Comments on: Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam

By: thestatethatiamin

thestatethatiamin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:43:12 +0000

Thanks Lucy. I have had a quick look at your blog and really like it. I know what chronic fatigue syndrome is having watched my wife battle with it. You might like a post I wrote a few months back called “I See A Darkness” which you can find on the search engine part of my blog on the front page

By: Lucy

Lucy — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:14:11 +0000

I too like songs in the minor chord…also sometimes I think there are times when only silence will do, or music without words.

By: thestatethatiamin

thestatethatiamin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:10:49 +0000

Thanks BK. I think there are some timeless truths in some songs we pass from one generation yo another – whether that is the likes of “Amazing Grace” or whether it’s a childrens’ chorus such as “The Wise Man Built His House Upon The Rock”.

I also think it is helpful to have songs that cover a range of things. When we gather corporately to worship, then it is fitting that our focus is on God and that by singing together, we affirm truth to eachother. On Sunday night for instance, I found it encouraging even for a few fleeting seconds to see you expressing your worship to God knowing the contaent of the text message you had received only a few minutes before we were about to start the service.

I think it is important to recognise that a congregation comprises people who will be at different places spirituallly every time we meet.

I sometimes wonder if our song words are narrow in subject matter? That said I think the song “Blessed be The Name of The Lord” took on a whole new meaning for me when I saw the Donnachie and Purvis family singing it as part of our wider gathering after the tragic death of little Olivia last year. That’s when it begun to strike me about how easy it is to sing things without questionong whether we really mean them. Do we grieve God by blatantly lying to him in our times of praise?

By: brunettekoala

brunettekoala — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:23:04 +0000

I learned that song in Brownies! (I will never march in the infantry, ride in the calvary….

My favourite verse is ‘I will never fly like superman, climb like spiderman, bend like bananaman’

Mainly because I liked pretending to ‘bend like bananaman’.

Never realised it was a ‘Christian song’ and perhaps that’s just as well. It doesn’t make an awful lot of sense really.

I think what we have to remember, is to not just like songs because we’ve respected other songs written by the same person. I think we have the tendency to fall into that trap in culture of contemporary worship music as it is right now. And also to really pray into the songs we choose to sing…there are times and places for them.

Like, there are times of real celebration when we will be in a very ‘happy, clappy’ place. Times when we are declaring God’s power. Times when we are struggling to keep worshipping, when our world is crumbling but we still realise that God remains the same. Times when we are mourning. Times when we are marvelling…

By: thestatethatiamin

thestatethatiamin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:24:23 +0000

When I mentioned, “Oh Happy Day” I wasn’t trying to diss a particular song writer. There is a version we sometimes sing at MBC by Tim Hughes (who is a worship leader or whatever moniker you want to give it)who’s songs I generally rate. It’s just that I really don’t like that particular song as it just irks me as “happy, clappy, nonsense”. There you go, I’ve gone and said it…Sorry, Tim – just being honest.

I know that may just be style and I know that it probably just conveys the hope of heaven. That said, it just grits with me when we sing it, so it never makes the list of songs that I select when leading the music times at church.

In a similar way, I actually quite like “I Can Only Imagine”, but dislike its, well, lack of imagination in terms of what heaven will actually be like…Maybe we just need more imaginative or creative folks to write “worship” songs. David Crowder and Sufjan Stevens (on the Seven Swans album in particular) have come to my rescue on those fronts.

Sam W has also sensitively shed some light on some song words we use in church without thinking how they may be interpreted by the increasing number of unchurched folks who frequent our building. I’m grateful to Sam for this and in the cold light of day you won’t find me including “Jesus Take Me As I Am” anytime soon…

That may sound crude, opinionated or critical, but I hope it’s constructive.

By: bringonthejoy

bringonthejoy — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:05:31 +0000

I love ‘Oh happy day’! I think just because it such a song of celebration of our salvation. I love its gospel-ness (in my head it’s always sung by a big choir of African-Americans swaying and clapping as they sing – I must have seen that in a cheesy film somewhere). I never thought it was meant to be a reflection of real life, but one of those songs that lifted you up beyond the day-to-day.
Anyway, also wanted to big up the Network course. I keep meaning to go back and revisit what I took from it last year, to see if anything has changed. Maybe small group should do a network course review?