Visiting a church in a church in Birmingham (well, Fultondale) thinking through some issues I am going through in my church. After 14 years there I haven’t seen the progress I’d like to see. I get discouraged, angry down, frustrated.
Sometimes it feels every day is a Monday.
I sat…well, stood…in church and the praise team did a song I’d never heard. It was a moment. It was as if the words of the song were written to address precisely the situation I was going through.
I am not going to be specific because I don’t want this to be a discussion of the particular person or group.
But God blessed me through that song.
So, I googled some of the words to find out the source so I could give the song to my musicians.
Oops.
It came from a group I don’t like much, a group I have considered on the borders of orthodoxy – not quite heretics but skirting the edges.
What do I do with that?
- What do I do when I found out one of my favorite hymns was written by a man who went off the edge and formed a survivalist cult in Israel?
- What do I do when good song has one line I think is wrong?
- And what do I do when a song that speaks deeply to my soul comes from a group that produces nausea in my stomach?
Choose you this day, but I am thankful for that song and we are going to celebrate it. God uses sinful people.
Just like you and me.
Make a joyful noise because it is well with your soul. Yes, I know.
Simple. God knew all about that stuff before it came to be so in your church, and before that song was written or performed, and who it was that’d be singing it. But He still arranged it within your hearing, when you were there.
There’s a message in there somewhere. Among other things, it may be that it’s not our own merit that causes God to use us. Or save us, for that matter.
Smile, Minister. God Ministered to you!
Or as I sometimes put it:
God uses broken people. It’s not like there’s a ready supply of anything else.
I too have been blessed by a song from the same kind of group.
Its the song I like, and worship God through.
There are many songs I worship God through that I have no idea about the overall theology of the writer or original singer[s].
In the end, that does not matter to me.
What if they held the same exacts beliefs I hold to? Would that enhance the truths they sing about? Nope.
Truth is truth no matter who is saying it.
Paul was glad the Gospel was being proclaimed despite the bad intentions of some of the proclaimers.
I do remember a song we sang in choir, and how apropos for today for it was about Pentecost:
It had the phrase…
a tongue of fire was over their heads. [or: each head – it was back in the middle of the 80’s], and my brother objected to the words since the truth is that it was LIKE a tongue of fire.
So we changed the words and sang it with the word “like’.
You dont have to sing the objectionable part of a song, or you could change the words and make it acceptable.
In the end, its not the song that counts, but your heart towards God and your expression of your faith and recognition of His glory and What a Beautiful Name He has.
Blessings.
I am sometimes bothered by a faulty line in a song (those 10,000 charms supposedly in the Father’s arms bother me).but we also I think can get into theological snobbery if we aren’t careful in the other direction. So drawing the line in the exact spot is a difficult exercise sometimes.
I can remember bringing home a recipe to my wife who prepared it for the family and …well, lets just say I liked it more than they did. And, my wife, a fine cook, did not produce quite the excellent experience I had with the original meal. The atmosphere was indeed not like my home, so I may have been unduly influenced by room ambiance as well. Result: my wife hasn’t made it since.
My experience with music and congregations has been similar. Especially now where appetites for hyper-emotional and hypo-theological are firmly in place–all bets are off.
I hope you and the people/musicians you lead are quickened by your newly adopted text and music as prepared and presented in your own home church on a new day.
Thanks for sharing your experience Dave. Now what’s the title of that thing!
Dave, I’m sorry but I think your #2 question is just overhelmingly, never-endingly reckless.
nice
I’ve experienced similar, except with a little twist: I will hear a song by a non-Christian group that convicts me for the lost more than any revivalist hymn or similar “Christian” song.
I mean Bill Gaither isn’t really my favorite but I’m not sure I’d call him a heretic.
Wow
I once heard a very good sermon by Benny Hinn, so you never know.