Sabbath Joy?

I have recently been reading a book by Joy Davidman, wife of C.S. Lewis later in his life.  The book, Smoke on the Mountain, is a look at the Ten Commandments from a modern perspective, evaluating how the commandments are expressed in our lives now.  It is a thought provoking book and the chapter I read today on the 4th Commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy," resonated so much with how I feel about the church on Sundays in this day and time.  Here are the relevant sections that made an impact on me:

"One cannot escape the conviction that certain elements in the churches have themselves unintentionally done much to make the Sabbath unholy. It took the strict Puritans of England only ten years-from 1650 to 1660-so to disgust the people with legislated piety that they reacted into a licence undreamed of before. Perhaps the wilful licence of our own Sundays originated partly in a kind of bravado, a resentment of legislated controls and negative virtues. When bigots interpreted the Fourth Commandment to mean Thou shalt not enjoy life on Sunday, did not all Pandemonium raise a howl of triumph? The Puritan tradition has given the world great things-education and freedom and a concept of ethics in government; yet alas, for many people today the name 'Puritan' has become a scoffing and a byword, synonymous with kill-joy. Not that the Puritans were really foes to all joy. But they did think a purely intellectual and spiritual concentration on God was the only religious experience worth seeking. They did smash stained-glass windows in Old England, and frown on children at play in New England -see their school advertisements. And, like all who lack charity, they preferred negative methods; they believed you could make people enjoy God by forbidding them to enjoy anything else.

Question a dozen modern infidels about their childhood, and half of them will trace their atheism to endless dull, bleak Sundays in a negatively 'Christian' household which made a child's life seem hardly worth living. The football matches, the dances, the speeding cars, the crowded beaches of today's Sabbath-they are fugitive and inadequate pleasures, no doubt. Yet for many they may be an attempt, however fumbling, to restore to the Sabbath some of that holy gladness which it had before over-zealous reformers turned the Fourth Commandment's 'thou shalt' into a 'thou shalt not.'

Cast back into history, and the true meaning of the Sabbath is easy enough to find. 'Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.' On this one day, man returned to Eden. The curse of Adam was lifted, the primal Fall undone somewhat, and all creatures caught a glimmering of the paradisal state in which everything God had made was very good. On this one day a man was commanded to enjoy himself."

"The words shattered, for a time, the whole iron prison of prohibitions which had turned a day of joy and love into a day of sullenness and fear. The Christian Sabbath was a feast indeed -the love feast, the communal meal or worship. No one thought of it as renunciation of pleasure; it was every man's pleasure and supreme delight. The ancient Romans, their own religion long since dwindled to spiritless and sceptical routine, suspected the Christians of perpetrating obscene orgies on their Sabbath-on the ground that Christians obviously enjoyed the Sabbath so much!"

"Every church, always, must wrestle with the temptation of forcing people to come to God. Force is such an easy and obvious means! As long as one can use force, one need not interest men, need not inspire them, need not humble oneself to be amiable and cajoling-the poor wretches have no escape. They are in the truest sense a 'captive audience.' The trouble is that a captive audience is a very different thing from a church.

In other words, churches that use force destroy themselves and their goal. During our early history non-attendance at church was punishable by law. When the public conscience revolted at this, some churchmen resorted to indirect force; they no longer insisted that men attend-but they saw to it that all other places a man could go were closed. If this seems a justifiable expedient, let us remember that in the early days of industrialism working people had hardly any free time except on Sunday; when nineteenth-century Sabbatarians denied men recreation on the Lord's Day, they came close to denying it altogether.

No doubt their intentions were good. Yet what has the end been? A materialist generation and a secularized Sabbath. Whenever churchmen ruled out one of mankind's earthly joys as unholy, they narrowed the scope of holiness. It was inevitable that ultimately everything worth doing should be regarded as purely secular; and that God himself, by fugitives from negative religion, should be conceived, not as the Source of joy, but as a foe of all joy."

