Hype, The Church, and baked apple donuts.
I’m a skeptic. There I said it. I’m never the first to get on a band wagon. Maybe its because I like to look beyond where the band wagon is headed and see if I would like to be a apart of the end result…maybe I’m just uncool. I also HATE hype. I don’t like hype because I think it clouds people’s judgment of what a product, or band, or ministry really is. We spend as a society MILLIONS of dollars on hype. It tells you what you SHOULD think before you have time to assess its value…and most of the time we (myself included) take it at its word. I think that on the whole, MOST people don’t believe in hype. Why? Because it’s not authentic. Hype is exaggerated facts that are “fun” to believe, but after time has had its way…it just plain isn’t true. We see this in our line of work all the time. People want to know the next best thing or band in music before anyone else does…they want to have the album or the 3 unreleased songs before any of their friends. Some even get snobby and mean about their discovery. The desire to be unique in all of us is quite tiring. What’s my point? My point is I believe it has infiltrated the Church. Notice I said THE church….not A church. Let me explain:
One of the awesome opportunities we have being in “the waiting kind” is we get to be a part of what God is doing at many different churches all over the U.S. We see small churches and large churches…talented worship bands and singers that shouldn’t sing. It’s a beautiful thing “The Church.” One of the things we run into from time to time is this idea that worship bands can’t have the same “heart” as local church worship teams. I recently saw a tweet by a prominent worship leader that said
“….Our worship team is NOT a band….we are a group of collective believers that write and play music to serve the church”
This desire to NOT be a band as a worship team has always confused me. Mainly because I believe with all my heart, this is the desire of “the waiting kind,” and we ARE a band. I mean, I know why this concept started…i just don’t know who decided local church worship teams are the only way to live out serving the church musically. Bands have done themselves a lot of disservice to the church and vice versa. Pastors and leaders in the church can definitely sense when a group of musicians are more passionate about their bands image than ministering to the people. One of the things I enjoy about being a band many people haven’t heard of yet is this: No hype has exaggerated or disillusioned the people from hearing what we are about to share. People get to simply hear our hearts and hear our music for what it is…not what the internet has told them to think, or what the radio has told them to hear.
Disclaimer: I like the radio and the internet. :)
My point is, I guess I don’t want the church to ever be clouded in their view of who is ministering to them because of what they have or haven’t heard. It either DOES or DOESN’T have value. I’ve seen it at times and it makes me nervous. Why does it make me nervous? Because Jesus warned us becoming a respecter of persons. I think if in today’s times, church leaders were told that a Carpenter, who’s parents weren’t pastors of a large church, and didn’t have a bestselling book out, wanted to come minister at their church…most pastors wouldn’t even open the email. I just wonder if we are missing some of what God has for the church because we are so into the next BIG christian thing, and not asking ourselves if the next big thing has any eternal value.
Did I just compare my band to Jesus?? I wasn’t trying to…just making a point :)
My wife makes amazing desserts. One of her specialties is a recipe she has been handed down by her grandma. Baked apple donuts. (This may be the entire reason for the weight I’ve gained in our marriage) all of my friends love them and I’ve noticed my description of their taste and what they are has become more elaborate over the years. I then started to realize no matter how I talked them up or excited the person who was about to eat them…people enjoyed them because of the taste…not my description of how they tasted. Somewhere in this journey of making God known and giving our lives to His purposes, I believe we have abandoned God’s view and adopted our cultures view of what makes a person, band, book, ministry successful. It’s not all the chatter, its the experience we have when coming face to face with Him…no matter what package it’s been delivered in. I hope you hear my heart in all of this…I know I speak for my bandmates as well. We love being a part of the church and ministering to God’s people. I just hope as a whole we begin to look beyond the fluff and start feeling and experiencing the passion some of these worship bands today are sharing with us. I hope we are inspired by God’s SPIRIT within them…and not the HYPE around them.
Here are a few for you to check out:
Much love,
DEREK