Lutheran Love: Music

I have to admit that I hated pop Christian music. (Notice how I avoided the word “contemporary” because I’m not talking about the music used for worship.) Yes, I said I hated it. I felt like there was a Christian minor league in music that had made it to the majors without someone checking and working out the basics. It was like someone felt bad for these musicians so they were not critiqued with the same expectations of the world. Christian music felt like the kid my parents forced me to play with. Everyone was on a mission to end my enjoyment of a wide variety of music. My confirmation teachers, youth directors, and my dad spent so much time worrying about the CDs in my disc man (a small portable CD player - sorry to the young people that “skipped” this stage). ;) Did they really think that a song or two was going to destroy my thoughts, and therefore make me switch over to the dark side? Maybe if they spent more time teaching techniques to read God’s Word on a daily basis it would have counteracted the evils music was doing to my brain. I was so afraid to become like my mom and uncles who had succumb to the mediocrity of music, and only kept pop Christian music in their cars (sorry mom). I wondered when I would become old, boring, and uncultured like them, and replace all my CD’s with Christian CDs (sorry again mom). My dad got his way though, and broke all my CDs he deemed damaging for my faith life. Trust me, that legalism did nothing to increase my faith.

They did get through to me though. I was convinced that rock and roll was from the devil. I refused to listen to bands with a lot of guitars, and decided that R&B was a safe alternative so I didn’t have to listen only to Christian music. I know, great choice.  It was oh so much better listening to music full of sexual content versus a wider life perspective that was probably sung about in rock and roll.

Before you think I have gone off the deep end, that I’m not choosing my words carefully, or that I need counseling (ok, I do need counseling, and maybe my counselor and I should spend more time on music now that I think about it), let me just say that I am passionate about music. Did you guess that? Music has shaped me into who I am today.  There is a place in life I go to in music unlike any other. In fact, I am listening to music as I write this…and even a few Christian songs came on. ;)

I want to assure you, whether you are reading this and attend Mt. Calvary or another church, your pastor and leadership teams have wrestled with this. No matter their age, and whether the Beatles were from the devil, or Marilyn Manson, or Katy Perry (whose dad is a preacher, I believe, so imagine her personal struggle), they have had to process music. They have had to ask tough questions like what is good for me to listen to, and then an even harder question, what music is best for my congregation? Trust me, it is hard enough to figure out what we want music to look like in our own life without trying to figure out what would be best for a group of people. If you are thinking that the answer is to just use hymns, it is not that simple. I bet I can give you a service full of hymns that would be painful to sing because people don’t know them. Wait, I’ve done that before, just ask the people of Mt. Calvary what happened when I had to pick hymns by myself.

Music is all over scripture, but undefined. It’s funny how God does that. There isn’t a Greek or Hebrew translation of the Bible that gives us a perfect vision of what music we need to be listening to or playing in our churches. I can’t leave a series where we have lifted up the great things about the LCMS without talking about our careful attention to law and gospel to help shape the words in the music we want our people to hear. I remember one song we used to sing during a worship time in college where we consciously changed the words from, “what you have required,” to “what you have desired.” A simple change, but exactly what we are talking about with language. There is danger in a song that includes legalistic action being required for heaven. We don’t want our people to hear and learn that. Music is an important part of our worship service, and it’s beneficial that we wrestle with it and ask what is best for our congregation and the culture surrounding us, alongside of what historically has been the benefit of the music we have used.

A few weeks ago on my drive home from the lake, I set my Apple music station on my iPhone to an old R&B song I used to listen to. This caused me to dive into some of my old favorites, even some I used to listen to on repeat. As an adult, I can admit that maybe some of that music shaped me to have an unhealthy focus on getting married. After years of listening to the sexual content, knowing that it was not right to act on it outside of marriage, my focus became hurry up and get married. This is why teaching and discussion can help us see the pros and the cons of the activities we chose in life, and how it can help or hurt our discipleship walk.

In 2016, pop Christian music has changed dramatically. It has gotten a lot better. There are bands I love. Some of my favorite music is from singer/song writers who are Christian but don’t sign with a Christian label, and therefore they sing about many of life’s topics. My passion for music is something I know God built in me to help our Lutheran and Christian culture wrestle with this topic. I have no clue what music will be in heaven, but I know one thing, it will be there and it is going to rock!