Christian Music
I was listening to some music that I bought on iTunes and it got me to thinking about music as a manifestation of worship. Music is one of the best ways to worship for me which is why it makes me sad to think about the state of the Christian music scene. Given, I have found a couple of good Christian artists recently, one of whom attends my home church (Steve Enison) but overall, it just seems as if there is a lack of creativity coming from new Christian artists. These people pop out a ton of songs that generally sound the same and the lyrics are usually weak as well. I find myself listening to a lot of people that are fantastic songwriters and lyricists but they aren’t Christians, what they are doing is not worship.
Why don’t we have people that write good lyrics like those who have written hymns in the past? Why don’t we have people taking more Psalms and putting them to music? I think part of the problem comes from the Church. People are looking for music that sounds happy and makes them feel good so that is the music that gets played in services across the country. I commend popular artists for their use of their musical gift for God’s purposes and I really hope they are focusing on Him when they write their songs.
Not all Christian musicians are struggling though; here are a couple new-ish albums that are good:
- Shane and Shane - Pages
- Phil Wickham - Cannons
I also have to give credit to Ecclesia, a service at my home church. I think that they do a great job of picking music with lyrics that go a bit deeper than the typical Christian radio music. The people that play for them also have strong musical talent and they are using it for God; that is awesome. Keep it up.
February 22 2008 09:25 pm | Church and Music
Christian Music on 22 Feb 2008 at 9:46 pm #
[...] Sports talk with Lee wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt I was listening to some music that I bought on iTunes and it got me to thinking about music as a manifestation of worship. Music is one of the best ways to worship for me which is why it makes me sad to think about the state of the Christian music scene. Given, I have found a couple of good Christian artists recently, one of whom attends my home church (Steve Enison) but overall, it just seems as if there is a lack of creativity coming from new Christian artists. These people pop out a ton o [...]
Andrew Leman on 22 Feb 2008 at 10:58 pm #
Agreed. Some of the things I have heard in songs doesn’t even make sense. More often than not we are singing about ourselves singing than we are singing about God. Sometimes it is even antithetical to Christian teaching, i.e. “In all I do, I honor you.” I know that there are good artists out there, Caedmon’s Call are lyrical masters, Shane and Shane as well. Thanks for your thoughts, Sports talk with Lee…
Dahvede on 23 Feb 2008 at 11:19 am #
Brett,
Ain’t that the truth. Hillsong has some good stuff. Wickham is just plain good. Have you checked out Shawn McDonald? Jars of Clay has a lot to uncover lyrically.
At one point I found myself actually changing the lyrics of secular music to more worshipful ones, perhaps to escape the redundancy of typical Christian music.