Acoustic Jam / Hip-Hop Jam

The last 2 weeks of music at the Ballard campus have been unusual.

Two weeks ago Pastor Mark was preaching on Worship as part of our Doctrine
series. We decided that it would be a good opportunity to emphasize the
larger context of worship by stripping things down musically.  I stripped it
waaaaay down to just me with an acoustic guitar.  We haven’t done something
that sparse in a long time.  It was a very interesting experience.  I
actually really wrestled with having a band or not.  I realized just how
dependent I had become on the experience of having a band.

It turned out very well and it was a good reminder that worship come from
hearts before it comes out in music.  Stripping things back to just voices
with a simple guitar emphasized the fact that the congregation is (or should
be) just as much a part of the band as the drummer or guitar player.
There’s nothing wrong with the whole band thing but I learned that it can be
a very useful exercise to mix things up from time to time.  My friend Bob
Kauflin had a similar experience here.

Part of how I led that day was to intersperse themed passages from the
Psalms working through a progression from lament to praise.  I began with a
great song of lament, It is Well With My Soul, and ended with a joyful
rendition of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.  We read the Psalm passages
together as a congregation and it was powerful to hear the word read with
one voice and then fill the room with song.  I realized that I have never
done congregational readings except at the very beginning of a service.  I’m
not sure why but it¹s something I will likely use more of in the future.

You can hear a recording of Amazing Grace from that day here:

Then, last Sunday, we did something in our evening services that has never
happened at Mars Hill:  hip hop!!!  To be honest it’s pretty difficult to
get more white than Mars Hill.  We’ve talked and almost dreamed about a day
when we could add hip hop to the list of musical styles we use in corporate
worship.  Unfortunately this was only a one week thing but we were blessed
to have Lacrea and Tedashi from Reach Records join Joel Brown and Red Letter
for a song.

Here’s what happened:

Lacrea and Tedashi along with Trip Lee, Sho Baraka and a number of other
artists did a concert night before last at MH Ballard and they are the real deal.
They are tremendous artists as well as outstanding missionaries to hip hop
culture in general.  I was able to get them in the studio for a series of
interviews on worship, hip hop and redeeming culture that be posted in the
near future.

I praise God to be at a church where I have the trust and freedom to follow
my convictions, go with the Ghost and try new ideas.  At the end of the day
I think the only way to keep musical style from becoming an idol is to mix
it up as much as possible.  You can’t change it up so much that your people
can’t even follow you but a good rotation of musical styles and dialects
keeps folks on their toes.  It emphasizes that music is just one of of a
“thousand tongues” with which we can declare the glory of Jesus Christ.

So mix it up.  Try something new.  Go back to something old.  Just make sure
you explain what you’re doing and why.  Make sure Jesus is always the only
mediator of God’s presence.  And always make sure that He looks much, much,
much better than you.