The "Worship" Dilemma

Having been gifted with musical abilities I have been using it for God's glory for quite some time now. Listening to good music goes with it and it helps in honing one's musical skills. Talking about music, there used to be a time when musicians released their singles and albums which were songs with messages, stories, scripture and songs which were simply their experiences put forth in a melody. I even recall reading that some famous artists, get their song ideas from the books they read and make compositions out of the reflections they find in the chapters of the books.

Growing up listening to such songs and music in the 90's with such depth of meaning and theological correctness, here I am suddenly finding myself being a part of a crowd which now calls the songs they sing in Church  as "Worship" songs. These are songs which are primarily written about God and sung to God. Since the 90's there has been a wave of this Worship music with forerunners in the industry (yes! it's become one now!) like Maranatha Singers, Vineyard, Hosanna Integrity etc., to name a few! There has been a clear wind of change from the traditional Southern Gospel to the new "Worship" which has now become a genre by itself.

The older style of songs have clearly taken a back seat. Even the main line churches find it hard not to have this wave hitting them. This has even created a generation gap where the older generation desires more solemn hymns while the newer generation wants the upbeat songs. At 50, I now find myself caught up in this chasm where I prefer the 80's and 90's style of songs while the ones that came later have a distinct difference in the style and manner in which they are played and some how my musical sense finds it hard to sync with it or I wonder if it is just a mental block.

With the passage of time I find myself leading Worship and I have done this for over 2 decades now. I have predominantly done this in an Indian and an Asian context. I would like to give some of my challenges in leading worship and my experiences and struggles that I have been through in the journey given the context that I have been in. If you are in a similar context like me this will make sense. This will also help you to take a balanced view of things in order to avoid the conflicts that have risen in my life.

1. Mixed Age Groups.

When you have older people in the congregation it is pretty easy to see that they are not too keen to follow some of the latest songs. They are still holding on to their traditional songs and songs they grew up listening. Now this becomes a dilemma as to how to have a mix of both old and the new songs. You need to cater to the old as well as the new.

2. Mixed Nationalities.

While it is true that every nation and every tribe will be worshiping in heaven, it poses a challenge to us this side. The Africans are culturally expressive and rhythmic and music and dance are integral to their culture and being. So they are quite expressive in their worship. On the other hand, we see certain other nationalities who are conservative and may not be as expressive as the others. As a worship leader I get into this dilemma of watching some just stand there and watch me sing while the others join along into jubilant singing.

3. Mixed Language Groups.

Not everyone is primarily English speaking in the congregation. Hence some could be more engaging in the worship when it happens in the language of their comfort. For some, worshiping in their mother tongue would make more sense. However, in such a multi-linguistic and multicultural settings it becomes a challenge to be leading the worship where the response could be a bit depressing. As a worship leader I have felt out of place in such settings.

4. Mixed Backgrounds.

We observe people coming in from different backgrounds with different worship patterns and styles. Some come from a liturgical background, some from a free worship background, some from a quiet and somber way of worship, some prefer it to be overly vocal, some want instruments while some may not be wanting extra sounds, some are conservative and the others are quite open and even dangerously "progressive". As a worship leader it gets pretty challenging to have a session going well in this context.

5. Mixed Experiences.

Some people come in with their baggage of experiences and each one claims their experience to be superior or correct. While experiences are important when it comes to worship we need to weigh our experiences in the light of scripture and not vice versa. Many times as a Worship leader I wonder if I am doing the right thing especially when I do not do certain things or express the way some of the others do.

Therefore, with such challenges I sometime wonder where do we converge and how do we converge to make the experience of worship more meaningful, purposeful and realistic.

Will be interesting to hear your views. Do take time to comment and let me know what you are thinking. Also check out my other blogs on the same subject.

Thanks for reading!! Would appreciate your comments!!

New Year & New Horizons!

Wish you all a belated Happy New Year and thank you for all the feedback and comments you gave all through last year! It's great to resume my writing and no better time than now, the start of another year!

The dawn of a new year brings with it new opportunities and new challenges. I'm just reflecting on some of the  new things that are happening in the different facets of my life.

Firstly, I'm so very grateful for my new job at the Gulf Medical University. It is an entirely different setting here after having worked in a Christian international NGO. My new role here seems pretty basic for the moment and what I'm doing now is quite different from what I'm actually capable of. However, looks like God is bringing me back to the basics, in this side of my life, to help me get a better grip of things in the corporate world before He brings me to newer and higher things. Good to have a boss who is both an MD and a Ph.D and it's great to be assisting him in some critical areas and getting to know his style of functioning and dealing with things. One of my first assignments was to initiate business development for our Computer Based Testing and I am so glad to have successfully completed the SEED phase and hand it over to the Marketers to carry it forward.

Secondly, it gives me great joy to be part of a project by VOICE for a UAE based inter church choir that will accompany Michael W Smith this March. After a dearth of choir music for more than a year, it was great to be back in this choir, getting our voices warmed up for some great harmonies and the grand concert that's coming up.