"Similarly, there is not much value in drawing up a point-to-point programme for spending the Sabbath devoutly. A formal service in the morning, informal prayer meetings or question-answering sessions or church outings later, would no doubt make a good day. But we have all these things already, often very well organized, and yet they don't seem to draw the crowd. It might help if we thought less of the dignity of divine worship, and more of the sheer fun of it; if we took over all God's pleasures of body and mind and showed how, rightly used, they are faint foreshadowings of the supreme pleasure. Perhaps what we need, in this connection, is to revive the ancient concepts of sacred dances and sacred games. A well-organized church festival of sport and music and theatricals would certainly be more attractive to many people than the disorganized and murderous traffic of our Sunday highways."

How wonderful, how uplifting, how freeing would it be if our Sundays were not simply days to be preached at or to, days not just to sit in classes, days not just to sing the same songs, but days of feasting and fellowship and dancing and games!  In America, we have lost the joy of the Sabbath.  This is not to say that we are never inspired by the sermon or enjoy talking to our friends at church and over lunch or that we dislike the music.  But I suspect much of church is stuck in a pattern that cannot change for fear of being seen as paganly hedonistic.  We go to church and it is the same every time: sing, announcements, offering, sermon, go home.  It is not that it is bad, but it is at times boring and has produced much apathy, Christians showing up in duty but leaving with an empty soul.  I admit feeling this many a time.  Indeed, most of the time, I have to work, to force myself to enjoy.  To say over and over, "You may feel nothing, but you are not here for you.  You are here for God.  Sing even if you have heard this a million times because it is sung to God.  Listen and agree with the sermon because it has been given to the preacher by God."  But wait!  What did Jesus say?  "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."  The Sabbath was made for man?  Not God?  God is in it, yes, but could it be the Sabbath is meant for man to enjoy God?

I suspect most of modern American churches have made man for the Sabbath.  We conform our Sundays to the schedule.  We sing not what is in our souls, but what has been planned for us.  We ask no questions of the preacher, we have no discussion about his words, because it has been planned for us to simply listen.  We interact but a brief amount in service because we don't have time to spend in much chatting with one another because the service has been planned for us and is timed.  Oh my soul!  No wonder you feel empty as the church door closes behind you, for you have little part in the Sabbath at all!

As a teacher, I will tell you that the best classes are those that are interactive, active and creative.  But this has been washed out of Sabbath.  Do you know what really happens?  We put all the joy into children's and youth Sunday school and remove it when they leave.  We forget that adults have souls that need joy, too.  We forget that Sunday does not have to be about the difficult and the solemn.  There is a time for it, a need for it, but it does not have to be always.  Isn't it interesting that adults work five days, play on Saturday (the secular separated from God as Joy said above) and then go to church and get told how to work at God?

How could we change?  How would church be interactive?  Imagine you come into church and a large banner is laid out on the floor.  You are invited to take up a paint brush.  You are given the opportunity to write or draw what God has been speaking to you.  You are encouraged to discuss this with your neighbors as you create.  If you do not want to draw, you are welcomed to pray, sit, talk or share.  After a time, the worship leader rises and asks what song is stirring in the hearts of God's people.  Church goers call out songs that mean something to them, maybe share why and we sing because the song is an expression of how God has acted in a person's life right now and because we take joy that the song means something to our sister.  After a time, the preacher stands and shares a scripture, tells us what it means, then he asks us to gather with members to to share its impact on us and to pray that the scripture be made evident in our lives.  When time has elapsed and noon is near, everyone brings out the food they have prepared and we feast together.  No worries of time, we relax and chat and laugh and enjoy as an entire body of Christ.  And we leave when we go, with no ending point forced on us.  Ah...a day to look forward to every week.

