Positive music progress update: Matt Maher and the various kinds of cool and un-cool Christian music
We're already in February, a good month and a bit into the new year, and I'm starting to feel like I'm making a little progress with this "positive music" trial. It's been very difficult, but I feel like I'm learning a lot of new things about the power and influence of music on my life, and the role it can play in my mood and attitude.
The biggest challenge I've been taking on is attempting to give "CCM" (aka Contemporary Christian Music) a fair shake, and an opportunity to take a role in my life. Like any other guy who was raised listening to a lot of rock and experimental music, I find some of it tepid from a "listening experience" point of view, and at times embarrassed by the lame prose and poetry some of these songs employ.
"Christian music" is a very complicated idea or concept. That is, it's a broad term that can apply to a number of very different forms where the common denominator is Christ himself. For example, there's "Ministry Music," which are the kinds of songs sung in churches by worship leaders and congregations, and there's the "Christian Pop," which is like Ministry Music, but is less about being congregational and more slick like pop music. There's "Don't Call Us" Christian rock (Christians in a band, but not a "Christian Band", which is music made by Christian musicians, sometimes on Christian labels, and sounds like mainstream rock music, usually with ambiguous lyrics that could be interpreted to have Christian content (think Switchfoot or Lifehouse). And finally "Cool Christian" music, which almost doesn't exist at all, but artistically speaking, is a high-point in art, which earns high praise from critics and popularity from all corners, with a healthy mix of Christian content and skepticism. Many Don't-Call-Us musicians aspire to have "Cool Christian" success, but it's only the most freakishly talented that earn this acclaim: i.e. Sufjan Stevens, David Bazan, and in my opinion, The Daredevil Christopher Wright.
To explain how these all kind of fit together, consider the term "cool." Essentially, cool is that unattainable quality of being compelling and stimulating, without the appearance of effort or engagement or earnestness. Miles Davis was cool. Joy Division was cool. The Ramones were cool. Red Kross was cool. Basically being cool means not caring about being cool. Cool is disengagement, or at least, the appearance of being disengaged. (Wikipedia: Cool)
Christian music isn't cool.
And that's okay.
Every so often a "Cool Christian" artist comes along, and in itself, that is an amazing and miraculous thing. I'm willing to accept that this pokes a pretty big hole in my Christian music theory. Regardless, Christianity in itself is not a "cool" medium: it is usually earnest, passionate and emotional, and is overall not condusive to "cool." The Gospel is a simple message of truth: however, simplicity and truth are not "cool" values.
That's not to say Christians don't try to make it cool: Take a look at the Mars Hill/Rob Bell type movements happening across the globe, with their sometimes-emergent approach to church and worship. Interesting to note: these types of Churches are usually only popular in stereotypically unsophisticated suburban centres and not in cool urban areas where artists usually locate themselves. Is "cool" church uncool? (Yes)
So if we accept that Christianity by itself is not cool, and by extension the Church isn't cool, then "Ministry Music," the Christian music that dwells in Christian sanctuaries, can't be cool. It has to be. If only on a utilitarian level, it has to be music that can be sung communally by singers of all talents, and has to have a broad accessibility. At times, passionate, while also provoking a passionate response. Simple music and melody played by a mixture of musicians from a variety of backgrounds, with mostly amateur, weekend-warrior levels of skill.
Ministry Music can be amazing and powerful, and it will never be cool, no matter how much some people want that to change, no matter how many U2 or Coldplay-esque effects or riffs are thrown in. (And yes, I believe U2 and Coldplay are not cool). Ministry Music is a difficult aspect of Church life, and at times is given a too-high value in Church communities (even if we call it praise and worship).
The thing is, I don't necessarily want to listen to Ministry Music all the time: While I do love to worship God, I also want to be stimulated and well, swayed by the cool. In the past, I've lumped all Christian music into the same un-cool category, and focused all of my listening (and creative) efforts on "cool" music. I've never thought I had a problem with being exposed to non-Christian content, but as I examine and challenge my own identity, one change I have to make to myself is allow my identity to appreciate and understand Christian music.
In short, I need to find a way to let Christ and Christian content dominate my life, because frankly, the world robs me of my enthusiasm and love, and I need to be continually reminded of God and his presence and direction in my life. So I've been trying to find a way to let Christ dominate my music-life, with a healthy dose of other "positive" music rounding it out.
So here's how it lays out for me: I'll still listen to the "Cool Christians," and if at all possible, I won't waste my time with the "Don't-Call-Us-Christian-Band" imitation rock like Mutemath (I apologize to my readers who love Mutemath, but if you know me, you know that you shouldn't take it personally... If you like it, that's all that matters). "Ministry Music" is amazing in Church, but it's hard to listen to on it's own merit... however, that is the music I need more of in my life, so I need to find "Christian Pop" that is not too slick and overproduced for the masses, yet positive enough for encouragement and gritty and interesting enough to have my tastes placated.
