Quote from Forum Archives on April 10, 2018, 10:36 am

Posted by: dozier.bob <dozier.bob@...>

Just a quich though from a lurker and a Veteran of the worship wars

 1) The presenting of a personal offing of worship is different from leading in corporate worship. While the former can be a part of the latter it, the former, really only requires you and God. Prepare your personal offering of excellence and present it to God as an act of worship. He will use it as He wills.

2) Do not confuse the means with the end. Consentrate on worship. Worship by its very nature requires sacrifice and submission.  

3) Divinely appointed leaders, worship or otherwise, must first submit to God then in the people. Shepherds, not butchers, of the flock to which they are called.

Returning to lurker mode.

OnMon, Apr 9, 2018 at 9:06 PM Craig Baughman <crabo308@gmail.com> wrote:

Bottom line for me. ... If you are looking to get your musical needs fulfilled by playing worship music, you will be disappointed most of the time.  You need to find some other outlets for your music so you can give your gift to the Lord in worship.  I've fought this for many, many years.  I am always fighting the feeling that I can pick better music than the worship leader.  There is no shame in wanting to be better and be musically challenged, but God has put people in positions for reasons we often don't understand.  If you can't joyfully serve in that role, it might not be the right place for you.   You also might start by suggesting one song every now and then.

On Sun, Apr 8, 2018, 9:32 PM <churchbass-digest-help@welovegod.org> wrote:

churchbass Digest 9 Apr 2018 02:32:33 -0000 Issue 2199

Topics (messages 44705 through 44708)

Re: churchbass Digest 4 Apr 2018 02:34:09 -0000 Issue 2198

        44705 by: Paul Bagley

        44708 by: ThomasJ Smit

Re: Is boring church music caused by fear?

        44706 by: Wulf Forrester-Barker

        44707 by: Steve Puersten

Administrivia:

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul Bagley <pauldwaynebagley@gmail.com>
To: churchbass@welovegod.org
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 22:11:21 -0500
Subject: Re: churchbass Digest 4 Apr 2018 02:34:09 -0000 Issue 2198

Rik,  I really appreciate your perspective.  Thank you for sharing your story.  

 - Paul

 - Paul Bagley

   612-518-4470

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 9:34 PM, <churchbass-digest-help@welovegod.org> wrote:

churchbass Digest 4 Apr 2018 02:34:09 -0000 Issue 2198

Topics (messages 44704 through 44704)

Is boring church music caused by fear?

        44704 by: Rik Osborne

Administrivia:

To subscribe to the digest, e-mail:

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rik Osborne <rik.osborne66@gmail.com>
To: churchbass@associate.com
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 19:33:56 -0700
Subject: Is boring church music caused by fear?

Hey all -

I've been doing a lot of thinking about "praise & worship" music lately. Specifically, about how boring and banal a lot of it is.

A while back I posted about my leaving the worship team I'd been part of for 21 years, after the retirement of our longtime leader. I shared the letter I wrote to the church expressing my reasons, and cited "respecting my wife" as a primary motivation (short version: I had the strong impression that my wife would be better served in a different church, but had been using my feeling of "responsibility" to my longtime worship team as a reason to stay where I was). But, while my words were true, in the time since writing that letter I've started to question whether part of my motivation for writing it was to backtrack and cover some things I'd previously written to the new worship leader, as well as to the new pastor.

The simple fact is that I became quite miserable on the worship team after my pastors retired. Mike was the senior pastor, and Nancy was his co-pastor and worship leader, and I had known the two of them since I was about 18 years old. Fun story (I've probably shared this before, but it's been a few years): I first played bass at church when I was 18. I wasn't really a bass player yet; I didn't have my own bass, and I was actually a young guitarist who would rather play the bass. So I played a church-owned bass (I'd really like to go back and have another look at that bass - it was a Gibson, violin-shaped like a Hofner, but with a solid mahogany body) through a church-owned amp. And ... I eventually got "fired". I made up many excuses for getting "fired" back then, but in hindsight and with maturity, I realize that I was fired because I was an 18-year-old dumbass who didn't understand the role of the bass and was too interested in who was looking at me while I played.

