Why Modern Christian Worship Music Is a Pet Peeve of Mine

They other day I was driving home. The past few months have been incredibly stressful for me. The whole "unable to find a job" thing has been eating away at me like a cancerous worm. I don't want to unnecessarily burden anyone with my struggles, so unless you ask, you'd never know. I'm a pro at putting up a good front, but the past few weeks I've had this cloud hanging over me that I just can't seem to escape. I was also stressed about this show I was in and then I started thinking about my Dad and wishing he was around so I could get some advice and I was in tears. In order to refocus, I turned on a Christian radio station. There were a few good songs that uplifted my spirit. Then I started thinking about the song that was playing just then and I became agitated.

The song was catchy and one that I had heard before. The refrain the singers kept singing over and over at the end was "There is no God like Jehovah." It might seem harmless, but as I thought about it I thought, "That's not true." If you believe in Jehovah, there is no God except Jehovah. When you say there is no God like Jehovah, what you are saying is that there are other Gods besides Jehovah, but none that are like him.

I have since learned that the song is called "Days of Elijah". It's a song that has become really popular in the past 5-10 years in Australia and North America. Some of the phrases from the stanzas include, "These are the days of Elijah", "And these are days of his servant, Moses", "And these are the days of Ezekiel, the dry bones becoming as flesh", and "these are the days of his servant, David Building the temple of praise."

Really? I understand part of the comparison to Elijah because in the days of Elijah the people of Israel were worshiping Baal, a false deity that required acts of child sacrifice (akin to abortion today) and sexual promiscuity (akin to way the "hook-up" culture of today). However, what about the days of Moses? In the context of the song I believe it's referring to when the Israelites were wondering in the desert for forty years, but it's not clear so it could be in reference to before the Israelites left Egypt and were still slaves. If it's in reference to the later, I don't get it because though Christians in America might be attacked, none of us are slaves. If it's a reference to the former, then it doesn't make sense either because as soon as the Israelites left Egypt they started complaining and whining and other than Moses, Caleb, and Joshua there wasn't much crying for righteousness to be restored.

And what about Ezekiel? He was a prophet that God had lie on his side on the ground for over a year and had to cook his food over a pile of animal dung. He prophesied about the coming take over and fall of Jerusalem and exile. He also saw visions about a valley of dry bones coming to life which could be a reference to the future Great resurrection, the new life offered through Jesus, the return of Israel after the Diaspora, or a combination of the three. In the context of the song it seems like they are referring to the new life offered through Jesus. If that's the case, then these are not the days of Ezekiel.

Lastly, as for the days of David, David wanted to build a temple, but he didn't. It was his son Solomon who built a temple to God. God told David that he couldn't build a temple. I know David was a man of praise, but the temple reference suggests that David actually built a temple.

I realize that some believe that I'm over analyzing things. I don't think so. In the past 25 years or so, the Church in America has become incredibly lazy. We write praise songs to God that are supposed to be an offering of worship to him, but in reality all they are really is nothing more than fuzzy, feel good poems that offer God very little, but make us feel much better about ourselves. The theology behind many of them is so bad that a five year-old who has attended Sunday School her whole life has a deeper understanding of God. People usually don't think about such things, but if you really want to worship God you should. Worship is a lifestyle that isn't just about the body, but is about the mind, too.

"Days of Elijah" lyrics
These are the days of Elijah
Declaring the Word of the Lord, yes
And these are the days of his servant, Moses
Righteousness being restored
And these are the days of great trial
Of famine and darkness and sword
So we are the voice in the desert crying
Prepare ye the way of the Lord

CHORUS:
Behold he comes
Riding on a cloud
Shining like the sun
At the trumpet's call
Lift your voice
It's the year of jubilee
And out of Zion's hill salvation comes

And these are the days of Ezekiel
With dry bones becoming as flesh
And these are the days of his servant, David
Building the temple of praise, yes
And these are the days of the harvest
The fields are all white in the world
And we are the laborers that are in your vineyard
declaring the word of the Lord

CHORUS 2X
Behold he comes
Riding on a cloud
Shining like the sun
At the trumpet's call
Lift your voice
It's the year of jubilee
And out of Zion's hill salvation comes

There's no God like Jehovah (x8--modulate)
There's no God like Jehovah (x8--modulate)
There's no God like Jehovah (x7)

CHORUS X2

I Can Do More Than Imagine

A few years ago a Christian band named Mercy Me released a song entitled "I Can Only Imagine". The song was huge on Christian radios stations (and is still played rather frequently) and many churches and para-church groups use the song as a praise song. Basically the gist of the song is that a believer can only imagine and really has no idea what it will be like when they die and go to Heaven and meet Jesus face to face.

What a crock. First off, if you can only imagine what Heaven is like, then apparently you haven't read the Bible very well because there are some fairly vivid descriptions of certain things to be seen in Heaven. Besides that, if you can only imagine, then you haven't lived much of life, either. I'm not that old, yet, but there are times in my life during certain events and experiences that I know I've tasted a bit and been given a glimpse of Heaven here on Earth. Granted, sometimes it wasn't until after those moments had past that I realized the significance of what had happened. But still, it happened.

