Sitting on the Porch

Archive for the ‘Music & Ministry’ Category

Christian music is the only genre of music that is defined solely by the content of its lyrics. Go to any record store and look at the sections. Jazz, Classical, Country, Blues, Hip-Hop, Christian. There are jazz, country, top 40, classical and Christian radio stations.  Secular stations are secular, and Christian stations are well, Christian.

Although we Christians are commanded to be “in the world but not of the world,” Christians have done a fairly good job of not being in the world, at least in public (see Baptist drinking joke #19).  Or maybe the world has done a better job of segregating Christians.

The PC police have convinced us that there is a constitutional separation of church and state, and we’re afraid of being sued.  But we appear to be cool with that. Here in the U.S. of A. we Christians generally act nice between 10:30 and noon on Sunday morning.  The rest of the week we’re technically off duty.

I always wanted to find a radio station that played a good mix of secular and Christian songs.  The secular songs would be the non-sex, non-cop-killing, non-droopy-shorts kind, and the Christian songs would be the non-thirty-minute-praise-chorus, non-“glowry”-hallelujah, non-big-hair and non-wide-vibrato kind.

Unpaid Endorsement #1: There’s a great station in Memphis now called The Pig (87.7FM, if you’re in town, www.radiopig.com elsewhere) that comes as close as I’ve ever heard.  It’s running as if some wacko with a music collection as bizarrely diverse as mine put the whole thing on shuffle.  You can get Van Morrison back-to-back with The Happy Goodman Family.  It’s like musical roulette. Today I heard the old Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill.”  Sweet!  Try it out, but be ready for musical whiplash.

Pierce Pettis

One of my favorite serious singers, Pierce Pettis is an incredible lyricist, and has the whole package – great guitarist, and a truly honest delivery of the goods.

Both secular and Christian songs on the same projects, and I promise that this is the only Christian music I really like and listen to regularly.  He is also an extremely regular guy.  You should get this guy to come to your place.  And this is not a paid endorsement.  He doesn’t even know I’m doing this.

Do yourself a favor – visit www.PiercePettis.Com.

I have big boxes full of CDs that perhaps should not have been made, including some of my own. They represent many thousands of dollars and hours, not to mention the passions and sweat of hundreds of musicians.

There’s the old “Christian kindness” thing when you ask someone, “How did you like that song?” Well, who’s going to tell you it sucks? Since nobody is willing to be the Simon Cowell of Christian music, everyone tells you it’s great, and they also tell you that you sing great.

Five grand and hundreds of hours later, you get a thousand CDs back from Discmakers that will most likely hang out in a closet for years to come. Well, maybe you suck at this type of thing.

Believe it or not, I’m an incredibly optimistic person. I’m also smarter than I look, and a whole lot more fun than I seem.

There are great singers, regular singers, and really really bad singers.

I say things like this knowing well that everyone who reads this will think I’m talking about someone else. Maybe I am talking to someone else. Maybe you’re the “one.” Maybe you can sing great, and are a great musician. Maybe you just suck at marketing, or one of the many other things needed to get somewhere.

There are great singers, regular singers, and really really bad singers. Maybe you are a great singer – maybe you’re somewhere else on the scale. Everyone should know where they are.

If you suck at singing, does that mean that there is no place for you in ministry? Absolutely not. “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” Not everyone can be the head, or the eyes, or the voice. But that doesn’t mean that you are any less vital to the Body of Christ.

In a sermon called “A Tool in the Hand of the Master,” I remember Chuck Swindoll saying that it is not our job to know the whole plan of God. A screwdriver is supposed to do one thing well, and that is to turn the screw. The screwdriver doesn’t know that it is assembling a Rolls Royce, only that it does its job well. The screw it turns it is no less important than any other part, but the sum of the parts is beautiful.

“A hammer makes a poor screwdriver.” We should all find out what kind of tool we are in the hand of the Master. If you find out that you really do suck at something, you may be trying to drive a nail with a screwdriver, or turning a screw with a hammer.

Maybe this will turn into a discovery of who we are in Christ, and which part we play.

Some tough questions to answer truthfully before you invest in that new sound system, or that new CD you want to make.  Or you may re-evaluate what it is you’re supposed to be doing. Read the rest of this entry »