When I was 19, I switched churches. Not because I was mad, but because my best friend at the time invited me to visit his family's church. It was a Church of the Nazarene, a very "traditional" church, which was quite a change for me, having grown up in a Calvary Chapel church and then in a Foursquare church after my family moved to a new city that didn't have a Calvary Chapel. Attending the Nazarene church really opened my eyes and ears to music that I hadn't heard a lot of while growing up: HYMNS. Sure, at Calvary Chapel we sang an occasional hymn, and at the Foursquare church we sang a hymn each week. But at the Nazarene church, it was hymns out of a proper hymnal, rather than words projected overhead. 3-4 hymns per service. I knew how to sight read music, so I loved having the harmonies all written out for me (I'm terrible at singing harmony on the fly). And of course my years of playing in school bands (clarinet, alto sax, and bassoon) in a variety of styles made me appreciate, even at the tender age of 19, good composition. By the time I was 20, I realized just how good hymns were when it came to the musicality, the composition ... just the overall musical creativity that went into them. Especially when compared to the Maranatha Music "praise choruses" I grew up on. Not to mention the fact that, once my mother got over trying to protect me from "the world" and allowed me to listen to rock music, I gravitated toward bands that seemed to put an emphasis on creativity, composition, and technical excellence. That is, prog and metal.

Alas, my hymn-singing church life was short-lived. When I was 22, being a cook (which I still am, as I approach 52 years) I got a job that required me to work on Sundays. I was no longer able to attend church, and unfortunately by this time I had discovered beer. The beer pretty much took over my life for most of my twenties. I got a DUI when I was 26, but that just stopped me driving. I kept drinking until, at age 28, certain events transpired (six cops pointing guns at me - story I will relate later if anyone's curious, but it's pretty lame) to make me say to myself, "enough of this s***" and I stopped drinking, cold turkey.

I ended up, at age 30, returning to the Foursquare church, where my mother still attended. Soon after, I found myself playing bass on the worship team again. Alongside Nancy, still playing piano and leading worship. Denise and Alexa taking turns on alternating weeks on synth/organ. Larry playing the trumpet. Joe on the flute. And ... somebody ... playing the drums. And, wow. I had matured by this point, and having played bass in a lot of bar jam sessions, I had a better understanding of my role. I played pretty "understated" to begin with, just wanting to listen and fit myself into what these guys had going on.

But here is where I learned some things about our leader that I didn't know 10+ years earlier. She was SO much easier to play behind now, and she didn't get upset when, on some songs, I started playing a "busy" bass part.

Back when I got "fired" for the busy-ness of my playing (actually, it wasn't the "busy-ness", it was my attitude, but my immature 19-year-old self couldn't see that), Nancy was a 30-something pianist/singer whose entire musical life had revolved around classical training. It was only when she and Mike had been commissioned to start a church here that she had taken the first steps to learning how to look at nothing but lyrics and chords, and create a piano accompaniment. Nancy and Mike actually both grew up in the Church of Christ, which does not allow musical instruments in the sanctuary. When I was 19, Nancy had only been playing the way she was for 3 years or so. And I'd been making her job more difficult with my attitude. (Note: she and Mike didn't say this to me - this is my own honest evaluation. If my younger self tried playing with me right now, I'd fire me too. When I brought up my "firing" to them, when I was in my late 40s, neither of them actually remembered it.)

So, once I had rejoined the worship team at age 30, I found out that what Nancy was doing was something called, "blended worship". Apparently, the whole point of "blended worship" was to not get locked into a particular "style". And oh my goodness, to me, this was AWESOME. It wasn't a steady diet of hymns, and it wasn't a string of simple "praise choruses". It was hymns and praise choruses and full-on songs with multiple verses and choruses, in multiple styles, and songs that came from different Christian communities from around the world, written in the style of those local cultures. It was pure joy to this pure musician, and I absolutely loved adapting my playing to each and every style. And since she was Mike's wife, the two of them worked together to make sure that everything we played and sang tied in with what Mike was preaching each week.

For 20 years, I was on the best worship team that could ever be. And then Mike and Nancy retired, after leading that church for more than 30 years.

