Worship was great, your music sucks though

The name of my first band was Eternal Generation. We were all youth-group friends. Sadly enough I played bass one note at a time on my Casio keyboard. All through my teenage years I continued to play in bands until I turned eighteen and it got serious with one band called Narcissus (I dropped the keyboard in favor of an actual bass-guitar by then). We joined Takehold Records and toured the United States. On the tour I befriended Stephen Sarro, my now brother-in-law, and was introduced to his sister, my now wife.

Music has always been a very important part of my life. Most of my friends were made from relationships formed while playing music together. I'm always listening to music, talking about music, discovering new music but unfortunately I'm not playing all that much music anymore these days. In fact, I have various pieces of music equipment in my dust collection.

One of the major problems my Christian friends and I have always had growing up (and now) is that "worship" music is horrible, it sucks. We could never figure out why it was called what it is and always sounds the same as if it were a genre or a style. We wouldn't be caught dead spinning a copy of Matt Redmen or Darrell Evans's latest album. But we were eager to spin a Queen, Nirvana or Stryper album. I always wanted to hear a "worship" song on Sunday morning with the power that bands like U2 and Led Zeppelin brought to the table. And with their professionalism and excellency too. That's what I believe music for God should sound like; powerful, unique and of the best quality even by the world's standards.

Inner Metro Green is currently putting together their church and getting ready for a launch. We're talking a lot about music right now as well as other things. With my past and this new beginning for our church, music is fresh on the mind.

What is worship?

First of all, worshiping God has nothing to do with music. Actually, it has nothing to do with you personally either. But it has everything to do with him (John 4). Worship is an act (Romans 12). You worship God by deciding to make him Lord of your life (John 9), reading the Bible, putting to use what you've learned, singing to him, dancing for him, etc. Worship is essentially your walk with Jesus, your life with God.

In the New Testament the word worshiper is synonymous with the word Christian (John 9, Acts 16, Acts 18). The word Christian in the New Testament was used to denote followers of Jesus and following Jesus is worship to God.

Stop worshiping the false god of music

Some of us unfortunately and sometimes unknowingly worship the false god of music. And you might too if any of the following takes up residence in your life:

• Christian, worship and praise are all types of music
  
• Choosing a church includes careful consideration of the music or you're about to leave your church because the music isn't good enough
• You're leading worship and praising the performance of the congregation more than you praise God
• You're a pastor and competing to have your church known for it's music
• You're a pastor and paying for a million-dollar pipe-organ in order to attract more people to your church (based on a true story)
  

Separate the idea of worship and music

Our culture needs to stop using the term "Christian music", "worship music" and "praise music". Because it is a Christian (or worshiper of God) who is playing the music does not mean the music itself can be categorized as "worship" anymore than their job at McDonald's puts the music they play in the "McDonald's" category. If you can't quell the demon inside you that obsessively categorizes music based on who the performer is then you might as well recategorize your music collection by putting The Doors under "Drug-Addicted", Mötley Crüe under "Promiscuous" and Godsmack under "Complete Crap". Get the point?

Though these are semantics we shouldn't be lazy about correctly addressing this solely because of the damaged state of music being used for praise in mega-churches across the world.

Challenge the music being played for God

What I'm calling for is a challenge from every musician that has a heart to play music for God. Don't settle because you've already proved you're good at that. It's like God gave you this gift and you're just getting by with it. Use it, stretch it and fight it. The current state of music is manufactured because there's money to be made. Hillsong United, Vineyard Music and Nashville churn out albums that sound the same as each other and the same as their former albums and every church in the world eats it up and accepts it as the standard by letting mediocre musicians play it on Sunday - it's like the blind leading the blind. And the non-Christian music-listening audience won't touch it because they have a better grip on reality. Why would you drive to church listening to Fleetwood Mac, The 77's, The Cure, The Violet Burning and then go inside and play music like Hillsong United? It makes no sense. Stop. Spit in the face of Nashville and change the game. Worship isn't about pleasing an audience so don't give me some crap about everyone being able to sing along. Pull anyone out of the 70's that can't hum along to a Fleetwood Mac hit - case closed. And it's not about the message either, it's about the music. All that contemporary Christian stuff has a great message and I'm not worried about it. I'm worried that God is calling you to excellency and you're not listening because the new Mercy Me album is up too loud.

This is all not to say that I'm not thankful for Christians attempting to play good music, at least they are trying. I'm thankful for the message, I love it - it's the most important of messages. I know that these bands help people through rough times and that's cool with me. That said, the worship was great, your music sucks though.

