A Tale of Two Cities (Built on Rock and Roll)

Last week I boarded a plane and headed from my new home in Champaign back to Los Angeles, where I have lived for the last 4+ years. A for Attack, a band I have played with for the last couple of years, played a couple of shows in the Los Angeles area. I came back Saturday night just in time to lead worship at First Church Sunday morning.
As I have talked with many of you about in the past few weeks, what different worlds! Playing shows in the bars and clubs of Los Angeles and then coming here to play church music in Champaign!

I thought I would use this interesting week to reflect on why exactly I do what I do when it comes to music both in the church, and out.

I learned to play guitar in the church. In Jr. High and Highschool my sister Chanel (a drummer) and I learned the basics by playing in the Youth worship team. Here I learned the chords and all the basics about how to be in a band. Very quickly, however, I realized that I wanted to make music outside the church walls. Contemporary Christian music and Christian rock never made much sense to me. They always sounded like a secular band but with Christian lyrics. No matter how true or right on the lyrics sounded, it never connected with me.

By the time I had a car when I was sixteen I was playing with as many people as I could. My teenage musician years had me playing with a bunch of bands all over the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Some Christians, some not. I remember when I was seventeen a band of other high schoolers and I (I think we were called Weekend at Jay's) played one of the most notorious biker bars in the DFW area. There was literally chicken wire up in front of the stage so the crowd couldn't hurt the musicians when they threw beer bottles at them (the spray alone was enough to tell the band that they weren't appreciated).

I remember vividly playing a graduation party with another band in which I was the only Christian. It was one of the most fun nights I can remember, but most of all I can look back on it and see how God was working through me in that band. I see it that night when I helped the bassist clean up the vomit he left in the bathroom, or how I was the only sober one left and had to drive nine of my friends home after the cops broke the party up.

Jump ahead ten years, and I see that this is the model that my musical career has followed. I have learned that, for me, music is all about relationships. Relationships with the rest of the band, with the people who come to my shows, the people you meet on tour, and even the sound guys in hole in the wall clubs. Music brings people together like nothing else today. I am so glad that I flew 2000 miles and spent five days from home to play two 35 minute sets with my friends in AforAttack. The guys in that band are my friends, almost like brothers; and none of them are Christians. I do not spend time with them to try to convert them, or because it is my Christian missionary project. I spend time with them because I love them, and that's exactly what Christ calls us to do. I know God will deal with them in His own way. My job is to be their friends because they are valuable. Perhaps, on my best days, I can display the love of Christ to these guys.

So when people ask me 'are you in a Christian band' or 'are do you make Christian music', I say Uhhhhhhh.... I scratch my head and say, 'Well, I'm a Christian, and I'm in bands' and 'I'm a Christian and I make music'. Everything I do, hopefully, will be something that honors my heavenly Father, that points people to my Savior, and is inspired by God's holy spirit.

When I step on stage in Barkstall and crank up the band, I am still the same Christ follower who played the Three of Clubs a few days before. For me to get to lead the music on Sundays is truly an honor. If what I said before is true, and music brings people together; then worship music brings people together at the feet of their God. What an honor to get to be part of that.

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To see a few bands I've been involved with, check out these:
Books Died On
Flashlight Fiction
Arkay
Modern Movement
A for Attack
Mr Body
Music Go Music
i could keep going but i won't...

Music at the Southwest Campus

Since our launch six weeks ago, many people have asked me about our unique brand of worship at First Church’s Southwest Campus. Especially when compared to the Traditional services Downtown, the Southwest Campus looks much different. Not better, but different. For many whom I’ve talked to, this is their first time to experience this type of music in a worship service. For those who are used to a more ‘contemporary’ service, it is still unlike many of these, primarily because of the incorporation of older songs, especially hymns. Those who have been around know that we’re really not doing anything all that unique in the grand scheme of God’s wider Church; but in our local and denominational setting, it seems that we just might be trying something new.

