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An Artistic
Transition
Graham Ord - Worship Leader
Date
Published: 24 May 2005
The first time I attended a church as a young punk rocker back
in 1982 I had something of a musical culture shock. Those were
the days when the ‘Mighty twelve string acoustic’ reigned
supreme, when drums were either banned or covered with tea
towels so you couldn’t hear them, and the electric guitar
was seen as the devil personified! Church music seemed way
behind the culture and few of us would have thought of getting
into it as a career back then. Worship music was not big business;
it was simply something that facilitated congregational singing. |
In those days it didn’t
seem to matter who wrote the songs or who led the worship
so long as we sung about Jesus. During this time I remember
hearing a prophecy given by a guy heralding what he described
as ‘a great and glorious day when Christian musicians
would forsake what he termed as ‘the music of the world’ to
embrace ‘worship music’ whole heartedly. I must
say that given what I had seen and experienced of church
music at the time it sounded pretty far fetched! I couldn’t
help but cynically think, “Why would anyone forsake
perfectly good music for the three chord ditties we played
on Sunday mornings?” It all seemed rather ridiculous
to me.
Whether that prophesy was
a true word from God is still to be seen, but one thing for
sure is that there has been a noticeable shift in the focus
of Christian music over the last couple of decades. Worship
music has become a big growth area in the music industry.
Many popular Contemporary Christian Music artists have now
recorded congregational worship CDs and host evenings of
worship rather than concerts. Worship conferences are common
place and Christian bookstores are now brimming with worship
CDs (mostly featuring the same 50 songs rehashed sadly).
Indeed, worship CD’s are even sold through Time Life;
once reserved for selling knitting patterns and food blenders!
One noticeable downside to this
is that Christian performers with a more evangelistic or
outward focus to their music have declined in popularity,
at least commercially. Out-reach focused recordings have
been superceded by music that predominantly encourages
and comforts the church and we could say that Christian
music has now become more inward focused. I love the fact
that worship music is more contemporary and that God is
being praised in many new and creative ways, but for those
artists who do not fall into the ‘worship leader’ mould,
it has been a frustrating time of wondering where we fit
in. Getting a gig, let alone a record deal is hard these
days if you don’t play worship music. The musical
evangelistic voice has been quieted, as the church has
become fatter on praise and leaner on proclamation. It
is perhaps in this area that I believe we are beginning
to see the greatest transitioning in Christian music.
I believe that in the past few decades the Lord has been wooing us through worship
into a deeper intimacy with the Father. One consequence of this intimacy is that
we have become more connected with God’s heart for the lost. The era of
extravagant worship seems to be leading to a corporate re-commissioning of artists
to express Christ’s tender love and reckless mercy in evangelism. Our love
for God craves expression and part of God’s intent is that we create art
that has a prophetic and evangelistic bent. Art that will be insightful regarding
culture and that will communicate his love and purposes to a broken world. It
is exciting to see how Jesus is stirring new passion for sharing the gospel;
it is causing a tangible shift of emphasis in the arts back towards evangelism.
As in many other disciplines we too are feeling the birth pangs of a new era
in Christian music; the bold re-emergence of the ‘prophetic minstrel’ is,
I believe, imminent. These musicians are not constricted by record labels or
musical genres; they have a heart to communicate the good news of Jesus through
their music. They are passionate worshippers with a story burning in their guts.
They are unafraid to sing of the things that don’t look pretty on the overhead
screen. They are not motivated or restricted by mere financial considerations,
they will just make intentional music that will change the world and in doing
so will inadvertently bless the church. Evangelism and worship will embrace and
walk together like reunited lovers.
We live in an exciting period of transition and as Christians in the arts we
need to be brave in our creative expressions. We must value moral and artistic
integrity above mere commercialism and be open to allowing God to speak into
the culture through our art. If we sow good seed we will eventually reap a harvest
of righteousness in the arts, and this will inevitably influence societal changes
on many levels. Let’s encourage one another to embrace artistic diversity
over conformity, and creativity over financial security, always remembering the
truth that “Change isn’t change until it’s changed!”
Graham Ord
Vancouver BC
Feedback Graham
www.grahamord.com
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Stephen Bennett
12 March 2005 |
Debbie Holmes
5 December 2005 |
- Christoph Stang
24 June 2005 |
-
Graham Ord
24 March 2005 |
- Janet Lapointe
11 March 2005 |
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