A musing, a confession, and the last word (this week) on Christian music

What you've just said in your blog is exactly what we've all been saying in our hearts for a long time now. Its just that a lot of us have been gripped by a fear of man. We don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to appear divisive. And most of all we don't want to lose the approval and friendship of our fellow believers. But the truth is the truth whether we're afraid or not, whether we're thought of as divisive or not, whether our friends agree with us or not, regardless of whether they'll keep approving of us or not.

In the last decade christian music has become more and more like its secular counterpart and less and less of what it was originally intended to be; a means of connecting with the Most High God. I remember back then when the first Hillsong CDs came out and when the Wow series had only a few CDs on the shelves. They were about giving heartfelt praise to God and about overcoming the trials and tribulations of being a citizen of heaven in a temporal world surrounded by unbelievers that think this world is all there is, that there could be nothing more let alone another world that's better and eternal.

I have fond memories from years ago when I would be catching the train home from christmas dinner with my parents and be listening to the worship music of that time and feeling the presence of God so strong that he must have been sitting in the seat next to me.

These days I can go to a church like Planetshakers where Michael Guglielmucci comes from (I'm based in Melbourne, Australia) and I don't have an experience of God anywhere like I used to in years gone past.

In fact I'm left wondering what church God goes to because his presence is getting harder and harder sense in contemporary evangelical churches and this is a worldwide phenomenon.

There used to be a time when churches were sensitive to the one to be sought; i.e. Jesus/God/The Holy Spirit. Nowadays churches seem to have taken their primary focus off Jesus and attached it to being seeker sensitive. We're all aware of what that means. It means elaborate stage performances, programs for this that and whatever and making church appealing to the physical senses of unbelievers. The end result is that the church has gotten further and further away from its true calling. Benelovent institutions have become corporate style businesses. Services have largely become concerts. Numbers of attendees and conversions have eclipsed building up solid biblical foundations in peoples lives.

I believe the tipping point in evangelical christianity worldwide has now come. If we look to the past in church history; the times when leaders have gone astray in religious practice or conduct are often the same time that splits have happened in the church and new denominations have formed. Look at the protestant reformation and the split of pentecostals from methodism towards the end of the 1800s as two examples. Also look in the bible for the examples of leaders who have gone astray and God has taken them out of the picture. Saul is one example that comes to mind.

Can you see a pattern here? Seek to follow God first and all else will follow. Seek everything else first and God won't follow you.

theoriginalmattyc.wordpress.com

Hi ALL:

We know that things have got out of control, when TIME LIFE gets nito the Christian music business.

Lets all get some rest on Labor Day.

Brother Phillip, yeesh, when I saw Time Life selling that series of worship CDs I almost threw up. Literally. I don't have a problem with them making money at all ... but it was a little nauseating to see it being done with worship music.

Joanne
GS blog host

LOL, thanks Joel! :)

Joanne
host of the GS blog