I believe the largest enemy of Sabbath is tradition and time.  "Church can't be like that!" you say, "It's not the way it's done.  We would lose theology.  People would think less seriously of God.  No, this cannot be."  Or perhaps, "But I have too many plans on Sunday.  I have budgeted two hours and then I must be off.  There is too much I need to do.  What you suggest could take all day!"  What we have lost is the idea of rest.  Sabbath is not about rest; it is about rigid do.

I'll end with a personal anecdote.  Our church's VBS this year was a time of singing, dancing, playing games, learning and sharing.  Children met God in the midst.  I loved the music.  It was plain fun--full of truth and a joy to sing.  Fast forward to adult services.  I actually thought during the music, sighing wistfully, "Why is all adult music somber and serious?  Why have we banished fun from our music?"  Reflecting, I think we think that our songs must be slow and serious or somehow we are taking God less seriously.  How far from the truth!  When I think of David dancing before the ark with all his might, I see that joy in worship is not taking God less seriously--it is being utterly joyful with abandon because we cannot contain our feelings for Him.

I cannot tell you how much I long for recapturing true joy in church.  So much my heart aches for it.  So much that my soul is stirred with what it could be but is not.  Where do I go from here?  I am not sure because I do not think my voice on this would travel far.  People mired in "the way things are done" would revolt against it and unfortunately, I do not wish to stir the waters.  But when I look back on times in my old country church where pot lucks lasted forever, the church didn't close until the last person left, the blue grass band played the songs asked for, people stopped and prayed or discussed in the middle of the service, I will always long for the fullness of soul I experienced then.  The church a true fellowship amidst laughter and dancing and singing and fun.

(Extra Food for Thought:  Why are so many young people leaving the church?  Perhaps because we show them that God is fun when you are young, but when you become an adult, it is time to put childish joy behind and take God seriously.  "You, young man, must sit in this service, do not talk, it disturbs your neighbor, listen and shut up."  What do we have to offer to the young?  God, the foe of fun, as Joy calls him.)

The Love of God

I just finished reading C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength. In one scene, love alights on Earth.  I was completely struck by his description.  It isn't the description we typically think of.  It is powerful and strong, not soft and gentle.  Because of this, his description captivated me with its utter truth:

"It was fiery, sharp, bright and ruthless, ready to kill, ready to die, outspeeding light: it was Charity, not as mortals imagine it, not even as it has been humanized for them since the Incarnation of the Word, but the translunary virtue, fallen upon them direct from the Third Heaven, unmitigated. They were blinded, scorched, deafened. They thought it would burn their bones. They could not bear that it should continue. They could not bear that it should cease."

Breathless.  The full weight of God's love must sap all word from our minds.  I had always heard the term "love till it hurts," but I never understood it until my daughter was born.  As I held her in my arms a few days old, I hurt, my heart literally was pained.  I had never felt that and it was then I understood that love can indeed hurt.  You can have love so strong it hurts.  God, I am sure, has that for us.  But what if I could feel the other way around?  If I could feel the intense love God has for me?  It must be what Lewis describes, a love so sharp, so all-encompassing of truth, so overwhelming we can hardly stand it and yet want it to always touch us forever.  Indeed, some day, I will feel it and revel in it.  Hallelujah!

He IS Alive!

Seven Stanzas At Easter

By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

the same valved heart

that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then

regathered out of enduring Might

new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

not a stone in a story,

but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,

make it a real angel,

weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle,

and crushed by remonstrance.

A Hymn to God the Father

A Hymn to God the Father
by John Donne

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more. 

Relationship, Not Religion?

I've addressed the phrase "Relationship, not religion" before, but I'd like here to trace its evolution and implore believers to be careful and precise in what they say because most of the believers I know who say this phrase don't realize that what they mean often isn't heard.

