moment,
God is actually moving and speaking in a very unique and special way. That’s also about the same time that I
realized that church music is very poorly understood in many churches and
especially Adventist churches. You want to know the best way to know if a
church has a shallow understanding of music?
If they fight about it. It’s as easy as that. Music is like a cute
little puppy … if you are fighting over it, you are completely missing the
point. Completely.
Have you noticed that when a person has a comment about your
personality traits, they rarely talk directly to you about it. They always find
someone else to tell or to complain or gossip to, and this has been true of the
music culture within the Adventist Church. I have lead worship in Grass Valley,
PUC, Redwood Campmeeting, Leoni Meadows, Mt. Shasta, Montery Bay Academy,
Paradise, as far north as Canada and as far south as Arizona and I can count on
one hand the number of people that have commented directly to me about concerns
that they have about my music. When someone has a complaint they always find
someone else. It ends up be very inefficient. . . anyways, there are several
specific things that I (along with other people my age) like to incorporate
into our worship leading that quite a few people have asked other people why we
do, and at first these sound like complaints, but when I really look at them I
think they are really misunderstandings or even more accurately questions. I
want to spend just a small amount of time looking at these questions and I want
to be quick because I really believe that the only complaint worth answering is
one made in person, face to face. And few people have the courage to do that.
But on the other hand, I really believe that tolerance starts with good
understanding. If I understand you and your past and how you’ve formed your
opinions, I am much more likely to honor and respect your opinions, and it
works the other way around too. My
generation has slightly different opinions and ways of doing things and really,
ways of relating to God, and so often a more mature Christian will look at a
young Christian and surmise that since we relate to God differently we are
doing it wrong or that we really don’t know God. . . so the next few moments
will be moments of understanding… When I speak to these topics I will speak in first person to protect the
autonomy of my friends because the statements I make are all generalizations.
As soon as I make a statement someone somewhere will be able to go find one of
my peers who disagrees with me and I understand that.
So here we go.
So here we go.
I like loud music.
Many people have asked if the music
really needs to be that loud and my favorite answer is this: no. God can show
up just as powerfully in a moment of silence and silence is a spiritual
discipline that we all should be practicing every day. I think a church music culture
could be very healthy and beautiful even if it was always very quiet. But here
is what I’ll say about loud music. If God has spoken a revelation to me, or if
He has changed me in a deep way, I won’t be in the quiet state of mind.
Sometimes, the only appropriate response to the God who made thunder is a loud
one. And if the church is singing quietly (as the deer) and I come in
and start singing all loud (as the deer) it’s going to
end up being a little awkward. If the
worship team creates music with a higher volume level, I will feel free to sing
at the top of my lungs reflecting the joy that is in my heart. We want to be a
church of people deeply affected by God so we will create an environment where
we can celebrate that. You all know that modern amplification can make music
that literally moves you. So if I am preaching a message about a God that can
literally move you and affect great change, I will want to do my best to bring
music that matches the power of that God.
I like dark rooms.
Any married person knows that if you are planning a romantic date night,
you don’t have dinner at the sports bar or In n Out. Guys, If you are looking
to have one of those date nights where she will be bragging to all her friends
about it tomorrow, you will look for the most intimate setting possible. The
table will have some privacy, and the lights will be dim. I think they dim the
lights for several reasons. Dim lights let you focus in a way where you don’t
notice the imperfections in the room. If
the light is just over your table, and dim everywhere else, it allows you to
focus on the one you are with. Soft
lighting can allow for better intimacy and vulnerability. Intimacy and
vulnerability are two things I really want to protect when I am leading worship
as well. There are times for a big spiritual
celebration with a big bright light show, but I want to protect these quiet
intimate moments where we will be able to hear the voice of God differently
than any other time. So I like dark
rooms.
I like repetition.