With Nancy gone, the worship team was now just me, Denise, Alexa, and Larry (too many rotating backup singers to name). Okay, this can't be all that bad, right? Even with Nancy gone, I'm still playing alongside the same other three musicians I've played with for the last 20 years!

Except ... Dave. Denise's husband, and, technically, our "associate pastor". Before Mike & Nancy retired, Dave would preach the sermons when Mike took a week off (and I LOVED Dave's preaching), and would lead worship in Nancy's absence. I never liked it when Dave led worship, because he always picked boring songs. But, hey, it was only now and then, so I could deal. Except for one funny Sunday when he kept telling me that my bass was too loud. I kept turning down and turning down during rehearsal, to the point where I "played" the entire actual service with my volume turned all the way down to ZERO. I effectively mimed my way through the service, producing no sound, and then had Dave telling me afterwards that I sounded "great".

And now Dave was the new worship leader.

One year. One year of Jeremy, the new pastor, a guy younger than me, for whom I had hopes of great worship music because he's a musician himself, and also a pretty good songwriter.

And one year of Dave as worship leader. One year of slow, plodding, unimaginative songs. Pardon my language, but HOLY S***! Dave introduced a new song that he thought was pretty cool. Except the chorus of the song recycled that I-vi-IV-V chord progression that was used in every third "rock & roll* song from the 1950s. One solid year of slow song after slow song after slow song. Sure, Dave would pick a somewhat uptempo song for the first song, but every following song was slow and plodding. And this wasn't because Denise, now the main pianist, couldn't play uptempo. I'd been playing with her for 20 years, and I knew what she was capable of. No, this was Dave imposing his musical preferences on us. Dave is only 3 years older than me, but somehow, while I was listening to Judas Priest and Rush, he was listening to The Carpenters.

I gave it a whole year, because I suspected Dave was going for some sort of "grieving period" over Mike & Nancy's departure. And sure, Jeremy was coming in, knowing how long Mike & Nancy had been here and going for the "smooth transition" and not wanting to make any sudden changes. Okay, fine, I'll go along with that. Except I didn't see anything "Christian" about it. It wasn't "being Christian", it was modern "let's not upset anybody". 

Let's not upset anybody? Let me tell you about one of the oldest men in that church, Vergil Murren. Verg is around 10 years older than my parents, so he's pushing 90 by now. In his retirement, Verg spent his time almost singlehandedly remodeling the basement of our church building. Meanwhile, Mike & Nancy, knowing that my living arrangements made practicing the bass impossible, gave me keys to the building and allowed me to use the sanctuary on Mondays (when every church employee had the day off) to plug in and play bass. I had a setup with a stereo, and my amp. I'd pop a CD into the stereo and play bass and sing along with the songs. All secular rock, mostly Rush songs but also others (and I did make a point of not playing anything that could be considered "satanic"). So I would be in the sanctuary, plugged into my amp, playing and singing long with Rush or whoever ...

... and one day Verg came walking up the stairs into the sanctuary, looking right at me. And I thought, "OMG, he's about to lecture me about this evil music I've been playing and singing up here!" Because, well, that's what I'd grown up with. Instead, Verg said, "Hey, I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy listening to you play.".

WHOA. That was absolutely the best thing that anybody has ever said to me about my music.

And now I can finally get to the point.

Modern P&W music, as far as I can tell, SUCKS.

And listening to it makes me think that the generic "Christian" isafraid of good music, because they think it might be too worldly.

We're not a "band", we're a "worship team".

We don't play on a "stage", we play on a "platform".

It's fear. Fear of appearing "worldly".

And that is so sad.

Quite a few years ago, my stepdad gifted me a CD. It was The Newsboys "Take Me to Your Leader" album. Wow, what a great bunch of songs! The creativity, the cleverness of the lyrics ... More, please! I looked for newer stuff from them and ... the profit-driven record company had forced them into making P&W music, and wow, it sucked.

Not so many years ago, I discovered Barlow Girl, and I was blown away by their lyrics and musicianship ... and then later, was not so impressed. And then I read that they disbanded to focus on other ministries. I found myself wondering if they got pressured to make P&W music, and simply chose to disband instead. If so, I have much respect for them.

