You
might say that music and church, separately and together, have been two of the
anchors of my life. I sang my first solo in church at the age of 3. I started traveling and singing in other churches
at the age of 13 and began balancing that with being my home church’s volunteer
Music Director at 15. That path
continued through a Bachelor’s degree in music education from West Texas State(now A&M) University (go Buffs!) and a move to Fort Worth to attend
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Even
when the path took an unexpected turn into preaching, it was “in addition to”,
not “instead of” music. To this day, I still get asked to contribute musically
in the churches I assist.
In
almost 50 years of singing and over 35 in leading worship, I’ve seen a lot of
changes in church music. I’ve lived
through the days when the Jesus Rock & Roll music that I was listening to
most of the time was being described as the Devil’s music in church. I still remember the letter to the editor I
read as a college student when someone wrote about their disappointment in the
music at a Christian conference we attended.
“Rock-type music is wrong, no matter what the words say,” wrote this
person. (Click here to hear the actual song that drew that complaint). I’m pretty sure nobody in church
in those days could possibly have envisioned some of the music that is
considered completely mainstream Christian music today.
Of
course, it could be all that loud music in those days that has made “huh?” the
most common word in my house these days.
An
interesting thing happened a few years back, when rock bands (both Christian
and secular) started doing “unplugged” acoustic records. Who knew that all of
us old rockers would have an appetite for a quieter, more natural fare? Those of us who attended concerts in stadiums
where the stacks of amplifiers had to be transported in tractor trailer rigs
can also enjoy a single voice with an acoustic guitar in a coffee house.
Because
music has been so interwoven into the fabric of my life, it is quite natural
for me to use music stories and illustrations to talk about life in
general. As favorite son says, “My dad
has a song and a story for everything.”
I’m thinking today about how plugged in
and amplified our lives have become. Facebook,
twitter, email, LinkedIn, Google+, text messages, YouTube, iTunes, Dish
Network, Netflix, Hulu … you get the picture.
And while they can be enjoyable, and even beneficial, we have to
deliberately remind ourselves that they are not life. To do that, we need to
make time to unplug—to live acoustically—so that we can clearly hear the
subtleties of the way God communicates that our daily lives matter to Him.
I
have chosen Friday as my “social media fast day” and am working toward getting
more and more unplugged on that day.
This Week's Question: What
day could you go acoustic and how would that help you refocus?
No comments:
Post a Comment