Spiritual, but Not Religious
When I was in college, this phrase was all the rage.  At the time, most churches blew it off.  Eventually, the secular world did, too.  At first it meant that someone had some kind of spirituality in his or her life, but no ties to any denomination or world religion.  Later, as it became overused, it took on a connotation of someone flighty and wishy-washy, someone unwilling to stand on what he or she really believed.  However, even as the phrase lost its power, its ideas stuck with society.  We see this in the fact that more people than ever claim no religion at all, yet many also claim they are spiritual or have some kind of spiritual belief.  The phrase fits our relativistic society well: You be spiritual the way you want, I'll be spiritual the way I want and no one's wrong or right.

Relationship, Not Religion
Enter the church.  As society began to drift heartily away from the Christian church, the church took notice.  Realizing that spirituality had become a focus, the church put forth this phrase.  Do you notice that, in fact, "relationship, not religion" is a parallel phrase to "spiritual, but not religious"?  To attract our culture and draw people in, the church took up a "spiritual" mantra.  "No, it isn't about religion," the church said.  "When you come into our church, we aren't about that religious stuff.  We're about a relationship with God/Jesus."  But what did the church mean by that?  At first, and often still today, the church actually means "Relationship, not legalism," but that doesn't have two catchy R's in it and smacks of Christianese so it doesn't get a pass.  Still, most churches who used the phrase and still do will go on to explain its meaning.  What they mean is that Christianity isn't about following a bunch of rules to get to God.  It isn't even about following a bunch of rules to get God to like me after I'm saved.  I love God, I have a relationship with him and I obey him simply because I love him so much.  Friends, that is the truth!  Christianity can never be what it is intended to be if you operate in legalism.  A heart that loves God is a heart that obeys God because it loves him.  If that is true, then why is this phrase a problem at all?

Relationship, Not Religion--Alternate Meaning
Today this phrase is bandied around quite a bit.  But if you ever hear someone say it, your next question should be, "What do you mean by that?"  Because this phrase has moved away from "relationship, not legalism."  Slowly, this phrase has morphed into meaning "relationship, not doctrine."  Many churches today shy away from any emphasis or talk of doctrine.  The line is this: "Look, we are just about having a relationship with Jesus. We don't claim that he's God or the only way.  You don't need 'salvation' to come to him.  The Bible isn't really trustworthy anyway, but you can still learn from Jesus and have a relationship with him."  In the Bible belt where I live, evangelical churches are often blissfully unaware of this understanding of the phrase "relationship, but not religion."  However, many other churches around the country do taut this meaning as well as many secular venues.  I saw an example of this while reading an article on a secular news site.  The author claimed he was a Christian and said that there were some things the church needed to give up, among them the fact that Jesus is the only way, the fact that the Bible can be trusted, the fact that the Bible has anything meaningful to say on moral issues like homosexuality, etc.  By the end of the article I found myself asking, "Why are you even a Christian?"  He threw out all the Christian foundations.  How can he be a Christian?  Because he's got a relationship, he doesn't need religion and by religion, he means doctrine.  I'm going to get close to Jesus, but I don't need his truth claims.

So, Christian friends, we need to be aware of the meaning of this phrase.  Inadvertently, the church has pushed the first phrase above: "spiritual, but not religious."  "Relationship, but not religion" has evolved into a phrase that equals "spiritual, but not religious."  It has come to widely mean I'll take the relationship with Jesus, but not the Bible's truth claims.  Some people may wonder why this matters.  It's just words.  Friends, words are meant to communicate ideas.  There is power in words to formulate thinking.  I am reminded of a similar issue that started with Thomas Aquinas.  Before Aquinas, most biblical scholars focused on the fact that God is sovereign and reveals himself to man.  Aquinas, however, asserted that God can be known to an extent without special revelation.  That is, man can observe the world and know God.  Aquinas was correct according to Romans 1.  But Aquinas would also note that some things cannot be known by man without God telling him.  However, this idea that God can be known without the Word took root.  It next became, "If I can know about God with my own senses, I can trust myself over the Bible," then "If I can know about God with my own senses, I don't need the Bible" and eventually, "If I don't need the Bible and I can trust myself, then I don't need God at all."  Phrases and words move cultures.  What will be the next meaning of "Relationship, not religion"?

