Audience of One

Music and lyrics

My last entry’s main point was that those because the lyrics of the songs we sing (in church, CU, or by ourselves) stick in our minds, song selection can be seen as a form of teaching or pastoring, and therefore we should be discerning as to whom we ask to lead the music in our meetings.

It’s not a surprising topic to have been on my mind recently, given that as of Thursday I will be in charge of the music for the Bristol University Christian Union. Having thought about it a bit, I feel like it’s more of a responsibility than most other jobs in the CU. If music is a form of teaching, then it’s the only form of teaching in our meetings that we delegate entirely to a student without some form of direct support. In our central meetings, we get external speakers. In our small groups, the leaders are taught the passage by our UCCF staff worker beforehand. Our song selection will be left almost entirely up to me (and when I say almost entirely, I only mean that the executive committee will ask for a change if they decide I’m doing a really bad job).

It’s quite a big responsibility, and at the heart of it is issues of music and lyrics. Here’s Colossians 3:16 again:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Firstly, it’s the word of Christ that should be our focus. Up until now, a big focus in Collosians has been the person and work of Jesus, with all the benefits that it brings. In Collosians 1:28, Paul says “we proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom”, a phrase that directly parallels 3:16. The word of Christ is also a word about Christ. A big element of our song lyrics must be truth about Christ and what he has done. This isn’t the only thing meant here, because we also have the Spirit of Christ speaking through the Scriptures, so we can expand our definition to Biblical truth, perhaps with a particular focus on Christ. (I’m no scholar, so feel free to critique the exegesis here!)

Secondly, songs should be memorable, so the word can “dwell in us richly”. The best songs are those which stick in your minds, so that you’re singing truth to yourself throughout the day. Musically, then, they’ve got to be interesting, but not overly complicated.

Thirdly, we’re singing both to each other and God – “teaching and admonishing one another”, and with “thankfulness in (our) hearts to God”. There’s a vertical and horizontal element to our songs, and so the best songs speak truth to each other as well as praising God.

Fourthly, our songs should be singable. I’ve said already they should be interesting without becoming too complicated. This not only helps with memorability, it also helps us to sing them! From a musician’s perspective, many songs we sing are fine, but less musical people can find them too difficult. But Paul doesn’t say “to the musicians, you should sing”, he says everyone sings! So everyone must be able to sing the songs we choose.

Fifthly, we should sing a variety of songs. When Paul says “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs”, I don’t think he’s necessarily referring to three different genres, but the meaning is clear – sing all types of songs, those based on Psalms, those not, those sung with organ, or electric guitar, or unaccompanied! There is no “right” form of Christian music stylistically, and in fact variety can be good. If all songs sound the same, they will be less memorable and have less of an impact.

In summary, then: our music should be singable, memorable and varied, with words that speak truth, sung to each other and God. We’re to be teaching each other through singing together; we’re to be praising God and reminding ourselves and each other about all we have to praise him for.

Having said all this, I need to engage with the potential divisiveness of music. Experience has told me that issues over music can be one of the things that aggravates or divides people – yet the previous verse in Collosians talks about peace and unity! How does the fact that a CU is a non-denominational society, made up of people from across the Christian spectrum, affect the role of music, or the type of music we should have? All I’ve said is general principles, but how does that fit in the specific case of a Christian Union? Hopefully I’ll get a chance to write soon!

Matthew @ 12:39, February 27, 2008 to Discussions | Permalink | Comments (2)

Musical association

Music has this way of reminding us of things – ideas, places, people. On right now is the song “Trains”, by Porcupine Tree, and for a moment I was back in a hut near the Sipi Falls in Uganda. There was no electricity, no mosquito nets, and we did everything by torchlight. I would lie back in the dark, staring at the thatched ceiling, and listen to Porcupine Tree on repeat. We were only there for two days, but that one song particularly brings back memories.

It’s six years since I first heard the song and read the book, but Melt by Leftfield still reminds me of an occasion in my grandparents’ house, reading Heart of Stone by my uncle for the first time. I have an image of the limestone pinnacles of Madagascar, as if seen from a helicopter fly-by, with Melt playing in the background – and whenever I hear the song, I imagine the pinnacles as he described them.

Music can evoke emotion, create tension, and stick in your head longer than many visual images. It can create or heighten euphoria and drive people to despair. Music is a powerful medium for conveying a message.

