dream

what does music mean?

So, I'm reading Harold Best's "Music through the eyes of faith" in my music major capstone class. This week we're talking about chapter two, 'what does music mean'. Best offers some strong assertions about the nature of music and its use in worship. Take for example this quote, "art and especially music are morally relative and inherently incapable of articulating, for want of a better term, truth speech. They are essentially neutral in their ability to express belief, creed, moral and ethical exactitudes, or even worldview. [...]" He goes on to say no matter what the artist's intent was, the art remains purposefully "dumb" and their works are simply to be understood as handiwork. Finally, he says, Christians are bibically justified in fully celebrating artistic creativity of the most diverse sort, including that which may have been created in downright unbelief.

The bulk of this blog may be me asking more questions than offering answers...

First, I don't think I agree with Best that music can't articulate truth. Best is careful to distinguish truth and beauty, saying they don't equal each other, so I can't go that route. However, there is something profound about music whereas without it, we would not understand the world, or the Creator, in such fullness. In this sense, music must have the ability to speak truth.

I will agree that music doesn't have an absolute meaning all the time. Ten people will give ten different interpretations on a given piece of music. However, I won't go so far as to say that all music is neutral in its messages. Notes and chord progressions and rhythms all say something, and they are meant to say something.

On to a new concept for me which Best brought up - common grace. This idea that God blessed ALL of humanity with different gifts and talents. It enbles anyone to perform noble deeds, or to make beautiful art. And so, could it be that there is no such thing as Christian or non-Christian music. Best asks, "what would it be?" and through his long list we see it is absurd to think that one type of music could be "Christian." This doctrine helps us understand why all music - over time and through all cultures - can be good, and is worthy to be offered in worship.

This brings up an interesting dilema. If all music can be worship music, what happens when I'm comfortable with using a U2 song as worship and yet my neighbor thinks it's wrong, or is at least not comfortable with it. Best would say, make personal choices about what is appropriate for you. He pretty much leaves it there, at the personal level. I just wonder how this translates to corporate worship. If everyone is worshipping with music that's right for them, what about music that's right for us, as a community. Maybe it's just a matter of teaching the congregation a deeper understanding of worship.

Another related topic: What about using music to make people feel a certain way, to "set the mood", specifically in a worship setting? Best would say, music doesn't make anyone do anything. "People wil behave exactly the way they want to, deep down in their hearts. [...] People who truly want to worship, as an ongoing condition of the heart, should not credit music with the power to bring worship about. They will worship irrespective of music. It is just as wrong to say music causes worship as it is to say that music causes sexual behavior." So, how do we structure our worship music as not to manipulate people's emotions... or is that even a concern? I once talked to a sound guy who on several occassions performed his own little experiement: as the band began to play more passionately and intensely, he would turn up the overall volume; and just as he did so, people's hands shot up in the air in gestures of worship. Hmm. volume controlling when we raise our hands, when we feel caught up in worship... that's a little scary. But then again, isn't that what the point of music is, to convey our emotions?

I told you I had more questions than answers.

A night at the Porch

So I live in a theme house here at SPU called Solomon's Porch. Our 'theme' is focused on men in discipleship, worship, and service. There's five of us juniors and seniors who live in the house and we each led small groups of freshman or sophmores during the week. On Monday nights, we all come together (the five of us and up to 10 freshman) at our house for an evening of fellowship and worship. We've been progressing through the year, building in concepts from Romans 12 (we spent all first quarter going through every aspect of Romans 12:1-2). The first quarter was mostly us older guys preparing stuff and leading a bible study, with some creative twists. Second quarter, we asked the other guys to take more ownership of the meetings. So, we had them each write on a note card any topic they would like to talk about; then each week we picked a card and assigned one or two people to prepare to lead a discussion the following week. It worked really well. We were able to talk about what issues were on their hearts, and they were more invested in and more interested in the meetings (because they picked what we were going to talk about). This final quarter of the year is becoming a culmination of the first two.

Begining this quarter, we explained a new format we would be taking for our meetings. This is actually a standard form that every service/worship gathering should have. It's a liturgy that is meaningful and time tested (this gets into the idea of taking "ancient" tradition from the early church). It flows very naturally and is always meaningful. There's six points to the liturgy: invocation, confession/absolution, word, response, prayers of the people, benediction. The second part of our format is creativity - using movement, music, symbolism, visual, silence, testimony, etc. to communicate any aspect of the liturgy. Each week, then, we pick one verse theme from Scripture and then we get in groups of two or three and each take an aspect of the liturgy to prepare for the next week's meeting.

Here's an example: Last week we did Isaiah 6:1-8, where Isaiah has a vision and is called by the Lord. If you look closely, every aspect of the liturgy is represented in those verses. So, the first group read the first few verses about the glory of the Lord filling the temple while dry ice mist filled the room and an ambient bass loop played. It was quite the invitation into the glory of the Lord. For confession, we lit candles and then passed our hands over the flame as a reminder of God's refining fire. For the word we read several other passages of when God called people, and then we shared stories of when God has called us. For a response, we walked in silence to an overlook of the campus, thinking and praying how God might be calling us. For prayers, we then looked out over the campus and interceded for our school and its impact on the city and world. And then the benediction sent us out into the world, encouraging us to say "here am I, send me."

What a production, you might say. But what's amazing is that one person didn't sit down and plan this all out. Instead, each of us met with our partner at some point during the previous week and brainstormed what they could do for thier one small part of the service. Then, we all come together, in excitement to share what we've come up with, and in anticipation of what's to come. It makes for very fresh and real worship. Even more, it's a community experience. We are creating this worship together, and offering it together to the Father. It's a wonderful, beautiful thing. It's giving us all a deeper understanding of what worship really is. Come to think of it, in the three weeks that we've done this, I think we've sang three songs total. Two the first week and one spontaneous accapella last week. Hmm. worship without guitars...? To be honest, it can be quite refreshing. (and that's coming from a full fledged worship band drummer)

learning

this is me figuring out how to do an active link... i go to seattle pacific university. that was easy. now, let's try a picture. This is a picture I took of a stainglass window

from the church in the Taize community, more on them later. Here's another stainglass image in link form. The only problem with the linked image is that the popup window is huge. I can probably adjust the size... any idea where?

neato

hey, I figured out how to changed the look. it's more night time feeling now.

The blog behind the name

So why the name "dream"? First, it sounds really cool in the url - sleepyheadcity.com/dream - it goes with the whole sleepy thing. But what's really cool is the word 'dream' sets a perfect tone for the forum I'll be taking on this site. I have so many ideas floating around in my head as to this whole notion of the emerging church. So, I'm taking this opportunity to log my thoughts and ideas about what the future church may look like. I'm dreaming about new and fresh concepts of community and worship and tradition and contemporary and liturgy and ancient and future and culture and media and creativity and art and all the other trendy terms of how the Church will connect with this and future generations. I'll be telling stories of experiences that have shaped my understanding of these ideas. I'll be asking questions and stating random thoughts. I'll read articles and post responses. I'll share ideas and invite responses. Who knows where this will go...

I'm just going to dream.

Welcome to Dream

Hello and welcome to my blog. I'm just getting started, but I'm excited to learn quickly and begin to share ideas and dreams of where the future church is headed!