My mind went down memory lane back to my choir days in Chennai. It began with singing harmonies with my ex-boss Christopher and my good friend Aloysius back in the early 90's. I then moved on to sing in the World Vision choir conducted by another good friend, Alfred Ling, where we made life difficult for him but yet made it well on the final day. Then came  the New Calvary Church Choir in the late 90's where I started out as a bass singer before deciding to move to singing tenor in order to save my voice for the solo's. All thanks to Mr.Asir for being that tower of patience in teaching us. Never can I forget Uncle Theodore the choir master who commanded such respect in the choir circles of Chennai. The one year I spent with the Faith Prayer Tract League(FPTL) Choir was one of the best learning times. With none other than the maestro Rajeevan David as Director, it was a great time of fun and learning the finer things about choir singing. I stay grateful to him for giving me some of the juicy solos to sing. Last but not the least, the brief three months I spent practising with the Handel Manuel Ensemble directed by Mrs.Sharada Schafter was definitely of a higher calibre where for the first time I was exposed to singing Spanish and Latin lyrics. While I began to enjoy this I had to pack my bags and leave India and move to the UAE over a year ago.

Finally now, after my association with Sabu George and the 'VOICE' and the opportunities they have given me to sing along, it is truly a privilege to be part of this project at such a time as this. God has given a great vision to them to reach out to this part of the world through music and what a time for God to have moved me here. One of the things that they have thought about is to use the local genre as a vehicle. Now this gives me a new idea to explore a new genre that could suit this part of the world. I've begun to tune my ears to the playing of a lot of Eastern European and Middle Eastern melodies and their rhythms. Hope I get a good grip of it someday soon!!!

So here I am, looking forward for a good year of a lot of new things - new melodies, new harmonies, new associations and new horizons for my work, singing and music!!!!

Cheers and thanks for your time!!!!

My take on Worship.

Worship.

God as the creator of everything is also the one who created music. Music is a wonderful means to worship God. King David was one who experienced God in many ways and his expressions of gratitude, praise as well as laments are all written in the book of Psalms. These Psalms were set to music and sung in the temple and were part of the worship. Asaph, was one of the worship leaders in the Bible who led the people of God to worship. This was done with such awe and wonder that the people could experience the awesomeness of God through these times of singing. While there is such historical precedence to worship music in the scriptures, there is a divergence that has happened over a period of time where the very purpose of music has been lost. I would like to write here some of my struggles and reflections that I have had in my journey of worship.

One of the misconceptions of the term “worship” in the present day church is the reference to the part of the service they spend in singing songs. While this is important, we should know that worship does not end there. When this part is done well some believe that the worship is complete. People with hands raised and eyes closed go into an ecstasy and feel satisfied that they have worshiped God. Little do they realise that they have missed out on more weightier things than that when it comes to worshiping an awesome God.

This according to me has been the result of a saturation of so called “worship leaders” who are most of the time more commercial than missionary, spinning out their music albums year after year and going on world tours to promote themselves than God. In the church, most of the time even the presence of God is being alluded to the quality of the music. When the music is good people "feel" the presence of God and when it is not good they don't. 

Taking a closer look at this phenomena the question that arises is, "Why is this called as  "a time of worship” as if the other things done in the service are not worship. To put things in perspective, everything that is done in the house of God will have to be brought under the banner of worship. Even the preparation for the service – cleaning up, arranging and setting up everything is part of the entire “Worship”. Within the service besides the singing – the offering, the testimonies, the exhortation, the sermon, the communion, the serving and the prayers will all together constitute worship.

Worship from within.

In the old testament times when Solomon built the temple and dedicated it, it was meant to be a central place where the people would gather for worship where the presence of the Lord descended. However, in the new testament dispensation after the ascension of the Lord and when pentecost ushered in the era of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God is not limited to the physical temple in Jerusalem, but to every believer who is indwelt by the spirit of God all across the world. This extension became possible when the apostles in response to pentecost carried the word to the uttermost parts of the world. If we believe that the spirit of God resides in us then worship has to begin from the temple of God within us. St.Paul urges us to “present our bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable” to the Lord which is our reasonable service or a spiritual act of worship(Rom 12:1). Worship hence has to stem from the depths of our inner being first. It results in a sense of awe of God, it helps us with a constant reminder to how great and awesome our God is, his love, his grace, his power and his greatness, his desire to live in us in spite of us. It should help us realise our frailty, our sinfulness and our finiteness before an almighty and infinite God. 

This attitude helps us to have an upward view of God, an inward view of ourselves and an outward view to carry out the task of being a witness. In other words worship is how we live our lives deep on the inside and the values that govern our lives. True worship should result in a sacrifice of all our “self” to allow a selfless God to rule over our lives. Worship that does not change us is no worship. True worship takes a look on the inside first!!

Worship – Beyond Music.