Collosians tells us that as we sing as Christians, we should let the word of Christ live in us. We should be singing about Christ. We should be singing truth, because his word is truth. So music is a very powerful part of a church meeting! We need to get the words of our songs right, because we’re going to remember the lyrics far more easily than a Bible passage or clever talk illustration.

‘Tis hard to say if greater harm is done
When heresy is preached or when it’s sung,
But I will argue that the latter’s worse—
More virulent is heresy in verse.

…and sermons stay not long between the ears
But song words linger in our heads for years
The music and the metre make them stick.
You disagree? Go ask a heretic—
—Ask Arius who spread his lies through song
And like the piper led astray the throng,
Or ask the merchants, those who bait their snares
With music, and with jingles flog their wares.

(Braddon Upex, An Essay on Hymnody)

Writing, or selecting music for Christians to sing is a weighty task, and yet so often we let musical talent be the only factor in choosing someone to lead the singing and choose the songs. Music leading in church can be a form of pastoring or teaching. So let’s think as carefully about finding these guys as we would for a youth leader, or pastor! It’s a responsibility for me as a musician to think carefully not just about the music, but the words of the songs I’m choosing. The songs people sing are going to influence their thinking, their praying, their speaking. Choosing biblical songs means God’s word influences them, as they’re humming the tune on the way to work, or singing it while in the shower. Isn’t that a big part of pastoring – explaining God’s word to people so that they become more Christ-like? Isn’t that part of what we’re trying to do through songs?

(More to follow, perhaps. We’ll see where my thinking takes me.)

Matthew @ 23:53, February 15, 2008 to Discussions | Permalink | Comments (1)

Longing for community

When I was younger, I loved the novels of Monica Hughes (and for that matter, still do). Recently I re-read one, a novel set in a future with a dystopian repressive world government. During the course of the novel, the teenage protagonist Alison discovers that the penal colony her dissident family have been sent to is in fact another planet, where the government are hoping to set up a working society who will provide a source of labour for their exploitation of the planet in the future (a bit like the Brits sending criminals to Australia). However, a psychologist named Jay, whose ideas had been used to put together a society that would work on an alien world (basic premise: don’t tell them it’s not Earth, drug the adults into amnesia, get their kids to learn to make the decisions), is in fact opposed to the government’s plan, and so returns to Earth with a report of a failed society where the rebels all killed each other off. This leaves Alison and the others in their own kind of Eden, with a new society based on co-operation and caring for each other, safe from future interference.

It’s at once a pessimistic and an optimistic view of the future. Firstly, the world government, their restriction of freedom, their abuse of power – human nature in all its sinfulness. But then you have the new society, where the children have learned from the mistakes of their ancestors, where there’s a return to a hunter-gatherer society, where the community is so near perfect that the kids never fight or fall out, and make sensible decisions – well, it’s completely unrealistic. The thought of eight-year-olds being content to dig holes, find berries or cook food each day, without squabbling or running off to play, is a crazy one, but somehow an attractive one.

Hughes wrote many other books, some of which I’ve bought. One thing many have in common is this future, “evolved” society, where everyone has learned from the mistakes of the past and are working together for a sustainable future (sounds like the Green Party manifesto). There’s a return to a simple past, away from cities and technology to nature and natural ways of doing things, an implicit environmentalism. Above all though, there is the sense that merely by having seen the mistakes of the past, these utopian societies will work, and go on working.

I read these books, loved them, but was never quite satisfied once I’d finished them. I was drawn into the world they created, and then I would get to the end and feel almost unsettled. It’s only later that I’ve realised why. I got to the end of this book the other day, and thought “but this isn’t how things are now”. We live in a world marred by sin, lives full of activity with hardly a chance to pause and enjoy God’s creation. We’ve messed up this world, and can’t fix it fully. Reading these books makes you long for a society like the one they portray, but reality says we’ll never experience anything like it in this life.

So the longing I was feeling, the unsatisfied and unsettled reaction I’d had that I couldn’t pin down, was simply a longing for the new creation. Monica Hughes’ website implies that she was a Christian. Was this her own subtle way of inciting that kind of longing in people? I guess I’ll find out once I’m there myself.