I didn’t used to. I would get bored and
wonder “ok when is this going to be over?” but I was at church one morning and
they were singing this one line over and over again and it’s been a while so I
forget what the line was, but I started thinking about the statement that was
being sung and I realized that it was a phrase that was worth singing over and
over again. Each time the line was sung I let my mind go deeper into the
meaning of the phrase and deeper into what it meant for me, and after five or
six times I realized that God was actually speaking something in that line,
something specific directly to me. And in that moment, I found great
significance in repetition. Revelation 4:8 describes a throne in heaven, and it
tells about these creatures with eyes who are close to the throne and they sing
“holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty who was and is and is to come.” They
sing this one line day and night…forever! I wonder if their eyes might
symbolize an awareness of their surroundings. What’s interesting is their
proximity to the one who sits on the throne. They are not only in the presence
of God, but right close to Him gathered around the throne, and they are very
aware of God’s presence. I wonder if I was sitting in the very presence of God,
just like these creatures, I might be so taken by His beauty that I will have
only one thing to say to God, and I might be so taken by Him that I might do
just like those creatures and say it over and over. . . .I doubt if God ever
gets tired of hearing us sing to Him. That’s why I will never get uncomfortable
when a worship song gets repetitious…First I listen for what God may be
speaking, and if I don’t hear anything, I just think of those creatures with
the eyes who are very aware of God’s presence. . .and I just keep singing.
I like instrumental parts.
Again, I didn’t used to. If there was something entertaining like a
wild guitar solo, they were fun, but if it’s a simple part, it can get monotonous
and awkward after a while. The other side of the same problem shows up when I
hear people saying things like, “I don’t know what to do during instrumental
parts” or “I don’t know if I am supposed to sing on the new songs” or “I don’t
know where to come in or what notes to sing” and I think comments like these
are funny because the assumption is that we are supposed to be like a big
professional choir performing for the heavens, which I guess is true, but it
doesn’t have to be all that organized. This is really an extended moment of
prayer that we are having here so if someone is singing a prayer that is
altogether different than what everyone else is singing, that’s okay. If I am
leading a song about celebration and you need to sing a prayer about
repentance, who am I or who are the rest of the people in the room to stand in
your way and say “those aren’t the right words!” If the music is loud enough you don’t even
have to sing the same tune! Some people get self conscious about their pitchy
singing but I want to tell you that we aren’t here to have a pretty choir.
We’re here to lift our hearts to God and as long as you are telling the truth I
can’t imagine God rejecting your song even if it is different from everyone
elses song. So we won’t either. There is the phrase used in Psalms and a couple
times in Habakkuk: Selah and it means “stop and listen” or “pause and think of
that” and we started incorporating these Selah moments into our music a few
years ago in The Journey. I think I even put the word in the powerpoint
sometimes… The idea is that if we are singing a song to God, we need a breath
every now and then to pause and really understand what we are singing. Or more
significant than that, we want to protect spaces of quiet where God can speak.
What if God wants to say something to you that the songwriter didn’t include in
the song? If we are singing all these other words all the time, God won’t be
able to sneak His words in between. So that’s what these instrumental Selah
moments are for. So depending on what’s going on in the room spiritually, don’t
worry that there is a long awkward pause. Listen for the voice of God. Don’t
worry if you can’t see the powerpoint or you can’t follow the melody. Search
your heart for the words you need to
say or the prayer you need to pray or
the melody you need to sing.
I like to move.
People have actually told other people that
I move too much while leading worship. I think the fear here is that if I move
too much more it could almost be borderline . . . dancing. I understand the
moral issues with provocative dancing but we have to separate provocative
dancing from dancing before God. Two very different things. When I hear that
there are Christians who would prefer that dancing doesn’t happen in the
church, I am dumbfounded. There are so many biblical examples of dancing before
God and none of them end with God smiting all those evil dancers. I can just
see God up on His throne saying “look at all those silly people down there
dancing before me… they are so full of joy and think they love me but little do
they know that I hate their dance moves! They are all a bunch of hippity
hoppity fools!” and then He presses the “smite”
button. In 2 Samuel 6 there is this story of the ark being brought to the city
of David. This story is so loaded so I will skim through it… This story gets
me. David knew that the presence of God was thick around the ark. I want to be
part of a church where we know that God’s presence is thick in our worship. I
want to be part of a church where God leads us across the seas like the Israelites
and we can’t help but dance. We have sung so hard that our voices are gone and
all we have left to do is dance. I want to lead worship at a church where
people complain about the worship leader not dancing enough.
I like drums.