After leaving the church I'd been in for so long, I switched over to the church my wife liked. And this is a very modern church, where everybody's young, and the preaching is very "hip", and the music is very modern and ... BORING AND UNINSPIRED AS ALL HELL. My wife keeps trying to encourage me to audition for the worship team (this place has multiple services and thus multiple rotating teams), and I'm all, "Um, no ..." The players they already have are great. I'm sure I could fit right in ... except I wouldn't enjoy playing the boring P&W music they're playing.

P&W music is boring because the musicians are afraid of offending people.

--

Rik Osborne

<rik.osborne66@gmail.com>

<https://www.facebook.com/mister.rik>

--

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ThomasJ Smit <teajaismit@gmail.com>
To: churchbass <churchbass@welovegod.org>
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 22:32:18 -0400
Subject: Re: [CB] Re: churchbass Digest 4 Apr 2018 02:34:09 -0000 Issue 2198

At first I didn't know how to reply since I am not in your space.I sat for a moment, and then realized that there will be times that "we" don't get enjoyment from doing our "task" but others will be blessed by it.

My hope is that you will be able to feel blessed by your decisions ( I say this with sincerity, not chastisement).

   TomS

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 11:11 PM, Paul Bagley <pauldwaynebagley@gmail.com> wrote:

Rik,  I really appreciate your perspective.  Thank you for sharing your story.  

 - Paul

 - Paul Bagley

   612-518-4470

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 9:34 PM, <churchbass-digest-help@welovegod.org> wrote:

churchbass Digest 4 Apr 2018 02:34:09 -0000 Issue 2198

Topics (messages 44704 through 44704)

Is boring church music caused by fear?

        44704 by: Rik Osborne

Administrivia:

To subscribe to the digest, e-mail:

        <churchbass-digest-subscribe@welovegod.org>

To unsubscribe from the digest, e-mail:

        <churchbass-digest-unsubscribe@welovegod.org>

To post to the list, e-mail:

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rik Osborne <rik.osborne66@gmail.com>
To: churchbass@associate.com
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 19:33:56 -0700
Subject: Is boring church music caused by fear?

Hey all -

I've been doing a lot of thinking about "praise & worship" music lately. Specifically, about how boring and banal a lot of it is.

A while back I posted about my leaving the worship team I'd been part of for 21 years, after the retirement of our longtime leader. I shared the letter I wrote to the church expressing my reasons, and cited "respecting my wife" as a primary motivation (short version: I had the strong impression that my wife would be better served in a different church, but had been using my feeling of "responsibility" to my longtime worship team as a reason to stay where I was). But, while my words were true, in the time since writing that letter I've started to question whether part of my motivation for writing it was to backtrack and cover some things I'd previously written to the new worship leader, as well as to the new pastor.

The simple fact is that I became quite miserable on the worship team after my pastors retired. Mike was the senior pastor, and Nancy was his co-pastor and worship leader, and I had known the two of them since I was about 18 years old. Fun story (I've probably shared this before, but it's been a few years): I first played bass at church when I was 18. I wasn't really a bass player yet; I didn't have my own bass, and I was actually a young guitarist who would rather play the bass. So I played a church-owned bass (I'd really like to go back and have another look at that bass - it was a Gibson, violin-shaped like a Hofner, but with a solid mahogany body) through a church-owned amp. And ... I eventually got "fired". I made up many excuses for getting "fired" back then, but in hindsight and with maturity, I realize that I was fired because I was an 18-year-old dumbass who didn't understand the role of the bass and was too interested in who was looking at me while I played.

