Music Mondays/Sermon Snippets

So I went the entire month of July without posting here. In retrospect, I'll call it an unintentional blogging sabbatical. 

This month has been filled with hot weather, family get-togethers, church events, yard work, our denomination's national conference, a mini-vacation...and now we are getting into August all of the sudden.

As I've traditionally done in the past, this summer I switched to a sermon series that lends itself to people's summer schedule (ie, traveling-vacation-inconsistent church attendance). I picked "The Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5-7 and am in the middle of the Beatitudes. 

Yesterday brought us to, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" in Matt. 5:4. Like many of these other sayings, Jesus doesn't seem to make worldly sense with this assertion. I had some extra time to prepare leading up to this and providentially I kept finding myself personally confronted with lamentable situations.

I'm convinced more and more that mourning/lament are the most ignored part of Christian discipleship in our modern times. Read Scripture with an eye for this and you'll find it everywhere. Whether it's mourning over the death of faithful saints (Gen. 50), the deplorable condition of God's city (Nehemiah 1ff), the depraved condition of God's people (Lamentations 1, all the Prophets), or simply suffering injustice (Ps. 22, 86), lament is an integral part of what it means to walk with God. It's not just about being sad. It is about seeing how the world is not as it should be - but still trusting in God to make it all right.

This brings me to our music for today. A Facebook memories reminder pointed me in this direction. Of all the modern CCM artists out there, I find Jars of Clay to have utilized this lament genre as much as anyone. Here are a couple examples I find notable and meaningful. 

If you find yourself in a time of lament, grief, or mourning - may you find God's comfort and consolation. And may we all learn to patiently protest the present while confident of God's future reconciliation.

Music Mondays - Best Covers Ever

Some covers become classics because the second artist(s) offer an original take on a song that is not originally theirs. Many covers become classics because the song and the secondary artist fit perfectly in style and tone. 

This week's selection is one of the latter category. After Rich Mullins' tragic death, a tribute album was produced featuring many other CCM giants recording their versions of many of Mullins' hit songs.

I was a college student at the time and as soon as I heard of the album, I purchased it through my Columbia House CD club (remember those?). I remember being thrilled to see and then hear that Jars of Clay were covering "If I Stand". It was the perfect marriage of the right artist paying homage to the right song. My only disappointment was that I let a friend borrow the CD a couple months later and that friend had it and a bunch of his own CD's stolen out of his car. 

Thankfully we have the internet and Youtube now to revisit those things we once lost:

OMG (?) - Music Mondays

We like our pop music simple. Give us a snappy chorus, a memorable beat, fun lyrics and we're good to go. Most of the time, we like our music to give us an escape.

The above is true of both secular and Christian music. CCM can venture into serious subjects and tackle hard questions, but it is still more peppy than profound.

Therefore, it is not surprising then that one of the deepest songs of the new millennium never got popular traction even within CCM circles.

When Jars of Clay released their final big-label album "Good Monsters" over 11 years ago, it was met with critical praise and had decent commercial success. Re-listening to it recently, it's a solid album beginning to end. The fanfare it received was deserved, but the best song, "Oh My God", was overlooked. 

Here's a non-official music video:

It is a song that has stops and starts with emotions varying from melancholy to desperation. It observes how "oh my God!" is found on the lips of many people in many different situations - both in sincere pleas and in crassness. It agonizes over the really discouraging aspects of life and crescendos to urgent cries of "oh my God!"

This interview captures the artist's story behind the song. It confirms what we would suspect, that this song is about wrestling with tough questions of faith and life. 

In the interest of space, I'm giving a link to the lyrics, rather than copy them all here. They are abundant but startling in their depth.

One more thought though. In the 11 years since this was written, I find it interesting how much more prevalent "Oh my God" has become in our cultural vocabulary. It's abbreviation - OMG! - is everywhere now that texting and messaging are the main methods of communication for our younger generations. 

I do find it gratifying to return to this song because it takes a flippant, second-commandment-breaking phrase and turns it back on us. I rediscover the heart of this song all over the Bible, like in passages such as James 5:7-12. Maybe I'm giving to much weight to one song, but maybe this one song has prophetic value. I can say that seeing and/or hearing OMG (or one of the variations) just won't sit right with me anymore, thanks in large part to this song. 

And I think that's good. I'll listen to the peppy, snappy songs that give me some escape. But give me more of this - deep theology and deep questions.

Music Mondays - Faith in Tension (Part II)

Last week we began a countdown of the best modern Christian songs that express the tension of our faith.  Ok, they're really just my favorites but whatever.

The rationale and scoring system were detailed last week so I won't go over them again. Instead, let's jump right into the top 5 songs that honestly communicate the paradoxes and tensions of following Christ.