I think this musical worship we bring in this
room is a picture of the tangible, practical worship we live out during the
week. If we just had one guy sing with his guitar every week, the imagery would
imply that worship is only for the one gifted guy. There is a problem with
church culture when people think that worship acts are done by only the pastors
or the other leaders. This makes for an ineffective church with burnt out
leadership. But the fact that we bring cellos and keyboards and banjoes and
electric guitars and the violin and the organ and all the voices symbolizes
that an act of worship can be brought by anybody. It speaks of the diversity of
worship. That is why we can’t exclude any instruments in our band. I have to
admit that I hate the sound of the harpsichord. It grates on my soul! But we
can’t exclude it because our church will be known as the church where worship
is only for the elite non-harpsichord players. I know this is far out, but I
think there is something to this… So in this regard, my favorite instrument is
the drum. Drums are the most accessible instrument. I am not diminishing the
talent of our drummers when I say this, but anybody can play a drum. If they can’t keep time I will give them a
clock with a second hand. Just watch the second hand. The accessibility of
percussion instruments is a picture of the accessibility of acts of worship.
I like jeans.
One of the strangest questions I’ve heard is
“why does the young generation dress so casually in church?” and I totally
agree with someone who says that we should be modest and good looking, but I
think this question speaks of a huge problem in church culture. My entire life I have heard people say “we
need to dress up and wear our best for Jesus” and the bad theology shows up
when we believe when we are at home, we are apart from God and when we come to
church, we somehow enter a realm of His presence that was previously
unavailable. There are three places where I intentionally stand before God and make
a habit of acknowledging His presence. Those places are the secret place, the
workplace, and the church place. I know God’s presence is everywhere,
but these are the places where I make it a habit to consciously acknowledge it.
I am in the secret place in the morning
so I usually wear either my PJs or a bath robe. In the work place I wear
scrubs, and in the church place I wear my favorite clothes which today are
jeans and a plaid shirt. When I entered each of these three places I have never
heard God ask me to dress a certain
way before I stand in His presence. To be honest, I wear my best looking
clothes to church because I want to look good before all you people. Not before God.
God has seen me naked. I don’t need to dress up for Him. He is looking
at my heart. So when someone
says that they wish I would wear some slacks and a shirt and tie, they are
essentially telling me that I have bad taste in clothes or that their sense of
style is better than mine. Which is arrogant and rude, but I can handle it. But
please, for the sake of my friends who may not be able handle it, and who may
be on the fringes of The Way, don’t spiritualize clothing. Another problem with this way of thinking is if
your worship expression ends when you cinch up your tie and shine your
shoes, you are missing out on the vast realm of worship expressions. I’ll spend
five minutes prettying myself up, but I have much greater ways that I am
planning on worshiping for the rest of the day so the way I’m dressed becomes a
very small importance. One last problem that I see with the false idol of the
shirt and tie is one that pervades church culture across so many Christian
churches. If you show up to church and dress your body in nicer clothing than
you normally wear, wont you also show up to church dressed in a nicer demeanor
or a nicer character than you normally wear? I want to come before God with as
much honesty and as much authenticity and as raw as I possibly can be. If I’m
honest about my character, or I bring to church the same person I have been all
week I want everything about me including my clothing to reflect that. A church
that is filled with fake smiles and disingenuous compliments is useless to the
Kingdom. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t smile at each other, but you see the
problem when someone shows up smiling when they’re really broken inside. Nobody
will know unless that person lets their guard down and shows some authenticity.
Another person might show up and shower cheap compliments on someone she
secretly holds a grudge against. If we are going to live in unity and be of one
accord we are going to have to learn to be honest with each other. I am going
to start this honesty thing with the clothes that I wear. I promise that I will
not bring any identity to church other than the man I have been in secret
during the week and the symbol of this promise is the jeans that I wear.
Did I miss anything? The underlying question that remains through
each of these topics is this: do I really need the music to be loud to worship?
Does the room really need to be dark? Do I really need to be wearing jeans? Is
all of this necessary to bring my song before God? And the easy answer is “No”.
It is important to protect identity, because at some point if you dress me up
in clothes I never wear, and make me sing songs that don’t speak to me or
express my heart, it will no longer be me worshipping but a watered down
version of me created by church ladies. I want church to be transforming, but
the transformation comes from the God of the church, not by the people of the
church. How many know that if you are transformed by a group of people it won’t
last. The only transformation that lasts is the transformation inspired by God.