Perhaps instead of singing about only imagining, you should walk outside and actually do a bit of living, and not just existing, first.

On High Priests and a Disengagement of the Intellect

The past few weeks I have had a lot of time to reflect and digest the things that I experienced and learned this summer. In the course of this, I have been thinking a lot about worship. It’s difficult to write about worship because worship is a very personal thing; it is an intimate part of the relationship between a person and God. Yet, worship is also something that a group of believers partake in together. Therefore, though each of us (as followers of Jesus Christ) is obligated to wrestle with what worship is it is also something that all of us together, as a body, collectively have a stake in.

So, here are a couple of things I have been thinking about. Why is it that in many modern American churches we treat worship leaders as a high priest? I thought the idea of an earthly high priest went out the window after Jesus’ crucifixion when the veil was ripped in two in the Holy of Holies. I thought Jesus had become our high priest (Heb. 8:1-2) and that each of us is ourselves a priest (I Pet. 2:9-10). If I’m not mistaken, isn’t worship more than just singing songs and making music? Isn’t worship more than just going to church, praying, reading the Bible, and doing good deeds? I thought worship was about how you live your life. I thought that everything we do, everything we say, and even everything we think should be an act of worship to God. I thought that worship wasn’t necessarily about what we do, but how we do things and the spirit of our hearts (John 4:23, Rom. 12:1-2). I know that none of us will actually be able to accomplish that in this life, but it is what we should be attempting.

If this is the case, then why is it that in many churches in America we treat those who lead music as rock stars? Why is it that we refer to the time we sing songs and music is played as “worship time?” Why is it that in so many churches that those who lead music are called and referred to as worship teams, worship bands, and worship leaders?

The real worship leaders are the people who clean the church bathrooms every week. The real worship bands and teams are those who come together anytime work needs to be done and they show up to help out. Many of these people may never have sung a note in a church service. Just about all of us can learn more about worship and what it is to worship from these people than we can from people who might lead us in singing every Sunday. Yet, we ignore these humble teachers and leaders and exalt others as high priests and rock stars.

When we do this, we do a great disservice and injustice to those around us. You and I might know that worship is supposed to incorporate every aspect of our lives, but that teenage boy who starting attending your services because of the youth group at your church might not. What about the young lady who is recovering from a drug addiction and just became a Christian a few weeks ago; might she get the wrong impression about what worship is? And what about those outside of the body of Christ who attend our services? If we, who are the Body of Christ, constantly and consistently refer to worship in terms of music and if we continue to make a distinction between things that are worship and spiritual and between everything else, what are those who aren’t followers supposed to think and believe?

This brings me to the other major issue I’ve been thinking about and wrestling with. If so many of us view worship and treat it as something we just do on Sundays or when we do something musically, then why is it that so many of us disengage ourselves from our intellect when we worship? For example, there are probably several hundred praise songs written in the past ten years that have some sort of line talking about bowing down to God, e.g. “We bow down”, “All bow down”, “Here I am to bow down.” How many times have you been at a church service and actually seen someone bow down when they sing those lyrics? I think a lot of people have no idea what they are singing and are just singing because they take pleasure from it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with singing. Some of us were created to sing. I like to sing. I take pleasure from singing. I also understand that God is probably more interested in how I live my life day to day than He is in the songs I might sing to Him on a particular day. Nevertheless, it is important that when we sing songs of praise, we actually mean and do what we sing. Otherwise, our catchy musical lyrics become hollow words signifying nothing. It is a matter of consistency, integrity, and honesty. I’m guilty of this too, but I try very hard not to sing a song just because it sounds pretty and makes me feel good. When I’m in a service where we’re supposed to be singing about bowing down I either don’t sing those lines or I actually do them. If there is a line in a song that I can’t bring myself to agree with, I don’t sing it. There are those who will make the argument that what we don’t do physically we do in spirit. There might be some validity to that argument, but for the most part it is a cop out. Why sing about something you are doing before God if you don’t and won’t actually do it? What purpose does that serve? If I wasn’t a Christian and I saw someone singing a song saying, “We bow down” and no one around me was bowing down I would think to myself either “They’re a bunch of hypocrites” or “What a bunch of idiots.” It might be true that any idiot can sing a song, but that doesn’t mean you have to be an idiot to sing, especially if you’re singing to the Creator of the Universe.

I know there are a lot of Christians in America who have become disillusioned with the churches they attend and even with the Church itself. I don’t blame them. There are times I’ve felt this way myself. This probably isn’t a bad thing. We all need some disillusionment in our lives: when we are forced to confront Ultimate Reality, He shatters whatever illusions we have and are holding onto. Nevertheless, there would probably be a lot less bitterness, frustration, anger, and confusion if we refused to disengage ourselves from our intellects and actually worshiped God “in spirit and in truth.” But what do I know, I’m just an unemployed English teacher.