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...
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