. .But that aside, as long as I am still bringing an honest version of myself,
the answer is no. I don’t need the light
show or the drums to worship. I realized this after church about six months
ago. I had just led worship with En Route and it was glorious! It was just loud
enough and the band was all playing their best and I thought it had gone quite
well until I stepped down off the stage and Bob Bergem waved me over and he had
me sit down here in the front. Now Bob and I have some history and I’ll tell
you about it.
When I first moved to Redding I was
about 19 and I was volunteering here at PC and I was in great need of a little
cash flow so Bob asked me to come down and help him with a few projects. At the
time He and Dottie were living on this farm down off of Churn Creek and he and
I would go out back and prune fruit trees in his orchard or cut back these
black berry bushes or clean out the barn and at some point the work became less
about the work and more about these moments of mentoring. He called them breaks
and at first I wondered why we were taking so many breaks when I wasn’t tired,
but then I started to listen to what Bob had to say and I realized that he had
been around for quite some time and any perspective he shared or any advice he
gave me was actually quite valuable. So over the time that I worked for him,
Bob became one of the biggest influencers in my life and I developed this deep
respect for Him. You want to hear the best
thing he shared with me? Bob taught me how to be mad at a woman while still
honoring her. Essentially how to fight well. My parents didn’t fight well, and
this is something that is learned. So there were a couple times when I showed
up to work and he and Dottie might have been in an argument and they hid it,
but you know, sometimes you can just tell.
So Bob and I would go work, and I could tell how frustrated he was about
the disagreement, but he still held Dottie in high regard and still honored her
and he never spoke badly of her. So Bob taught me how a real man handles
himself when he is angry. . . When they write the book about Palo Cedro
Adventist Church, There is going to be a chapter about Bob and Dottie. They’ll
call it the legend of the Bergems.
So Bob calls me over and we have this history so when he
speaks I am really listening, right? So I sit down and he asks me “does the
music really need to be that loud?” and his question hits me so hard and this
is where I first realized “no, it doesn’t have to be loud.” At that moment my
eyes were opened to who really is filling this room. I had been working so hard
to create a church service for a young generation who I hoped one day would
fill this room, that I had overlooked the generation who is currently filling
the room. We used to do this thing down at the other end of the hall that spoke
to the young generation but that is over and the truth is: having a voice to
the masses of the young generation is no longer what we at this church do well.
I’m realizing the pointlessness of trying to create a hip trendy service that
will try to attract the masses of the young generations because that is no
longer what we do well. It’s no longer our calling or identity and doing that
will actually work against the true calling and identity of this church.
Some people feel like they are really putting themselves out
by allowing young music in this place or tolerating the drum set and they feel
betrayed when they see young people driving away before church is over, but
Herb Mongomery called it out when he said “this drum set isn’t going to keep
the young generation here.” If Devanne or myself or En Route is ever invited to
lead worship, it should never come from a place of “if they lead worship maybe
the young people will stay” it is an easy out and it will never work. There are much deeper reasons many from the
young generation are leaving the church and I have plenty of theories and
opinions on that, but that isn’t want we’re talking about this morning.
Back to church music.
Just a word on the role of the leader of worship. Does
anyone find it strange that this overly happy guy gets up in front of church
each week and starts these rousing songs? “oh hey everybody lets get on our
feet and sing!! Come on! Put your hands
together for this one! Lift your voices” I think an outsider might find even
these first few moments of church so strange…
Every now and then, I like to make a romantic dinner for Devanne. I make
some really good pasta, so I make a couple other things to go along with it and
I find something good to drink with it, and I find chocolate, and I light
candles and turn some lights off and play soft music and make sure there is
nothing that will interrupt our moment. It always turns out real nice, not because
of any one thing that I did, but because everything has been carefully designed
so that we can focus on each other. I turn my phone off and I sneak her phone
away and turn it off too, (because Devanne never turns her phone off) and we
have a really nice time. I realize that when I lead worship I am really just
setting the table for a romantic dinner with God. You all know that when you want to meet with
God, you don’t want a bunch of distractions. Sometimes it’s necessary to put
quite a bit of planning and preparation into this moment so we can really focus
on God and realize that He is focused on us. To really hear Him and realize
that He is actually speaking to us. How many of you know that when God speaks
to you, you know it! It’s unlike anything you’ve ever heard. Even if you are
old and God has been speaking to you for years, I bet there is still something
very special when God speaks something specific directly to you. So if I am leading worship I am setting the
table and setting the mood for this encounter. I am not a song leader, I am the
spiritual mood setter. I light the candles and start the music and step out of
the way. Some worship leaders feel like they have to work and conjure this
euphoric experience, but God is the one who really touches people. Us worship leaders have to learn the art of
setting the table and stepping out of the way. That is our place and our role
in this church thing. I’ll tell that outsider who is coming for the first time:
it’s not weird, it’s beautiful and it’s mysterious and it’s irresistible.