How do we handle this?  Define your meaning, my Christian friend.  Speak accurately and be clear.  Realize that catch phrases in the church have different meanings and make sure when you speak those around you know what you mean.
                                                                                                                                  
For previous posts on this topic, see below...

Christianity IS a Religion
Jesus, Redeemer of Religion
Don't Throw Out the Baby with the Bathwater

Jesus Can't Show Up If I'm Alone?

Several times on this blog I've dealt with scripture that has been taken out of context.  Recently a friend of mine (Thank you, Melanie!) pointed out a verse that is commonly taken out of context.  It's one I had never thought of but realized is terribly confusing when not put in its proper place.  It's Matthew 18:20: "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."  This is often used by Christians to state that when they pray together, Jesus shows up.  But, wait?  If that's what it means, then apparently Jesus just can't be with me when I pray alone.  I mean, he's going to be there when two or three are there, but not one.  Right?  Wrong. Friends, Jesus doesn't need people to be together to show up.  I'll let you in on a secret: Jesus is God and that means he's omnipresent.  He's already with you!  If that is true, then what does this verse mean?  Let's take a look at the context.

Here are the verses that come before Matthew 18:20: "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven."

The context of Matthew 18:20 is church discipline.  If we go back to Matthew 18:1, we discover that Jesus was talking to the disciples, not a general crowd.  Jesus is instructing the disciples, future leaders of the church, how to handle discipline issues in the church. The picture is of a brother in the church who is stubbornly committing sin.  He is approached one on one, but doesn't listen.  He then is approached by two or three people, so that there are witnesses to the fact that he refuses to listen.  Then, the matter is brought before the church body.  Jesus then notes that the disciples as leaders of the church will have the weight of the authority of heaven on their sides.  In Matthew 18:20, who are the two or three gathered?  Where have we seen the number of people before in the context? Matthew 18:16, the one or two you take along to talk to the erring brother.  What is Jesus' point in Matthew 18:20 then?  That when the disciples, the leaders of the church, approach an erring church member together, they come as if Jesus was physically standing with them.  The weight of Jesus' authority is with them in the room.  They discipline with his authority.

Dr. Thomas L. Constable says it this way: "It should be obvious from the context that this promise does not refer to whatever two or three disciples agree to ask God for in prayer. The Bible contains many promises concerning prayer (cf. 7:7-8; 21:22; John 14:13-14; 15:7-8, 16; 1 John 5:14-15; et al.), but this is not one of them. In the context 'anything' refers to any judicial decision involving an erring disciple that the other disciples may make corporately. God has always stood behind His judicial representatives on earth when they carry out His will (cf. Ps. 82:1). This is a wonderful promise. God will back up with His power and authority any decision involving the corporate discipline of an erring brother or sister that His disciples may make after determining His will. Here again (v. 20) Jesus takes God's place as "God with us" (1:23; 2:6; 3:3; 11:4-6, 7-8; cf. 28:20). This statement implies a future time when Jesus would not be physically present with His disciples, the inter-advent age, specifically the period following His ascension and preceding His
return."

So there you have it.  Jesus is with you all the time.  You don't need to be with people for Jesus to be with you.  This verse has nothing to do with prayer whatsoever.  What an assurance that even alone, I can know Jesus is with me.

A Critical Appraisal of Current Worship Music and a Resolution

Before I get to the main discussion, I need to start with a disclaimer. This post is not meant to indict certain people or their motivations. I will not be mentioning any songs or artists in particular because I am not writing this to pick on Christian artists or raise up certain artists by putting others down. What I am hoping to do in this post is help Christians to critically consider what we offer to God in the way of worship. I think if we could honestly take a step back and look at our worship objectively, we might be able to recapture worship worthy of His glory.  By worship in this post, I mean music. Yes, worship is far more than that. But for the sake of clarity, when I mention worship, I mean when we stand before God and sing to him. I will be addressing four topics for consideration: the music, the lyrics, the congregation and the resolution.