It's a tall order, but so far I've found a few releases which I think stand up to my pretty demanding criteria. You might have already read about Scandinavian Metal Praise, which is my first real find in terms of great Christian music, but I really should tell you about the music that has given me the most encouragement and inspiration in the past month: Matt Maher and his record, "Alive Again."
I first discovered Maher when I was looking for new and interesting worship songs, when he appeared on a YouTube Christian Cafe type show, where he taught a song called "Lay it Down," from his album "Empty and Beautiful." I didn't particularly love that record because it was a little too overproduced and it didn't speak to me lyrically, but that song stands out as a high point, and we've enjoyed singing it together at Grace Toronto Church.
But thanks to my S.O., who heard a song from Maher's new record, managed to figure out iTunes for the first time, bought the album, and put it on her own iPhone. I never gave it a close listen, and it was only until after I started my "positive music" project that I gave it a second look.
If there was ever an opportunity to point to God's providence in my life, it is evidence in the album "Alive Again" crossing my path at the most absolutely perfect time. I don't know if Maher has ever experienced anxiety and depression like I have, but the lyrics all over "Alive Again" address the kinds of feelings and doubts I have been feeling, while also reminded me of the purpose and perspective and God's own promises.
Here's a look at the lyrics from the album's title track:
I woke up in darkness
surrounded by silence
oh where, where have I gone?
I woke to reality
losing its grip on me
oh where, where have I gone?Cause I can see the light
before I see the sunriseYou called and you shouted
broke through my deafness
now I’m breathing in
and breathing out
I’m alive again!You shattered my darkness
washed away my blindness
now I’m breathing in
and breathing out
I’m alive again!Late have I loved you,
you waited for me,
I searched for you…
what took me so long?I was looking outside
as if love would ever want to hide
I’m finding I was wrongCause I can feel the wind
before it hits my skinCause I want you!
Yes, I want you,
I need you
And I’ll do what ever I have to
Just to get through
cause I love you
Yeah, I love you!
Or there's another verse on "Sing over your Children," which again speaks directly to my own predicament:
I flirt with the world,
It steals my love for you.
My fear grips my faith,
And I am left unmoved.
I could go on and on and on like this with every song. It speaks to me so profoundly, that I can't seem to go a day without listening to it: I often start it up while waiting for my bus in the morning, just to help me get my head on straight for the day, and place a right attitude in my heart. At the same time, I have to comment that I also LOVE the guitar sounds on this record, which is very uncommon on "Christian Music" records, which is just another bonus to this album, and allows me to love it all the more.
The fact that God has provided this music to me, through the talent of Matt Maher, I am so thankful for this piece of encouragement, and it is helping to enlighten me as I fight against my own personal "stubborn darkness." I hope to someday be a musician as full of life and the spirit as Maher, no matter how "un-cool" that makes me.
So please, if you are in my position, or don't listen to much Christian music (and wish you did), try starting here! I hope you get as much out of it as I did.
Maybe I’m missing something here: Some thoughts on “community,” the city and the gospel
This week our Grace Gathering (a Grace Toronto Church bible study) was talking about values, and what values we think our city has, and what kinds of values we should have as a group of Christians in the city. One of the values we talked about was "community," which seems to get a lot of lip service, but I think I really understand it.
In the broadest sense, "community" is an organized group of people with a set of values or a group in a certain location (thanks wikipedia!), or more specifically, people who share "intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks" and other factors.
From that article, I also found Scott Peck's description of community building, from a "pseudo-community" to "true community," which as an end result, sounds like an awesome place to be:
True community: the process of deep respect and true listening for the needs of the other people in this community. This stage Peck believes can only be described as "glory" and reflects a deep yearning in every human soul for compassionate understanding from one's fellows.
Personally, I think I've been involved in various different types of communities over the span of my life. Some went deeper than others, but I think groups like Beavers/Scouts when I was in elementary school, Beyond Existence (youth group) in high school, and Campus Crusade for Christ when I was in university, all provided a true "community" type environment.
However, leaving Kingston and Belleville behind and moving to Toronto, I don't know if I've ever felt a part of a community in the same way as those experiences. Like many people in Toronto, I wasn't born here, I didn't have family here, and I really had to find my own way to figure out where I belong (still haven't achieved that though).
And in Toronto especially, I've noticed that jobs/careers don't seem to foster community either; most people will hardly ever spend recreational time with co-workers outside of the job site, and instead lead fairly fragmented lives.