Just a few words on what role the congregation plays in
worship. Back to the story in 2 Samuel 6,
the entire trip into the city was a celebration with music and dancing and in
verse 16 they tell about the ark entering the city and how Michal who was
married to David, but here referred to as the daughter of Saul, she was
standing and watching the parade from a window. From a distance. She saw the undignified way David was
worshiping God and “she was filled with contempt for him” and the bible says
that she remained childless through her entire life. I have to admit that I
have seen a room full of people singing or seen a band worshiping and have not
joined with them because I thought they weren’t doing it right. I thought I could
play those songs better than they could and lead better than they could and I
let distain have its way in my heart and only after reading this story do I
understand how evil it is to stand at a distance and judge someone’s worship.
I’m speaking for you and for me. It doesn’t matter if we don’t like the songs.
It doesn’t matter if we don’t like the music. It doesn’t matter if we don’t
like how they are dancing. It doesn’t matter if we could do it better. We have
to join in and sing along. We have to enter in and dance along. I’ve seen
people leave the room while I am leading songs because they don’t like our
instruments or our volume and my heart breaks for them. They don’t understand
what they are doing! I am admitting that I have done the same thing; for
different reasons but we are watching from the window and we are missing out on
a beautiful moment of the joy of the Lord and of Gods favor. We have to step
down from the window, run into the street and join the celebration. I used to tell the students in En Route that
it was imperative that they understand that when we play on stage and we sing
and worship that we are not performing. I kept telling them “we are not
performing!” but I don’t tell them that anymore. Because it is not true. We are
performing. When I am leading worship I am performing along with the entire
band, along with the entire congregation for an audience of One right? Wrong.
It’s true that we are all performers and we are performing for God, But the
bible paints a picture of all the heavens worshiping God and we are just
joining in that. Okay, what makes this even more powerful is that we are not
just performing for God, but we are performing for the entire universe! So when
I am singing about God and my love and devotion for God I am making a statement
to the entire universe about who’s side I’m on. Every person in the room, every
angel in the room, every demon (if there are any left) has no doubt who I am
lifting my affections towards when I sing these songs to God. I don’t completely
understand the implications of this, but I sense that there is great power
here. And I like it!
If you disagree with everything I’ve said so far, I’m okay
with that, because this next part is the only part that really matters. I want
to end with a couple reasons why I believe we have to continue to bring our
songs before God. They aren’t so much reasons as stories.
Acts 16;22 Paul and Silas were singing, the prisoners were
listening, the doors flew open, the chains fell off.
Joshua 6:The horns were blasting, the people were shouting,
and the walls collapsed.
In the end it doesn’t matter how we sing or what instruments
we use or what words we sing, but we have to keep singing! If we want to be a
church to be reckoned with, if we want to contend in spiritual places, if we
want to see walls fall before us, if we want to see doors fly open and chains
fall off. We have to step down from the window and join the party! We have to
keep singing, we have to continue to lift our hearts and melodies before God.
I have a song that I want to end this service with and
it’s a song but a prayer as well. There are two parts, the verse part is sung
for us and the high part is a prayer on our behalf. So let these words seep into you and ignite
hope.
Let children sing
Even if they don’t know why let them sing
Why drown their joy
Stifle their voice
Just because you’ve lost yours
May our jaded hearts be healed
Amen
Let old men dance
Lift up their hands
Even if they are naïve, let them dance
You’ve seen it all
You watch them fall
Wash off your face and dance
May our weary hearts be filled with hope
Amen
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