1) The Music--This post has come about from a video I saw on YouTube. I've had issues with worship music for years, but Jordan nailed it when he made this video. Pretty much what Jordan is pointing out in a funny way is the issue. Our worship music is the same old same old all the time. Same old isn't necessarily bad, but we seem to have found ourselves in a  rut. One author, Brett McCracken, describes current worship music like this: "It’s 90% crappy, knock-off Keane or secondhand U2 (i.e. it is usually very predictable and unoriginal)." Yep. I know exactly what style of music I will hear at church every Sunday. Once again, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. But I can't help and ask myself why the church can't do better. We've got to have amazing musicians in the church that can do better than the same 4 chords over and over, right?

McCracken also notes this: "It’s more about creating an emotional response than eliciting a profound spiritual reflection. The measure of a good worship leader is often how many in the audience stand up or raise their hands out of their own volition." I am a hand raiser. But I'm a weird hand raiser and maybe that's because it took me a long time to be able to raise my hands. I raise my hands when I want to say something to God, not because the music told me to. Seriously, just watch how people raise hands during the worship set. The hands go up when the music gets really fast or loud. The music is designed to elicit a certain response. Is there a lot of thought going on at that point? Maybe...but maybe not. I've heard multiple people in the Christian music industry state that music that sells is music that provides an experience to the audience. Lest we forget, Christian music is an industry at this point. That means it must make money. To make money it must sell and what makes money is what people buy because it makes them feel.

Now, I know some would just skewer me here: "How can you judge someone's music experience?" This question in and of itself frustrates me because it reveals a current way of thinking that gets to me: music is relative. That is, it doesn't matter much what it sounds like or says. Anything goes as long as I feel close to God. Music is outside any kind of critical thinking. I find it interesting to note modern Christians' own response to the emotional evangelism of the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening was a time in American history where people were converted by the hundreds and thousands. And how were they? By preachers yelling about hell and damnation, by being stirred up to faint in the aisles and collapse to the ground. We modern Christians look back at that and say, "Well, how many were real conversions? I mean, they just got all hyped up. How many actually stayed in the faith?" Do you see the irony here? We are skeptical about preaching that makes the gospel purely emotional. Yet we don't see any danger in music we are offering to God that might be eliciting only emotion.

2) The Lyrics--Of course, the lyrics reflect the music. Most of them are similar. And mostly they are romanticized. It's a sad state of affairs when a character on the secular and heinous show South Park points out, "All we have to do to make Christian songs is take regular old songs and add Jesus stuff to them. See? All we have to do is cross out words like 'baby' and 'darling' and replace them with Jesus." Ouch. As a Christian, that hurts. Is there nothing different between Christian worship music and music that worships the secular world? Can we create nothing that speaks a better word? This trend I fear is reflective of the "relationship not religion" popular way of thinking. We don't want songs that have any kind of theology or dogma in them. That won't draw me close to God emotionally and give me the experience of worship I want. A commenter (John Kelly) on a site I read said this: "Maybe we are writing more shallow, simple worship music because we are more shallow, simple people... and were just writing from what we know... David wrote long complicated and wordy laments because that was who he was and that was the culture...Is it wrong that we may write music from who we are? Or should we just pretend we're deeper than we are?" Another ouch. Could it be our worship music reflects the shallow people that we are? John Kelly asks some provocative questions. If our music reflects our shallow relationships with God's truth, then we need to rethink our very lives. As a way of rethinking, I want to point out the reason Jesus said he came to earth: "For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me" (John 18:37). Nowhere does Jesus say in the Bible: "I came to make sure everyone felt cuddled and warm and fuzzy." Of course, this doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't love people or want to love us physically. He likens Jerusalem to a city he wants to hold under his wings like a mother hen protecting her chicks and the church to a beloved bride. But that doesn't change the fact that Jesus' number one concern was objective truth claims about who he was and who God is. Could it be this is where our music could differ from the world's? Could Christian music seek more than emotional response?