I'm guilty of this: I have my "working" life, my married life, my church life, my family life, my sports life, and my arts life, which overall, doesn't seem to crossover so much. I see coworkers during the day, my wife in the evenings, my church friends on Tuesdays and Sundays, the TFC on Saturdays, my family every other month, but I never really do any one of those frequently enough to develop or foster true community.
Perhaps part of my problem is physical location: I live on Danforth East, go to work on Queen West, go to church on Queen East, check out football in Parkdale and do shows in Kensington... it's all downtown, but it's also very, very spread out. But as more and more friends move out to Danforth East, and more interesting bars/coffee shops/restaurants open up in the hood, and maybe someday even a Grace Toronto church plant move out there, maybe I'll feel like it's a true community?
Maybe that's why a group like The Society in Toronto, a community which people pay to join, and in exchange are cultured and entertained, can exist and be successful (though at times, it seems like this is a short cut to authentic community).
Though I love the internet and the mass dissemination of information it has created, I also feel like it has eroded the idea of community as much as it has fostered it. The internet allows me to find other people who love Pedro the Lion just as much as I do, but it also gives me a sense of false community through Myspace, Facebook and Twitter, where my "real" friends dwell, but is also bolstered by a large group of "fake" friends too.
There are exceptions though: there does seem to be a rabid shoring up of communities in the downtown music scenes, with groups like Wavelength, Pitter Patter and Two Way Monologues, bringing musicians and music fans together, as well as big events like Caribana and Pride, and even the countless marathons that jam up traffic all summer. But I wonder, that though there are communities developed there, they all seem to be "event" based more than anything else. Looking back to the "True Community" definition, I don't think these groups apply.
When I explore my own mental health, and read about the experiences other people have had with anxiety and depression, I'm often overcome with emotion because it's like I'm finally knowing that someone else has experienced what I have experienced, and in that knowing, there is some form of refuge: somewhere I can belong.
However, that refuge is not nearly as deep as the one I find in the gospel, where I can find the ultimate sense of belonging; one that will carry with me through every stage of life. To end this thought, I'll leave you with a quote from Psalm 36, verses 7 to 9.
How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.
Christian Life: The begininng of my spiritual journey
I realized the other day that despite all my years in online writing, I've never put together my full "testimony" online, especially because this is probably the most important story of my life... and for any other Christians out there reading this, I encourage you to do the same. We're all called to share about how God has influenced and changed our lives, because it's a powerful thing (Rev. 12:11) and it's something we should always be doing (Acts 1:8).
And for you reading out there who don't know what a testimony is? It's basically a declaration of faith, the process of bearing witness or even just plain telling a story. When most Christians talk about it, they're referring to what their life was like before knowing Christ, how they came to know him, and how he's changed their life since.
Yes, it's pretty heady stuff.
So where do I begin?
Part one.
When I was very, very young, my parents used to take our family camping at the Sandbanks park near Picton, Ontario, which rests on West Lake. To get there, we would pack up our things Friday nights in the family Astro minivan, spend our weekend getting sand all over the trailer, then drive back home across Prince Edward County ("The County") Sunday night. One of those weird things I remember is the way that the light from the sunset would stream into the back of the van, all orange and red... light, but somehow very dark. And for some reason, those moments were bittersweet. At that young age, I think I was acutely aware of my own mortality, because I would feel a sense of dread and anxiety in that sunset, like an irrational fear of death and the unknown. (I still struggle sometimes to overcome that feeling).
I'm not exactly sure of the timeline here, but I'm still going to say while I was still very young, I remember having church as a presence in my life. My parents used to bring me to a nearby church, I believe Anglican or United, and I remember taking part in Sunday school classes.
I also remember doing a summer bible camp one year, held on the front yard of a neighbor's house just a few doors down from mine on Maitland Drive in Belleville. I even remember going through the process of being "saved," through the illustration of various colours of construction paper... black as the sin in my life, red as the blood of Jesus, snow white as the clean slate he's given us, and gold for the treasures we have in heaven.
I remember praying with my mother, and seeing a little wood panel on the wall of a little boy kneeling by his bedside.
Part two.
At some point our family stopped going to church regularly. Maybe it had something to do with the deluge of hockey practices or being too busy... I've never really asked my parents why we started to go, so I guess it makes sense that I never asked why we stopped. We still went to the occassional mass downtown at Catholic church, but in general, that was it.
Part three.