Music is only a means to an end and not the end in itself, the end being glorifying God who has to be the object of our worship. The singing and playing of instrument has to be done for the audience of one – the one and only Lord our God. Music aides the church to realize that the object of worship is Jesus our Lord and nothing else. 

There are possibilities when the means can become a menace where God is not glorified and is no longer the object of worship. The danger is when the object of worship shifts to someone or something else other than God - it could be the worship leader, the singers or the music itself, or it could be an accomplished musician in the band or it could even be the whole so called misplaced worship exercise where the people end up worshiping “worship” instead of worshiping God.

The deception that we fail to notice is that most of these so called worship concerts end up as just another good musical experience rather than a spiritual experience. We hardly hear of a concert these days where people attended it and had a personal encounter with God, came to a concrete conviction of sin and returned in total repentance and surrender to God, where their lives where transformed. Worship is not limited to worship music or the leader but its beyond the worship leader, the music and the songs.

Worship - The need.

The need of the hour is to come back to the heart of worship in it's purest and truest sense - worshiping God in truth and spirit (Jn 14:24). Coming to the presence of God with conviction about the awesomeness of our God. Knowing this God in concrete terms as our personal Lord and Saviour. Having a personal encounter with Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and an intimate relationship with him as our very source of life. Worship should come out of a realization of our dependence on a God who is high above all, having a very high view and regard for this God who deserves all honour and glory. Worship should come out of a deep reverence to this awesome God who has to be the center of the Worship.

Are we into a deception of having been part of a service which had great worship music? Or are we trying to look deeper than that?

Does our life reflect a worship unto God? 

Do our relationships reflect worship? 

Do our values reflect worship? 

Does our work reflect worship?

The day when we can confidently say "YES" to these questions is the day we have actually arrived at "Worship".

A musical musing!

It is said that the baby in a mother's womb can listen to the sounds outside the womb and that's the reason why pregnant mothers are advised to have some good music going on around them. It not only soothes the mind of the mother but also engages the unborn inside the womb in its responses to sound. The power of music is so much that we find it as an indispensable element of the entertainment world.

Having said that, it is possible that most of us have grown up listening to music from the day our faculties to listen began, even before we were born. Some of us could have listened to more noises than music or more silence than sounds. Whatever it is, music has been all around us.

Having been involved deeply with music for many years now, it fascinates me to discuss about this with people - musicians and non musicians, ardent music lovers as well as casual listeners. I realised then, that not everyone listens to music the same way I do. There are various ways in which they listen. I would like to take you through a list that I developed on the basis of my interactions with people on the various ways in which they relate to music.

• Nonchalant listener - This is the kind of person who is not so impressed by music, but at the same time cannot avoid the notes falling into his ears. However well the music is played it doesn't make sense to him as he least cares about the music but is perhaps engaged in something else more important to him.

• Casual listener - This person listens to music occasionally but does not delve into the music. He loves it but is not so literate when it comes to music as a subject. He appreciates it and feels good or not so good about the music, but it does not inspire him. He can live without music.

• Addictive listener - A compulsive listener to music who cannot do anything without listening to music or having it played in the background. Music is what drives him. This person is obsessed with the pleasure of music. Sometimes his behaviour is affected by the kind of music he listens to. We see this kind of person on the road with his headphones on, shaking his head and walking to the rhythm of the song. Everything in his life needs to be connected to music somehow.

• Critical listener - This listener likes to dissect the music and look into each aspect of it - the way it is played, the details of the production, the people involved, the highlight of the music and also whatever was not so right with the music. In most cases he is either a musician himself or a music critic. This kind of listener is one who has sold himself to music and every time he listens to it, he does it with such deep passion. He loves to experience the flow of the music and enjoys every bit of it irrespective of what the genre is as long as there is some music.

• Emotional listener - This is the listener who associates himself with the context of the song. The lyrics and the melody of the song strikes a chord and he is immediately transported to a different world where he becomes one with the song. It is this segment of the market that the music directors target with their melancholic melodies. Often times in my personal experience I have listened to certain songs and I have immediately associated it with a certain place or a context in the past especially my childhood. I do not have the answer to this linking that happens in the mind. It could be possible that the song was actually played when the incident happened or it just connects to it somehow. However, there is a deep emotional connection  to the melody or the music.

• 'Soul' listener - I would call this the highest level of listening to music as the listener is not so bothered about the quality or the genre of the music  but is deeply concerned as well as connected with the content of the music. He doesn't connect with the music at the mind level but at a level higher than that - at the 'soul' level. He allows the music to calm his restless mind and spirit. The lyrics in the song instills hope in him, touches the point of an inner need and elevates him to a place in his soul where he experiences an inner healing. Here is where most of the divinely ordained music exhibits its power to heal. Music becomes more a medicine than a pleasure to this listener.

It is also said that plants grow to the sound of music and cows produce more milk when music is played. If that be the power of music, as Shakespeare said..."play on!"