Planted at Inner Metro Green

The final installment of Church Hunter, part 5.


After a long search I'm pleased to report that my wife and I have decided to join the church at Inner Metro Green in Lancaster city and come under the authority of Pastor Shawn Anthony as he leads there.

Inner Metro Green is a BIC church. One of their primary objectives is to build up a city of people who love and serve Jesus within the city in order to change it for the better. This falls directly in line with what God has laid on my heart for Lancaster, PA. You can read the rest of their mission statement here.

We met with Shawn several times to go over his vision for the church, the current leadership, what the church looks like in five years and many other interrogating questions to ensure he knew what was up when it came to Jesus and that he wasn't some type of religious psycho with a King James Bible and a few packs of Kool-Aid, trying to get people to follow him everywhere.

As I've mentioned before my wife and I were very serious about moving to Seattle, WA, and joining Mars Hill Church. When we first heard Pastor Mark Driscoll speak it was like someone loosened the rope around our necks. Instead of fleeing the city we enjoy and by joining Inner Metro Green we're hoping to build up the city by creating something as revolutionary as Mars Hill Church here in Lancaster, PA.

Before we decided on IMG I fought God on his call for this season in my life. My wife and I enjoy the luxury of a big church and its coffee house; the fact that you walk in and walk out completely unnoticed let's us get by saying, "yes, we go to church". But the call on my life is a call to change the city itself and sitting in the dark at a mega-church isn't surrendering all. Though permissible, I knew it wasn't going to be entirely beneficial for us to just go, we need to get our hands dirty.

Right now I'm already putting my gifts to use in coming up with a brand identity for the church. This entails creating a logo, business cards, letterhead and envelopes as well as an upcoming new Web site. Not sure on the details as far as time-lines go but we're hoping to have it all launched soon. I've already solidified a few pieces like the logo and concept art above.

I'd like to seriously encourage anyone in the Lancaster county area to get in touch with myself or Pastor Shawn and visit Inner Metro Green. We're looking for more core-members in anticipation of the churches actual launch this September. Everyone is welcome to come as they are.

Scared of nothing

A continuation of Church Hunter, part 4.

My days and nights are spent haunted by what God has laid on my heart. There is great toil in my Spirit over this. I battle leaping forward to breach the sin in me, throwing myself to my own heart. My fear is that I am not built for this; I'm introverted, lazy, anti-social, anxious, cautious and weak. And I'm often tired from thinking. I fear I will let down.

I'm scared of doing nothing with this and scared of doing everything. This adds insult to injury because I feel guilty for feeling that in itself.

The apostles were hunted by death for their faith, Christ was crucified and I face nothing. Nothing. They contended for the cross in the face of slaughter and I fail to move toward anything at all. It's like Psalm 38 (ESV) except if the foe was David himself.

What am I besides exhausted and exhausting?

Could it be that every question I present becomes a link in a series of chains holding me back from acting at all? Or am I being careful as to not rush in emotionally like a young boy who falls for the first girl that bats an eye at him?

I am like a sheep wandering for greener grass and all the while God is trying to herd me through the gates with the other sheep where the grass is the greenest. But looking for greener grass is not my intention. My intention is to find the grass that God wants for me. I am fighting the fact that while I may be interested in searching God may be only interested in herding.

A heart for Lancaster, PA

A continuation of Church Hunter, part 3.

As I sit down to write this I was prepared to approach this like an educational article with a structure for what to look for in choosing a church but I feel led to just put my feelings down tonight.

This past week my wife and I continued our church hunt by visiting Inner Metro Green pastored by Shawn Anthony in Lancaster, PA. We were joined by her brother, Stephen, and his wife, Sara. I enjoyed Pastor Shawn's sermon very much. He was on the second sermon of a seven-week series appropriately named 7 after the seven principles that IMG was founded on. I highly recommend that you lend your ear to it. I found that Pastor Shawn has a lot in common with Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA.

So far my wife and I have visited these Lancaster, PA, churches:

• Inner Metro Green
• LCBC (Lives Changed By Christ)
• Petra Christian Fellowship

And I've thoroughly listened to these churches via podcast and plan on visiting a few of them as well:

• Ephrata Community Church
• NewSong Fellowship Church
• Providence West Chester
• The Worship Center

Feel free to suggest any more as this is our season to hunt.

When I first gave my life to the Lord I felt I should go to church because I'm a Christian. And I think that's good; you can get the basics at any Christian church that believes in Christ crucified. But now I feel that I should go, my family should go, because we're being called to a particular church's mission. And secondly for community. The community comes as part of the package deal though and I'm not all that concerned with it. Worrying about if I'll fit in, if I'll meet people or if they'll like me is to give the devil a foothold and because I've allowed him to keep me out of church for seven years I don't think he deserves any more of those.