When I was 19, I switched churches. Not because I was mad, but because my best friend at the time invited me to visit his family's church. It was a Church of the Nazarene, a very "traditional" church, which was quite a change for me, having grown up in a Calvary Chapel church and then in a Foursquare church after my family moved to a new city that didn't have a Calvary Chapel. Attending the Nazarene church really opened my eyes and ears to music that I hadn't heard a lot of while growing up: HYMNS. Sure, at Calvary Chapel we sang an occasional hymn, and at the Foursquare church we sang a hymn each week. But at the Nazarene church, it was hymns out of a proper hymnal, rather than words projected overhead. 3-4 hymns per service. I knew how to sight read music, so I loved having the harmonies all written out for me (I'm terrible at singing harmony on the fly). And of course my years of playing in school bands (clarinet, alto sax, and bassoon) in a variety of styles made me appreciate, even at the tender age of 19, good composition. By the time I was 20, I realized just how good hymns were when it came to the musicality, the composition ... just the overall musical creativity that went into them. Especially when compared to the Maranatha Music "praise choruses" I grew up on. Not to mention the fact that, once my mother got over trying to protect me from "the world" and allowed me to listen to rock music, I gravitated toward bands that seemed to put an emphasis on creativity, composition, and technical excellence. That is, prog and metal.

Alas, my hymn-singing church life was short-lived. When I was 22, being a cook (which I still am, as I approach 52 years) I got a job that required me to work on Sundays. I was no longer able to attend church, and unfortunately by this time I had discovered beer. The beer pretty much took over my life for most of my twenties. I got a DUI when I was 26, but that just stopped me driving. I kept drinking until, at age 28, certain events transpired (six cops pointing guns at me - story I will relate later if anyone's curious, but it's pretty lame) to make me say to myself, "enough of this s***" and I stopped drinking, cold turkey.

I ended up, at age 30, returning to the Foursquare church, where my mother still attended. Soon after, I found myself playing bass on the worship team again. Alongside Nancy, still playing piano and leading worship. Denise and Alexa taking turns on alternating weeks on synth/organ. Larry playing the trumpet. Joe on the flute. And ... somebody ... playing the drums. And, wow. I had matured by this point, and having played bass in a lot of bar jam sessions, I had a better understanding of my role. I played pretty "understated" to begin with, just wanting to listen and fit myself into what these guys had going on.

But here is where I learned some things about our leader that I didn't know 10+ years earlier. She was SO much easier to play behind now, and she didn't get upset when, on some songs, I started playing a "busy" bass part.

Back when I got "fired" for the busy-ness of my playing (actually, it wasn't the "busy-ness", it was my attitude, but my immature 19-year-old self couldn't see that), Nancy was a 30-something pianist/singer whose entire musical life had revolved around classical training. It was only when she and Mike had been commissioned to start a church here that she had taken the first steps to learning how to look at nothing but lyrics and chords, and create a piano accompaniment. Nancy and Mike actually both grew up in the Church of Christ, which does not allow musical instruments in the sanctuary. When I was 19, Nancy had only been playing the way she was for 3 years or so. And I'd been making her job more difficult with my attitude. (Note: she and Mike didn't say this to me - this is my own honest evaluation. If my younger self tried playing with me right now, I'd fire me too. When I brought up my "firing" to them, when I was in my late 40s, neither of them actually remembered it.)

So, once I had rejoined the worship team at age 30, I found out that what Nancy was doing was something called, "blended worship". Apparently, the whole point of "blended worship" was to not get locked into a particular "style". And oh my goodness, to me, this was AWESOME. It wasn't a steady diet of hymns, and it wasn't a string of simple "praise choruses". It was hymns and praise choruses and full-on songs with multiple verses and choruses, in multiple styles, and songs that came from different Christian communities from around the world, written in the style of those local cultures. It was pure joy to this pure musician, and I absolutely loved adapting my playing to each and every style. And since she was Mike's wife, the two of them worked together to make sure that everything we played and sang tied in with what Mike was preaching each week.

For 20 years, I was on the best worship team that could ever be. And then Mike and Nancy retired, after leading that church for more than 30 years.

With Nancy gone, the worship team was now just me, Denise, Alexa, and Larry (too many rotating backup singers to name). Okay, this can't be all that bad, right? Even with Nancy gone, I'm still playing alongside the same other three musicians I've played with for the last 20 years!

Except ... Dave. Denise's husband, and, technically, our "associate pastor". Before Mike & Nancy retired, Dave would preach the sermons when Mike took a week off (and I LOVED Dave's preaching), and would lead worship in Nancy's absence. I never liked it when Dave led worship, because he always picked boring songs. But, hey, it was only now and then, so I could deal. Except for one funny Sunday when he kept telling me that my bass was too loud. I kept turning down and turning down during rehearsal, to the point where I "played" the entire actual service with my volume turned all the way down to ZERO. I effectively mimed my way through the service, producing no sound, and then had Dave telling me afterwards that I sounded "great".