The utopian societies that she has created share many features, but the primary one is the care and concern the people have for each other. A great regard for beauty and simplicity in their lives (the absence of money and a return to subsistence agriculture, or making useful, everyday things look beautiful), the importance of work and the satisfaction it brings, and some form communal decision making under the leadership or guidance of elder members, are some of the other consistent features. Many of those things are attributes that our communities and churches should share, and these are the things which make her societies so attractive to the reader. The unsatisfied feeling I get in reading of such societies shouldn’t just stop when I’ve finished reading. Paul talks about this creation “groaning” (Romans 8:22-25) as it awaits its redemption. I should expect to want the new creation; and I should be motivated to do what I can to live in light of that future. The fact that one day the church will reign with Christ over a new heaven and earth, perfect and wonderful, should make us live like that now. So let’s build communities that point to the future; let’s do our best to look after this world, and care for it like we should; let’s count ourselves dead to sin and live in light of our sinless future (Romans 6:5-12). The new creation awaits us, so let’s live in light of that. Christian communities should be such that people can see a glimpse of the new creation and a perfected people of God in us.

To conclude, one final thought. Paul writes in Romans 10:14-15:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

One aspect of the communities portrayed by Hughes is the welcome they show to outsiders, and how they include them in their society. The church should not be inward-looking. Sure, we want to grow in personal godliness and to become a group of people that better reflects God’s love, and we should make it our aim to do this. But God’s love is a love that reaches out, and so our churches must too. The message of the gospel needs to go out, not just a message of a renewed society and renewed relationships. Ultimately, humans are sinful and need God to rescue them, and it’s only this rescue that will lead to the renewal of all things. Without sin being dealt with, the new creation won’t be perfect – but Christ’s death pays for sin once for all, and his resurrection assures us of a new life, one that will be made perfect when everything is made new.

Matthew @ 22:25, February 10, 2008 to Discussions | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dreaming of the City

During a lecture, something suddenly twigged. It started with a strange feeling as a city-state was mentioned – a thought association. I thought of Ynysmant (featured in the Lamb Among the Stars series), and Merral’s love for his hometown; the idea of its loving community, as well as beauty.

I thought of Minas Tirith: a shining white fortress city; the passion that Boromir, son of the city’s Steward, had for it; Howard Shore’s score in the films, where Gandalf and Pippin ride towards the city.

I wanted to have the experience of living somewhere like that. A city where everyone felt part of it – had their role in serving the master of the city, whom they loved. Why? Why did I want this? Why did I empathise with the men and women of Gondor so much? Surly I didn’t want a monarchy, or feudal service to a lord?

But, and you’ll have seen where this is going, I do serve a lord, one who is far greater than any human, and far more worth serving. In fact, the experience I desired, of loving service of a master who loved us first, is exactly the experience that God gives us in serving him. True joy can only be found through serving him. Jesus says “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). Later, he says:

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. (John 15:10-16)

I’m not trying to look at everything in this passage, but in the second sentence we get the idea that our joy is somehow linked with Jesus having his joy in us. It’s all tied up with remaining in his love, and that’s all tied up with obeying his commands. What does that look like? Well, it’s us loving each other as Jesus loved us – and Jesus loves us in an incredibly self-sacrificial way. We’re also to go and “bear fruit”, which can mean all sorts of things, but seems to refer to developing godliness, as well as possibly the fruit of the harvest, or new Christians. Either way, in this life we serve a master, and in serving we receive joy.

But the desire I had was for even more than an experience in this life. My church is a wonderful community. I moved to a small church plant in October, and have loved everything about it – the ability to get involved in all aspects of church life, and to get to know people of every age rather than just students! I’m playing the piano later today, and went round to a family’s house last night with other friends of theirs for an evening of games and food. I love my church, but it’s pointing somewhere better.

There is a future city where a community of people will worship the only Lord worth it. A city with no need of a sun because the Son gives it light. This is a city to be passionate about. The is why I wanted the experience: a group of people, united in love for God and each other, perfected.

There’s more than that, though. Both Minas Tirith and Ynysmant were beautiful places. Julian Hardyman (in his book Glory Days) describes the new creation as a garden-city, citing Revelation 22:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.

God has given us a beautiful creation, full of variety and richness, full of beauty for all the senses. Often we don’t think of cities as beautiful places – whether because of the communities, or the architecture, or the traffic. But in the new creation, this new city, our home, will be.

As I’ve said, we can see something of this on Earth, however imperfect. The church is becoming the kind of community pictured here (and by “becoming”, I mean that this is God’s plan for the church, however slow or even backwards the progress seems to us). Our homes should have an openness, a welcoming atmosphere, and even a beauty as part of that. We should do what we can to honour God through living in a loving, outward looking community. We model what we long for. Time spent with our Christian brothers and sisters should be like a foretaste of heaven – and that should be something our non-Christian friends can see too.

Matthew @ 11:39, February 10, 2008 to Discussions | Permalink | Comments (2)