5. "Something Beautiful" - Needtobreathe

 (Total - 23. CT: 7, TD: 9, SQ: 5, Bonus: 2)

I remember liking this song upon hearing it for the first couple times. But I often don't always "catch" all the lyrics. When I figured out the part of the chorus that says, "I know that I'm in reach, 'cause I am down on my knees", it instantly became a favorite of mine and I realized this was a band that I needed to become more familiar with. The rest of the song explores the riskiness of faith with the metaphor of drowning, but that singular line gets me every time. Bonus points for the vocals and also sneaking in the band's own name into the song. 

4. "What If I Stumble?" - dc Talk

(Total - 23.25. CT: 10, TD: 7, SQ: 4.25, Bonus: 2)

The opening verse is the most startlingly-honest lyric written since Robert Robinson penned verse 3 of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". I know people who've toured the CCM circuit. My parents had a modest music/evangelistic ministry, traveling a lot when I was younger to different churches. The tension of performing versus ministering is a very real one. Even for a pastor that struggle is real...and then to consider what would happen if we faltered - heavy stuff. And this is at the band's peak of fame and popularity too! This live performance may be my favorite of all time - any genre any song any band. Great harmonies and tremendous use of modest vocal talent (with the exception of Michael Tait) to create a stellar performance.

Music Mondays

Around these parts, this summer has been largely characterized by precipitation. Even this morning a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for Northern Indiana and sure enough, the skies opened up around 9:45 and it's been steadily raining for a good hour and a half - with no signs of stopping.

Without any other ideas, I figured I might as well use it as inspiration for today's Music Monday. Scripture certainly uses rain in literal and figurative ways to teach us lessons. 

Here are my top 3 Christian songs that involve rain:

3. Michael W. Smith - "Let it Rain"

2. Delirious? - "Rain Down"

1. Jars of Clay - "Flood"

After the jump we have two honorable mentions that didn't quite qualify since their content doesn't exactly deal with rain, but they were close enough to be considered.

Music Mondays - Inspired by Genesis

Maybe the most well-known stories of the early chapters of Genesis is that of Noah and the Ark. 
Humanity is so depraved and wicked, God is left with no other option but to punish the world with a catastrophic flood that will destroy all living things - except Noah and his family. And the animals God sends their way.

Maybe no other song is as directly tied to the stories of Genesis as this one. It came out while I was in high school and I actually remember a non-Christian friend asking me about it before I'd even heard it. He had heard it on a secular alt. rock station. It took the imagery of The Flood and allegorized it a little so it applied to us personally. We all are weak, dying, and in need of God's help to save us. 

Jars of Clay's classic, Flood:

 

Music Mondays - Worst Christian Music Videos of All-Time

There are plenty of things within Christian culture that make me shake my head. Along with lame t-shirts and self-help books disguised as spirituality, Christian Music Videos have to be right up there.

There are good Christian music videos out there, and soon I will do a top 10 best list. But when you combine the comparitive lack of money invested with the generally lower quality of production and music (both in comparision to the music industry at-large), often the results are cringe-worthy.

So with this post, I will be ranking the worst, most cringe-worthy Christian Music Videos of all time. Here, in short, is my criteria:

Each video had to be from a well-known Christian artist. After that, I ranked each video based off of four categories, dated fashion (out of style haircuts, clothes), annoyance level of the song, strange-ness of the video concept, and how irrelevant the artist or group is now. Fashion (Fash.), Annoyance (Annoy.), and Video Concept (VC) were all ranked 1-10, with the higher the number, the worse it is. Artist Irrelevance (Art.Irr.) was on a scale of 1-5. This had a smaller scale because I felt like the more 'dated' a video, the more likely the artist is no longer popular and I didn't want to double-penalize some nominees. So each total score is based off of a range between 1-35.

So below is my countdown with scores and a brief explanation.

Honorable Mention:

Jesus is a Friend of Mine by Sonseed.

This doesn't make it because the cut because this group was never a well-known Christian artist in their time. But had they been, this would have scored a perfect 35. When I say "cringe-worthy" this really defines the term.

10. Jesus Will Still Be There by Point of Grace

Admittedly, this is a biased pick. I had to have a P.O.G. song on this list because they were the bane of my existence in high school, thanks to Word of Life Summer Camps constantly playing their music and the girls in our youth group celebrating them like the Beatles.
Their major infractions come with the areas of fashion and video concept. Are these women trapped in dungeon somewhere - is that the subliminal message being communicated here? Because it would really fit the theme of the song and the director should be considered a genius.
Total Score = 17 (Fash.- 5, Annoy.- 3, VC- 5, Art.Irr.- 4)