And now Dave was the new worship leader.

One year. One year of Jeremy, the new pastor, a guy younger than me, for whom I had hopes of great worship music because he's a musician himself, and also a pretty good songwriter.

And one year of Dave as worship leader. One year of slow, plodding, unimaginative songs. Pardon my language, but HOLY S***! Dave introduced a new song that he thought was pretty cool. Except the chorus of the song recycled that I-vi-IV-V chord progression that was used in every third "rock & roll* song from the 1950s. One solid year of slow song after slow song after slow song. Sure, Dave would pick a somewhat uptempo song for the first song, but every following song was slow and plodding. And this wasn't because Denise, now the main pianist, couldn't play uptempo. I'd been playing with her for 20 years, and I knew what she was capable of. No, this was Dave imposing his musical preferences on us. Dave is only 3 years older than me, but somehow, while I was listening to Judas Priest and Rush, he was listening to The Carpenters.

I gave it a whole year, because I suspected Dave was going for some sort of "grieving period" over Mike & Nancy's departure. And sure, Jeremy was coming in, knowing how long Mike & Nancy had been here and going for the "smooth transition" and not wanting to make any sudden changes. Okay, fine, I'll go along with that. Except I didn't see anything "Christian" about it. It wasn't "being Christian", it was modern "let's not upset anybody". 

Let's not upset anybody? Let me tell you about one of the oldest men in that church, Vergil Murren. Verg is around 10 years older than my parents, so he's pushing 90 by now. In his retirement, Verg spent his time almost singlehandedly remodeling the basement of our church building. Meanwhile, Mike & Nancy, knowing that my living arrangements made practicing the bass impossible, gave me keys to the building and allowed me to use the sanctuary on Mondays (when every church employee had the day off) to plug in and play bass. I had a setup with a stereo, and my amp. I'd pop a CD into the stereo and play bass and sing along with the songs. All secular rock, mostly Rush songs but also others (and I did make a point of not playing anything that could be considered "satanic"). So I would be in the sanctuary, plugged into my amp, playing and singing long with Rush or whoever ...

... and one day Verg came walking up the stairs into the sanctuary, looking right at me. And I thought, "OMG, he's about to lecture me about this evil music I've been playing and singing up here!" Because, well, that's what I'd grown up with. Instead, Verg said, "Hey, I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy listening to you play.".

WHOA. That was absolutely the best thing that anybody has ever said to me about my music.

And now I can finally get to the point.

Modern P&W music, as far as I can tell, SUCKS.

And listening to it makes me think that the generic "Christian" isafraid of good music, because they think it might be too worldly.

We're not a "band", we're a "worship team".

We don't play on a "stage", we play on a "platform".

It's fear. Fear of appearing "worldly".

And that is so sad.

Quite a few years ago, my stepdad gifted me a CD. It was The Newsboys "Take Me to Your Leader" album. Wow, what a great bunch of songs! The creativity, the cleverness of the lyrics ... More, please! I looked for newer stuff from them and ... the profit-driven record company had forced them into making P&W music, and wow, it sucked.

Not so many years ago, I discovered Barlow Girl, and I was blown away by their lyrics and musicianship ... and then later, was not so impressed. And then I read that they disbanded to focus on other ministries. I found myself wondering if they got pressured to make P&W music, and simply chose to disband instead. If so, I have much respect for them.

After leaving the church I'd been in for so long, I switched over to the church my wife liked. And this is a very modern church, where everybody's young, and the preaching is very "hip", and the music is very modern and ... BORING AND UNINSPIRED AS ALL HELL. My wife keeps trying to encourage me to audition for the worship team (this place has multiple services and thus multiple rotating teams), and I'm all, "Um, no ..." The players they already have are great. I'm sure I could fit right in ... except I wouldn't enjoy playing the boring P&W music they're playing.

P&W music is boring because the musicians are afraid of offending people.