I battle the idea that God may not care where I go and that I may be worrying about it too much. Maybe since I haven't been to church for as long as I have he's saying, "Quit whining! Just go!". It's the age-old Christian struggle, is it me or is it him? I do believe there is some truth to just going but I also feel there's a call on my life here.

As strange as it sounds throughout the seven years I wasn't involved in a church community I did continue to read my Bible, pray, study, listen to pastor's around the world via podcasts and pursue my relationship with Christ. You'd think I was out practicing on becoming a drunk or harassing Christians but that just wasn't the case. I've always loved the Lord since the first day I gave my life to him. I haven't always showed it in the best way possible (ahem, contributing to the body of Christ) but I have always loved him. I say this to illustrate that coming out of the wilderness and questioning which church I should join isn't all that strange in my case.

There are a lot of different churches out there; some have the mission to save the multitudes, some are resource churches, some are churches that plant other churches, some are called to plainly serve their communities and there are some who are interested in creating a city within their city. I am called to the latter. The evidence of this is the heart I've been given for Lancaster city.

For just about a month now I've been seeing Lancaster and it's county different spiritually than I ever have before. All the surrounding cities, York, Harrisburg, Reading and Wilmington all seem dead and I believe they're slowly killing each of their counties. Whereas Lancaster on the other hand, while not doing so good economically as well, appears to maintain a sense of innocence, a sense of growth, and I feel that the county's religious roots are attacking what little green the city still has on it's vine.

This is not to say that there aren't people who have a heart for the cities that I think are dead either. There are people who are being called there to work. This is for right now. I don't know what the future holds and I can't be concerned with it. My objective is to be obedient with what's on my heart now.

Now, it's pretty bold of me to say something like this because I'm very nervous about proclaiming things I feel in my spirit as there is not much evidence I can give to their validity. The only evidence I can offer is that I'm far from where I grew up (Cleveland, OH) and not partial to Lancaster, PA, other than this vision. In fact, there are things in our personal family lives that are literally screaming for us to get the heck out of here. Furthermore, I could have made up stories about much nicer places in the winter like California.

In the spirit of full-disclosure my wife did grow up here and she very much loves this county. There's a bit of nostalgia here for her and I believe that is very much part of our calling. Would God divide that which he has joined to be one? No.

Before this vision for Lancaster, PA, and right after we knew the hammer was being dropped on us to get involved with a church body we were in serious thought about moving to Seattle, WA, to join Mars Hill Church. We're serious about church and it's not something we take lightly at all.

In my pursuit to learn more about my heart for the city I've started studying how this city and it's county came to be. I've learned that a group of Indians called the Conestoga, who were known by European settlers as Christians, were it's first inhabitants until they were culled from the land by the outbreak of Pontiac's War in 1763. The Conestoga were thought to be harboring hostiles and therefore six were executed and the remaining jailed.

Lancaster county is a melting pot of religion tracing back to 1767. Today, you can't throw a rock without hitting ten Mennonite churches and a handful of Amish buggies. The county's religious roots run at least two-hundred years deep that we know of.

Wikipedia reports this:

In 1989, Donald Kraybill counted 37 distinct religious bodies/organizations, with 289 congregations and 41,600 baptized members, among the plain sects who are descendants of the Anabaptist Mennonite immigrants to Lancaster County.

It's now almost twenty years later and there's a lot of work to be done by all churches in our county preaching Christ crucified. My prayer is that God lays a little bit of my vision on their hearts as well.

This upcoming Sunday we'll visit Inner Metro Green again because we were invited to fellowship with Pastor Shawn and his family afterwards. I'm eager to see what his vision looks like for the city and to hear about where he sees his church in the future. Although I'm not sure if IMG is where my wife and I will get our hands dirty I can say that I am very excited for the church plant to begin battling the religion throughout the county and raise new disciples for Christ.

Please continue to pray for my wife and I as we push further on our church hunt, pray for our family, pray for this vision in us, and pray that God continues to change our hearts in preparation for the work he wants us to accomplish.

If you're not a Christian I invite you to give your life to God. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and be saved. And this is not some crap I dug up to say in closing; this is God calling you as you read this.

If you are a Christian please challenge yourself by asking God what you're being called to. Seek visions and seek dreams. What is being laid on your heart? What is this season's mission for your family? Don't sit by complacent and idle! Get your hands dirty, serve your community and change your city.