Another problem with lyrics: they can be at the least nonsensical, at the worst wrong. This is where music relativism rears its ugly head the most. Worship music, most think, cannot be judged.* The common thinking is that an artist spent his time pouring out his heart to God to write that, so you can't judge it. Wait a minute. I can critically scrutinize the sermon a pastor worked on for months, but I can't touch a song? Christian songs that purport to claim truth about God can and should be judged. I often tell my students to never turn off their brains. This includes music. Are the lyrics in the music true? I have heard many worship songs where the lyrics were just plain biblically wrong. One of them attempted to use a scripture, but changed some terms, completely changing the meaning to a biblical untruth. When we sing we must think.

3) The congregation--This is where it gets personal. So far I can pretty much blame musical artists. But what about me? I'd like to look at a passage of scripture, Isaiah 1:11-13. In this passage, God addresses the sacrifices of Israel. Sacrifices were designed to express relationship with God (three out of the five types of sacrifices have nothing to do with sin whatsoever). Israel had gone its own way, focused on its own desires rather than God. Yet the people still went to the temple to sacrifice. In this context, God says this: "'What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?' says the LORD. 'I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle; and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you this trampling of My courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer, incense is an abomination to Me.'" The sacrifices were worthless because they were done out of meaningless tradition. God did not want meaningless worship. We must critically ask ourselves, "What does my worship sound like to God?" Am I uttering trite phrases over and over without a thought? Is music relative to me? That is, if I don't get a sweet, fluffy feeling, do I tell myself I haven't worshipped? Do I sing untruths, claiming my life is for God alone, when I have expressly excluded God from areas of my life?

4) The resolution--It is my contention that the banal music and lyrics of our worship music makes it extra hard for our worship to be real. It's so easy to come to church and mouth words on a screen and not think about them once. I do this all the time. Same old songs, same old music, same old lyrics. I get lulled into a timeless existence where the music just flows around me, but really without me. But let's face facts: this is our culture. The music isn't going to change anytime soon. So I can sit around and grouse about that or I can do something about it. Here is what I have done to try and make my worship meaningful to me and the Lord--1. Really hear/read the words. Don't just passively sing. Make sure you know what you are singing. If it is a biblical untruth, stop singing. I sometimes stop even if it just isn't personally true, if singing it would be lying to God. 2. Talk to God during the music. Make it a prayer. Take a moment to turn it in inward, to reflect on it. There's a reason Psalms, the Bible's songbook, has indications to pause (selah). I wish music would just stop sometimes so we could reflect on what we are singing instead of just plugging along. 3. React to God's truth, not the emotional push. You don't have to raise your hands with everyone else if it's a meaningless act for you. Maybe you need to just sit down, even though every worship leader commands you to stand. Maybe you need to kneel. Maybe you just need to stand there and think about what you are singing.

When it all comes down to it, I just want to implore my fellow brothers and sisters to worship God in spirit and truth. As we come to God in worship, let's keep our brains active. We can hope that worship music will someday step outside the common to reflect an uncommon God, but in the meantime, we'll make sure we enter worship eyes, ears and brain wide open.

*A word on the term judge--The common response in Christian circles to any use of the term judge is "Who are you to judge? Jesus said judge not lest you be judged." Those that levy this response seem to forget that all throughout the New Testament, Christians are called to make judgments, to determine if something lines up with the truth or is false. There are two senses of the word "judge" even in English. Judge can mean to condemn or judge can mean to consider critically. I am not saying here that we need to go into churches and start railing about the music and having hissy fits. I am saying that we need to be willing to critically consider the music we produce.