When I was a teenager, I began to feel the call towards a spiritual awakening. Maybe it was arguing about atheism and relative morality on early electronic BBS message boards, or it could have been my newfound interest in Zen Buddhism. (Funny story: I once played a single note on the electric guitar for one hour at my guitar teacher's instruction in order to learn vibrato... it was probably my only attempt at meditation). I read some books about Zen Buddhism... while interesting philosophically, it left me feeling hollow.
While this search was going on, I began talking about Jesus with a bunch of my friends from high school, arguing with them about things that I really didn't know about. But in my search, I still wanted to give their Christianity a fair shake. My first exposure was at one of their youth group's coffee houses (a popular type event in Bellevegas). I was even invited to perform!
The coffee house was held in the basement of a church called "Parkdale Baptist," by their youth group called "Beyond Existence," led by a staff of young adults from the church and a youth pastor named Terry Willows. I met a whole bunch of new people that seemed really cool, and they invited me to come and check out one of their Wednesday night meetings.
I eventually did, and they weren't any different than what you would consider your usual youth group service... there was prayer, some worship and preaching from Terry. Looking back, Terry was a very gifted speaker, who had a level of enthusiasm for talking about Jesus that teenagers could connect with... he was also genuinely interested in engaging young people, asking them questions and trying to find thoughtful answers for theirs.
Over the following months I kept going to "Beyond Existence," drawn in by the poetry of their worship music and the profound teachings from the bible, and even making more friends, better friends, with people I'd known from school. Terry took me out for lunch a couple times, and we'd have long talks about Jesus, answering any question I had. But for me, I still felt distant to the religion itself... I didn't feel convicted to give my heart to Jesus, because I still wasn't even really sure that there was a God.
Part four.
For some reason, this is the part I'm always a little shy about sharing, but in retrospect, this is how it happened, this is the path of events God chose for me, and you can't change the past anyways. So here goes.
Before I was born, my parents had a giant Saint Bernard, but I don't actually have any memories of that dog. However, when I was young, we ended up getting my first dog: A purebred English Bulldog named Ruby, for her dark red fur. She was a special addition to our family; everyone loved her and brought joy to everyone who laid eyes on her. I even remembered the way she would get so excited to see somebody, wagging her whole body back and forth instead of just her stumpy little tail.
After I was going to "Beyond Existence" for about six months, our dog Ruby became very ill, and developed a troubling protrusion from her rear end. It was a hard time for our family: everyone was rocked by her illness and were broken up by their inability to do anything about it. We all cried as it appeared that she might have to be put down.
On one of the last nights we would have her, I took her for a walk through the woods behind our house. It was in the middle of winter, and the night was clear, so you could see all the stars shining in the sky. While I was walking Ruby for what was likely the last time, I looked up at those stars, and I was immediately struck by an intense feeling I'd ever known before. I felt God's presence descend upon me and comfort me in a way that I'd never felt before from another person... it was "divine revelation" and in that moment I was totally aware of God, I was totally aware of Jesus and I was totally aware of the Holy Spirit. That second I understood immediately what Jesus had done for me; sacrificed his own life to overcome death, so that we may one day we may be reborn in heaven.
The next morning, I remember it was a weekday, I went to the sanctuary at Parkdale Baptist by myself, not really sure of what to do next, but just feeling like I had to meet God there and speak to him one on one. I sat down in one of the chairs by myself, and prayed the prayer of confession and acceptance like I heard countless times before. Before I got up to leave, Terry, who happened to be in the office at the time, came out and I told him the good news. My friends were equally excited to hear about what happened, and it will always been one of the most peaceful, happiest, freeing moments of my life.
As for Ruby? Instead of putting her down, the vet tried a different operation instead, and she survived. We enjoyed many more happy days with that dog. It was a miracle.
Part five.
Since I came to know Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour, he's been my rock, my salvation, my support and my healer. I've experienced many ups and downs on my spiritual journey, but through everything I face, I will always know that there is a divine plan for my life, one that I trust God has laid out for me. I believe the Holy Spirit dwells within me, and it helps me as I try to become a better person and perfect my faults, through the teachings of Jesus and his disciples. And yes, I still have a long, long, long way to go on that last one.
These days I'm currently involved with a church in downtown Toronto called Grace Toronto. We have bible studies and meet together Sunday mornings and evenings, and if you'd like to find out more, feel free to contact myself or anyone listed on the church's website.
If you want to find out more about how you can know Jesus, and know God through the Holy Spirit, you can read more here on the Grace Toronto website, or you can look through this short pamphlet (now flash-ized) online here, called "The Four Spiritual Laws." (I can fully vouch for this tract, which has been historically used by the Campus for Christ movement for years... it's all Biblically sound, and applicable across all denominations, both Catholic and Protestant.) Of course, you can always get in contact with me and I'll be more than happy to talk about it with you.
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