Ever Intentionally Arrive to Church Late Cause the Music’s Bad?

11 Comments

1. (13 July 2007) Elizabeth Andrews says:

   Yes…quite honestly the only music I enjoy is James’ band. I crave for the energy and corporate uniting in song!! I watch the people, stone faces and distracted. It makes me so sad. I come from the south where our music is loud and alive. The congregation engaged, the bands or leaders engaging. We are all not indie rockers..we have gospel ties, rock ties, familiar ties, hip/hop ties,etc. Is it the lack of sun that affects our lack of enthusiasm? Are we really practicing for the day we sing face to face to our Jesus? Will we stand there like a sack of rocks? That’s what I see primarily now. I have offered to be part of the solution and not just a squeaky wheel. As our church is growing like gang buster, our music should evolve to match it. Please let’s “bring down the house” collectively and revamp our music and leadership!!!

2. (14 July 2007) Joel Brown says:

   Man, this really hits close to home. Red Letter (my band) is in the middle of writing 2 songs right now, both of which I will likely be the lyricist for. I have some severe writers’ block and feel like all I can come up with is trite and meaningless. May the good hymns inspire us all to honor God with truly glorifying, thought out, poetic expression…

3. (16 July 2007) Daniel Ross says:

   “It is generally played by combos — in church! — that include guitar, bass, drums and piano.”

   Gasp!

   dogs and cats! Living TOGETHER!

   Oh dear Lord, save us all.

   ;-)

4. (16 July 2007) Linda Jweinat says:

   I honestly don’t see our music as trite. I, a 61 yr old non-indie, have not found a Mars Hill song i can’t or don’t sing with. None of it’s been la-la-la music. The music is a large part of what I like at MH. It’s people who aren’t singing…don’t blame the messengers. I love old and new and think we have a good mix.

5. (17 July 2007) Eric Stark says:

   I love Mars Hill music. I connect with some styles more than others. I do tend to move more to BET. It does raise some interesting questions. When I think about it, there are only a small handful of MH songs that I really connect with in worship. It’s not the style of music–love most of it. It’s not the content–most of the MH stuff is loaded with lush imagery and meaty content–no “God-is-my-girlfriend” lyrics here. I think a lot of it has to do with one’s background and preference. I grew up Lutheran, and love the wealth and depth of hymns. Some of my favorites by guys like Luther and Bernard of Clarvaux are hundreds, and even over a thousand years old. In them I feel a connection to saints across the centuries. In them I am often overwhelmed by a sense of awe and wonder at what a wretched man I am, the complete “otherness” of God, and the humbling and completely undeserved mercy of Christ’s sacrifice. When Mars Hill bands play a hymn I am often moved to tears. So I guess my encouragement to those of you like Joel who write the music we use in worship: sound the depths–explore the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ and the fullness of God (Eph 3:18-19).

6. (18 July 2007) Ken Kruithoff says:

   to be completely honest, the music at my church makes me sin almost more than anything. I strongly dislike the organ as it is, but to make matters worse, our organist is absolutley terrible. She makes it sound like Sloth from the Goonies is hiding somewhere in the pipes. I think that you guys should post your worship sessions online.

7. (18 July 2007) Matt Johnson says:

   Hey Ken,

   Actually, we have a whole lot of music posted over at marshillchurch.org under the media section.

8. (26 July 2007) Angela says:

   Any song that is glorifying God is a good song because only God is good. My entire family has enjoyed many styles of worship music and we find that the only thing that holds us back from entering into worship during the service is if the music is too LOUD. Hurray for “ample” amplification,… Boo for eardrum destruction.

9. (29 July 2007) Abigail says:

   There are a lot of things I like about Mars Hill music… I like that it can connect with lots of diffrent people, because there are a lot of different sounding bands — so I can respect the music, even if it isn’t totally my “style”.

   The words to the songs are also usually deep, thought provoking, and seek to authentically worship God — no fluff… thats good.

   I think part of the goal of corporate worship is corporate SINGING — I will second Angela and say that to me loud = “concert” which prevents me from truely entering into worshiping God, and makes it hard for me to not focus on the band.

   Most importantly — I think our worship songs, while the lyrics are great — the tunes are often NOT SINGABLE — they are not very melodic, pretty, or catchy. (this is not the case for ALL Mars Hill songs, only a generalization)

   I grew up in a very traditional church, and would often leave church humming the hymns… honestly, I never hum any of the MH songs, because I have trouble singing along with them.

   Granted, I’m a classically trained musician, so my notions of “melodic” are generally slanted in the classical direction.

   Thats my $0.02…

   ~ ABI

10. (6 August 2007) Ryan says:

    I can agree with some of Abigail’s points. The music should encourage corporate worship. Not that I think ANY of the MH Worship bands should simplify meter or otherwise compromise their artistic expression(I’d argue that’s what sung today is pretty singable), but it would be nice for lyrics on the slides to be structured somewhat in relation to the flow of the song. I’m not saying we need ruled staff-sheets (I’d guess most can’t read music…or maybe just me), but sometimes lyrics are placed in a visually artful way (usually to compliment an image) at the expense of being able to sing-along well by ’site reading’.

    - r

11. (7 August 2007) Joel says:

    good feedback on the MH songs…keep ‘em coming!