Go Soak Your Head
March 1st, 2011And Pull Your Pants Up
One of my beefs with modern Christianity is over music. I get tired of music that makes my ears hurt and sounds like something you would hear in a disco. And Christian rap…how is that even possible? Are you praising the Lord or jacking my car? Honestly, I can’t tell. When I was a kid, they had another name for rap. They called it “yelling.”
I’ve sensed the presence of God many, many times, and nothing about him has ever reminded me of rap, disco, or hard rock. In fact, the Bible says “clamor” grieves the Holy Spirit. When God’s presence is around you, things tend to be quiet and tranquil.
We work too hard to make God cool. It’s as if we’re positive every teenager in the United States will go straight to hell unless we let them inflict their awful music on us. If you ask me, God is already cool. He can say a few words and create a galaxy. Isn’t that cooler than wearing your pants around your knees and calling everyone “bra”? I guess my standards are warped.
I can understand the desire to have a certain amount of lively music in church, but after a while, it’s irritating and counterproductive.
There is a new genre of Christian music that was created to fill this huge gaping hole in our worship. They call it “soaking” music. You crank it up and lie back and pray. Typically, the lyrics aren’t all that catchy. Just stuff about how wonderful God is. It’s not supposed to bowl you over with its cleverness. It’s supposed to help you sense the Holy Spirit. That loud junk they play for the kids seems designed to get between you and God, like a big pimply wall.
When you listen to this stuff, it reminds you that God is all around you, and that he’s in charge, assuring you of a purpose and a good future. It brings intimacy.
The first soaking CD I owned was by a woman named Grace Williams. I don’t know how it got here. I didn’t buy it. I suspect my sister left it here. I found it here after watching an episode of Sid Roth’s show which featured a Grace Williams CD. She told him she used to sing in the Spirit when she was a baby. Her material is very nice.
I also learned about Julie True through Sid Roth. I picked up a couple of her albums.
Last night, I found Laura Rhinehart. I DLed her off Itunes. Very peaceful stuff, and the songs are long, so it’s not like they poop out just when you start to feel it.
I highly recommend this stuff. It provides the experience that New Age music tries to counterfeit. The lyrics are based on scripture, so you have good things to think about. You don’t sit there emptying your mind and waiting for nutty Hindu spirits to show up. It puts you in a good frame of mind to talk to God and listen for his responses.
Loud music is like caffeine. It seems to give you energy, but in reality, it’s just sucking energy out of your reserves and making you spend it. Soaking music refills the reservoir.
March 1st, 2011 at 7:39 PM
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick with J. S. Bach.
March 2nd, 2011 at 8:35 AM
“And Christian rap…how is that even possible?”
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You have read psalms, right? No, I get it – it’s the hip-hop conceits that get up your nose. Can’t blame you.
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Try to imagine something like LaGrange with holy lyrics (not too hard to imagine – gospel and blues cross over regularly.) The problem isn’t the modern christian music – the problem is the misappliation. It’s fine during youth-group meeting. Trotting one tune out to throw a bone to the youth during service is fine too. But too much is too much.
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although, now that I think on it, you’re in an immigrant/African American church, right? African American culture tends to put less distance between youth culture and adult culture, in my experience.
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It probably boils down to, “persons who don’t like this sort of thing will find this to be an example of the sort of thing they don’t like.”
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I’ll have to check out the soaking music. My biggest beef with Christian Contemporary has been that you could replace “Jesus” with “Jeremy” in most songs and they would be perfectly suited to a girl’s freshman dorm. “You’re my everything…you’re all I’m living for….Jesus/Jeremy, I love you so.”
March 2nd, 2011 at 2:59 PM
Hm. I listened to a few of the Grace Williams samples. I liked them — I don’t really know how to describe it. All the elements for that hokey, muzak-y sort of stuff are there (soft pianos, floaty synth sounds), yet she manages to avoid that. Instead she sounds sort of dreamy and remote, yet not in an alienating way but in a way that draws you up.
I agree that Christian pop music is really off-putting, at least to me. Pop music is just too earthy — or “worldly” if you will. All that stuff about how Jesus is just AWSUM! and lyrics that can be interchanged seamlessly with being about a boyfriend don’t exactly say “transcendence” to me. It’s nice to finally have some decent religious music that isn’t Gregorian chant.
March 2nd, 2011 at 3:04 PM
I like my church, and I can bear the music they play (except don’t get me started about the miserable abomination they claim is a version of Amazing Grace) except they insist on playing it REALLY REALLY LOUD. I mean headache-inducing loud. Guys, God can hear you if you play a little quieter.
March 3rd, 2011 at 8:16 AM
As someone who’s a part of the worship team, I can tell you that for every complainer there’s a supporter, and one word of support can defeat ten complaints. Another thing I can tell you is the planning is usually done by whoever is most dedicated; people in the cong might say they want change, but until they get involved they won’t get it.
March 3rd, 2011 at 10:08 AM
Yes, it’s very sad, the damage people can do by supporting the wrong thing.