Posted on 04/19/2022 12:00:23 PM PDT by MercyFlush
This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. (key change) This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music. This is a joke about Contemporary Christian music.
Sorry to say, if this is how you see worship singing, you’re the problem, not the song. It’s similar to any sermon, devotional, prayer, etc. offered up before the congregation—you get out of it what you put into it. If you’re negative to start, don’t pay attention, don’t think about what’s being said, and instead just seek out only the weaknesses or shortcomings of the presenter or message, then of course it won’t mean anything to you. One of the best ways to benefit from and enjoy a public prayer, for example, is to repeat the phrases in your head immediately after the praying person says them, and see if you don’t agree or feel the same as what is being prayed. But if you just listen for the mispronounced words, bad syntax, or poor grammar, and make fun in your mind or to others of the prayer or praying person, then you’ve destroyed the prayer’s purpose and power altogether. The same is true for a song. If you’re not participating—actively also singing or considering the words in your own mind as they’re sung—then you’re not worshiping—you’re not expressing the joy in your heart, or your gratefulness for what God has done for you, or stating your hope or encouragement for another, etc. No, you’re just idly observing, and extremely passively so, and probably poorly at that.
Yes, music and songs and lyrics are repetitive, at times. So are people. So are sins. So are hopes, and doubts, and prayers. But there’s just something in our DNA that music and singing resonate with, and repetition, and complex beats, and predictable rhymes, words, or notes, and even those expected to occur but are amazingly and unexpectedly omitted, really soothe our soul and create pleasure in us. That’s true for secular music as well as worship songs. But worship songs are to give thanks to God, to praise Him, and to speak encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Him, not for our enjoyment, not for spectators. So how nice is it, how smart of God to set it up, that we can do all that God wants us to do with worship singing, and at the same time still really really enjoy it, and even make it better worship for humans, by letting songs follow natural laws that make humans like it? Such as repetition. Such as choruses, bridges, competing alternate tunes or words, or periods of changing tempo, key, or volume.
Get your heart right, and the music will flow from your heart to join with the worship songs, and then all the songs will seem too short!
Well, that’s really kind of just a stereotype of what are collectively a small handful of the type of songs you find.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fECNLmsr_RU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq4wJCpJkt0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5kuxgJGtEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVgetIvEIAs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGKGI-kCCIM
Some more representative examples - hardly similar to this stereotype, nor similar to each other. May be accurate to say *too many* of the songs selected by modern praise bands in church fit this pattern and they need to branch out - but that it is descriptive as a whole for CCM and that ‘most’ songs are like this post? Just not accurate.
But where is he parked?
But you linking to Sandy Patti is a reminder of one reason I don't use Spotify. I tried out their Intelligent Music Project, entered that my favorite bands are Petra, Rick Cua, Whitecross, White Heart, Bloodgood, Barren Cross, Third Day, Degarmo and Key, etc.
And it seemed like every time it picked a new artist for me it was either Sandi Patti or Michael W. Smith. LOL
Interesting - that would indicate the algorithm is set for that - many people listening to those artists are also listening to Sandi and Smitty.
For some reason, hymn-writing became a lost art in the decades following WWI. If I were in charge of editing our church's hymnal, I would throw out just about everything written after 1939. True, there are some good hymns, and even some great ones written after that year, they are few and far between.
I played in three different church bands and two other Christian bands over a 15 year period starting back in the mid 90s. Been away from it for 8 years and recently have started listening on the radio when i’m driving. It all sounds like it was produced and mixed by the same person. There are no distinctive differences between artists who might as well be the same three people singing every song.
I don’t know if that is the current trend or the choice of the radio station. It has lost it’s soul and reminds me of the scripture about God’s displeasure with being lukewarm.
Accurate enough to be a recognizable stereotype.
Not too many people confuse this Crucify by Bloodgood with this Friends by Michael W Smith, or this Hungry by Rick Cua with this In the Name of the Lord by Sandi Patty.
I love the contemporary Christian music from the 70s & 80s, but very little today.
It’s like with any genre of music, there are no distinctive vocals or sound today.
Orange County Supertones rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Only one key change?
I call them 7-11’s. My grandmother called them diddies.
The closest our LCMS church comes to CCM is Chris Tomlin, whose music the pastor loves, and whose lyrics are deep enough for hymnody.
“Only one key change?”
Of course. When all the songs start in the key of C or D then you can only change to C or D.
Yes, SOME songs have a decent Biblical message. Many of them rely far to heavily on emotions, however.
Another problem is have is that most people can’t sing like these people can and then we are left to making it sound bad, or mouthing it. There is no harmony, the people can’t participate. We are left to “basking in the awe and glory” = emotions. Not focusing on God, which is what worship is supposed to do.
For what it’s worth, I try to be an enlightened traditionalist.
Amy Grant did an interview once where she condemned the Christian music industry as an orthodoxy that wanted all of the music to sound pretty much identical. She said her album “Heart in Motion” included several pieces that she’d originally wanted to release as Christian records but the record company steadfastly objected because they weren’t the right style.
So it’s not just you noticing this.
CCM is vile. When our “praise trio” gets on stage to sing their typical crap, suddenly nature calls and I MUST go to the restroom. I leave Hubby cringing in the pew.
....
Totally agree!
Not to hijack your point, but I’m one of these “bad” people who are sick and tired of praise teams, and praise leaders! I don’t need people to tell me how to worship, when to be emotional, when I need to sing a chorus of a song for the 100th time etc. Their intentions might be good, but they are distracting in my Worship of God! There’s almost no time to have a quiet moment in Church anymore!
I've seen honest criticism here not self righteous critics. You too, right?
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