As the worship leader of this newly formed Southwest Campus, I think it is important that we set out a general philosophy and vision for the musical worship program. To do this, I first want to say that music is just a small part of the worship which we partake in throughout the week together. When you think about it, the music we sing together Sundays is maybe 20 or 30 minutes of our life together weekly. This leaves over 10,000 minutes for other forms and expressions of worship together. We worship throughout the week when we dine together in community, when we read the scriptures and pray, when we help take care of the poor, and when we spend hours setting up a sound system or coffee selection for Sundays. I firmly believe that we are worshiping God when we listen to a friend in need, when we lovingly interact with strangers, and when we sit at our desks on weekdays doing our jobs to our best ability. There are literally thousands of ways we can offer worship to God. Worship is something that makes God happy, something that honors our Creator and Redeemer, and displays this authority in our lives.

This is one of the main reasons we include musical worship in our services each week: because we know from scripture and experience that when God’s people join together to tell him of their love, God is honored and happy. We are using the musical notes and melodies as a vehicle to agree and say these things to God as a unified people. This is powerful.

When selecting songs for Sunday worship services, we strive to choose songs that say things that are worth saying to God. This explains our heavy reliance upon hymns here at First Church. Relatively old hymns from the 19^th and 20^th centuries and earlier are rich with theological statements that both solidify and teach us of our understanding and experience of God. Newer worship songs are often anemic and lacking in substance, both lyrically and musically. They are often more concerned with appealing to the consumer Christian culture, and modeling pop-music so much that their tones and voices can be stripped of important theological content which is so valuable.

That said, I hope the music here at First Church’s Southwest Campus can operate in a dichotomous nature. Old and New, Simple and Complex. Again, we want to join in singing with the centuries of Christians that have gone before us and voice songs that have resounded in God’s throne room throughout the millennia of human history. At the same time, we want to be able to offer new voice to the cloud of witnesses by offering new songs, new words, and new takes on God’s timeless truths and character. In a given service, then, you might hear an ancient creed, followed by a 300 year old hymn, followed by a 18^th century Negro Spiritual, followed by a song that was written last year.

Though many of the old hymns are complex, both in their language and in their content, we value simple songs which state true things. “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.” This is simple, yet incredibly profound when we join together to say this. “I saw the light, I saw the light, no more darkness, no more night” rang from Hank Williams’ straightforward and simple heart over 50 years ago; yet how rich and powerful are his lyrics today!

From these dichotomies of old and new, simple and complex; we hope to artistically and musically create a Unique and Effective worship service. Something that Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode said a few years ago has really stuck with me, and has driven me as a musician and artist. He said that musically he wants to be doing something new and important, otherwise he would rather just not make music. While many people are comfortable imitating the current pop stars, or the classic rock days of the 1960’s and 70’s, some people aren’t. Imitation in worship is not an all-in-all bad thing, many people want to worship in a context where they are familiar and comfortable. Gahan’s mindset, however, has been a sort of mission statement for the artistic side of my worship leadership. We can be ahead of the curve, we can do better than the musical status-quo.

As we strive to be progressive and unique in artistic side of our worship, though many may be uncomfortable at first, we have seen in the last month that this adventurous and experimental mindset can connect with many people, both old and young. Adventure is appealing! When we don’t necessarily know where we’re going, it can be exciting and compelling to go there together.

Finally, the artistic side of our musical worship is only as good as it is effective in doing what the songs are intended to do: allow us to offer worship to God. If the art, the instruments, or any part of the process is significantly hindering us in joining together to offer up a unified voice to God, then it should be rethought. We want to break new ground musically, we want to make something that is beautiful to our ears, but most importantly we want to make something that is pleasing to our loving God.

Having said all of this, let us be a community marked by our worship; not just musically, but in our lives. A wise man once said to me that a church’s musical worship is, many times, reflective of the worship in the rest of our lives. Let us live lives together worthy to be lived, and let us sing songs together that are worthy to be sung to our incredible, powerful, loving, and compassionate God. Amen.