I could hardly resist posting this article, so I didn't. For other great articles, go on over to Church Matters, the blog for Mark Dever's 9Marks Ministries. Yeah, go on over, navigate away from my blog. Go ahead - after you finish here!
One last thing: for my purposes, you could skip the paragraph that begins, "One last thing"! I do not "personally prefer really plugged-in contemporary music to any other style". But, then, we'd have to argue personal preferences, would'nt we?
Some More Thoughts on Music
by Greg Gilbert
I want to thank all of you who linked to my post below with lines like “Greg Gilbert comes out against music.” Or “See here why Greg Gilbert wants to kick all music out of the church.” That’ll do me wonders someday when somebody googles me to find out what wacky things I believe! So thanks again.
Seriously, given the conversation that’s ensued, I thought I’d offer up a few questions that might help all of us consider whether we’ve allowed our own hearts to become too dependent on music for our sense of spiritual well-being. Please don’t treat these like a Seventeen Magazine “profile” or something. They’re not a checklist; there’s no score-box at the bottom. All the questions aren’t even necessarily aimed at every person; not every one of them will be useful to you. Some are aimed at the person who doesn’t particularly like the music at their church. Others are aimed at people who love the music they hear at church week in and week out. These questions also aren’t meant to be exhaustive; they don’t come at this from every conceivable angle. They’re just a few questions that I hope might help you to think. Maybe you have others that help you keep a check on your own heart.
One last thing: Again, I’m not wishing here for a music-less Christian life, or for a Christian life with less music or even softer, simpler music. I love music; I think we were created as musical beings. In fact, if you forced me to pick, I personally prefer really plugged-in contemporary music to any other style. Bob Kauflin and Sovereign Grace, for example, are making some of the most wonderful, God-honoring, Christ-exalting music available today, and I love hearing and singing their songs, whether it’s in my own church, at some other event, or even over and over again on my own iPOD.
So I think music is a good thing, even a great thing. But as I said before, every good thing in this world can and will be misused by sinful human beings. And I think that’s something that’s deserving of thought among Christians when it comes to music. My hope is that these questions, and the thoughts they provoke in you, will help you to be on guard against your spiritual life becoming unhealthily dependent on anything it should not be dependent on. I hope they're helpful to you:
- Do you get bored when someone reads a longish passage of Scripture in your church? Do you start wishing they’d get on with the music?
- Do you need music playing in the background for the reading of Scripture to affect your emotions?
- Does a prayer seem too “plain” or “stark” to you if it doesn’t have music playing behind it?
- Do you feel depressed a few weeks after a worship conference because you haven’t felt close to God in a long time?
- Do you desperately look forward to the next conference you’re going to attend because you know that, finally, you’ll be able to feel close to God again?
- If you’re in a big church with great music, are you able to worship when you visit your parents’ small rural church?
- Do you ever feel worshipful in the middle of the week, at work, at school, etc. just because of thinking about God and his grace? Or does that only happen when the music’s playing?
- Do you tend to feel closer to God when you’re alone with your iPOD than you do when you’re gathered with God’s people in your church?
- Do you feel like you just can’t connect with other believers who haven’t had the same “worship experiences” that you have? Can you only connect with other believers who “know what it feels like to really worship?”
- Is your sense of spiritual well-being based more on feeling close to God, or knowing that you are close to God because of Jesus Christ?
No comments:
Post a Comment