So far this morning:
Chet Atkins (I usually start off my Christmas listening season with this one; it's one of my favorites. It follows the trend of the time for Christmas albums: one side secular, one side sacred.)
Mahalia Jackson (no baloney on this one - it's all Jesus, all the time with Sister Mahalia! Arguably the greatest gospel singer of them all.)
Partridge Family (really not as bad as you might think. It's very much an example of mass-produced TV teen heartthrob pop. The only cut that's kind of hard to listen to is this one: Frosty the Snowman. I indulged my son in one of his favorite activities - turning the turntable speed to 45. It STILL sounded too slow!)
Friday, November 25, 2011
Radical, by David Platt
I just finished reading Radical by David Platt. The subtitle is "Taking back your faith from the American dream.". I'd summarize the book by saying that American Christianity is largely characterized by comfort and materialism rather than going out doing the hard, uncomfortable work of making disciples.
Great book - I plan on getting my own copy.
Great book - I plan on getting my own copy.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Assessing Hymns and Praise Songs
My friend Mary sent me a link to an article from pluckedchicken.net . Here's the article:
So what I need to do next is memorize those questions. Being able to assess a song as it's being presented during a worship service would be pretty useful, as opposed to waiting until later, when my disorganized mind will have forgotten much of what was in the song.
CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING THE USEFULNESS OF A PRAISE SONG (OR HYMN...)
Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller offers these criteria that sound generally useful in evaluating music that may be used in church services. I just listened to an Issues, Etc. segment from August where they applied these criteria to the three most popular praise songs on the CCLI charts at the time. These were not just Christian pop songs, but songs actually written for and used in church services. This concept is a bit foreign to us, because we use our hymnary for almost all the sung music in church, with the occasional exception of sacred choir music. But I think the criteria Pastor Wolfmueller offers may prove helpful for evaluating the text of any song.
He notes that most of these praise songs used in worship are characteristically not didactic in nature. That is, they don't teach anything. Instead, he calls them mystical in nature, meaning that it's meant to induce an internal (emotive or psychic) experience of the presence of God, rather than about any objective act of God for us. Here are the criteria:
He notes that most of these praise songs used in worship are characteristically not didactic in nature. That is, they don't teach anything. Instead, he calls them mystical in nature, meaning that it's meant to induce an internal (emotive or psychic) experience of the presence of God, rather than about any objective act of God for us. Here are the criteria:
- Is Jesus mentioned? By name or concept?
- Is the song clear? Does it use sentences or sentence fragments?
- Is it objective or subjective? About what God has done or about what is happening inside me?
- Are law and gospel present and rightly divided?
- Is there any false teaching? (Or any teaching at all?
So what I need to do next is memorize those questions. Being able to assess a song as it's being presented during a worship service would be pretty useful, as opposed to waiting until later, when my disorganized mind will have forgotten much of what was in the song.
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