--

Rik Osborne

<rik.osborne66@gmail.com>

<https://www.facebook.com/mister.rik>

--

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To unsubscribe from digests, send ANY message to

<churchbass-digest-unsubscribe@associate.com

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wulf Forrester-Barker <basswulf@gmail.com>
To: Churchbass <churchbass@welovegod.org>
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 09:28:08 +0100
Subject: Re: [CB] Is boring church music caused by fear?
Rik

> P&W music is boring because the musicians are afraid of offending people.

Possibly in part but I think there are some other dynamics at play

too. Some of them are commendable and some are pretty egregious but

there's a whole mess of things going into the stew. Off the top of my

head and in no particular order:

1. We largely rely on a branch of the music industry for nurturing the

artists who write new worship material, including getting it recorded

and distributed. Songs that get establish tend to get plays on the

conference scene, have a cool video online (and, eventually loads of

copyright-dubious lyrics over pretty pictures versions on Youtube) and

those who aspire to use the song can download chords and, for those

who care, sheet music too. That industry is driven by lots of

hyperbolic marketing and an innate conservatism that seeks assured

sales and ends up churning out more filler than masterpieces.

2. Many church bands (certainly in the UK context) are almost

completely made of amateur volunteers. Some are brilliant musicians

and some (not necessarily quite the same set) are regularly involved

in other music outside the church setting but a high proportion rarely

practise and almost never play in other settings. Another I IV V vi

song might seem approachable rather than daunting (or boring) if you

only pick up your instrument once every few Sunday mornings.

3. When do congregations ever show up to the rehearsals? They rely on

things which are familiar and relatively easy - so not wide-ranging

vocal parts with complex syncopations and outside harmonies. If you

tried to introduce a song worthy of Rush, you'd probably upset people

but not because so many of them think rock music is an anathema.

Rather, you would be requiring them to respond in a way that lay

outside their ability and people don't like to feel like failures,

particularly when the message (hopefully) is that God loves and

accepts them, drawing them in, rather than expecting them to do

something impossible to enter his courts with praise.

By listening to complex music, you raise yourself above the plateau;

by learning how to play it, you ascend heights were most of the

congregation cannot follow. So, what is a musician to do, to work out

their calling without ending up isolated? Again, some suggestions:

1. Go to church to serve. Look for other places to play that will

stretch and develop you. Every now and then, you will might find a

sublime moment in the sanctuary but, when the congregation is in the

house, that isn't the thing to be seeking.

2. Keep listening to and learning music from all sorts of sources.

Creatively look for the things that can be applied back to the music

in church to polish it without derailing it - like places that would

suit a riff or where you can change the bass note or the rhythmic

placement. There might even be scope for rearranging some passages;

same tune on a different ground.

3. Sing along even if you haven't got a mic. Sometimes (sadly not

always) the words carry the life of the song even when the music is

boring.

Finally, here is a moving post from a friend of mine:

https://emilyintheworld.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/easter-saturday-the-day-in-between/

It isn't specifically about music but look for the reference to

"10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord O My Soul)" by Matt Redman. Musically,

it is pretty much the same old, same old, but Emily's story reminded

me of how life and truth can be found even in new and widely popular

songs that have been churned through the Christian music industry and

dragged down by 10,000 amateur worship bands.

Every blessing,

Wulf

--

Wulf Forrester-Barker

http://blog.webden.org.uk/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steve Puersten <spuersten@rogers.com>
To: <churchbass@associate.com>
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 09:15:48 -0400
Subject: Is boring church music caused by fear?

I started playing on a church music team in the early 90’s,…back then we were cutting edge and for awhile enjoyed a certain amount of fame as other churches had us visit and play for them so that they could learn from us.

 

I too have been just a little saddened by the current trend in church music and have reflected a little on it,…as far as I can see, just like many other things, church music has gone through phases, the current phase being the ‘flavour of the month’

 

I’m hoping that it is just a passing phase and that we can be part of the next wave

 

Steve Puersten

<img width="301" height="58" id="m_966379131615570320m_7407858599997993687Picture_x0020_1" alt="cid:image001.jpg@01CBA085.2E631110">

steve@puerstenbookkeeping.com

www.puerstenbookkeeping.com

905-813-9321

647-885-9321 (cell)

 

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