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Reunion Tour? Pray About it!
The Story: In addition, we toured locally. Other Historical Developments: Disclaimer: The Point www.Evangelism101.org | www.TheJesusBus.com | www.AscensionWorship.com | CrossEyedDesign | Just to Name a Few Also Churches that have directly or indirectly been affected: www.Jax-Mosaic.com
| www.northstarchurch.net
| www.nocateecc.org |
www.myparkwood.com |
Fact:
I didn’t know what it was
to be free but I knew that I needed to know.
With all that I was taught being a green Christian in a youth group, a lot of the emphasis on the souls of men and the importance of the gospel was appreciated, and pungent in scripture. But along with this, also came a form of legalism that I just swallowed, not considering for a moment that putting form above content is a style issue. And instead of making it a peripheral doctrine, it was put more in a category of things that are essential, or at least central to our faith. But really, style is secondary to the Heart that we worship. God is concerned about truth. Infact, Spirit and Truth. In John 4, Jesus said “The Father seeks for such to worship him.” I do know that it is the burden of the missionary to be relevant to his or her culture, and to relate to them the truth, not necessarily pushing culture, but the core of Christianity, the non essential of our faith to the saving of Man and the Glory of God. Music is one of those things that do just that. And for people to lock in and say that one is better that the other (assuming that all being sung about is true) the spirit of which we give our sacrifice of praise to God is very important. the variety of styles with which to convey the message is virtually limitless (within the confines of John 4, and The Greatest Commandment [Love God with all the Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength, and Love others as you want to be loved], and the Greatest Commission [to go Preach the Message of Jesus being Savior and Lord.])
The freedom we have to worship the Lord and give him everything. To give the style according to emotion as a sacrifice of Praise to our God. To make sure that Worship is in Spirit AND in TRUTH. It is hard to combat legalism. That is one of the reasons that I went to Liberty University, so I could give an apologetic for my faith and reason for worshipping the Lord the best way I know how. It’s like refrigerator art. You use the Skill that God has given you out of a pure heart, with devotion giving back to him honor with every stroke of your brush, with every guitar lick, or scale of the keyboard. Each breath is meant to worship him. Each desire for worshipping Jesus Christ with your whole heart is this facet of this diamond that sparkles with The Gory of God. Each bright reflection is declaring how great God is and that it is all about him.
In the words of Quincy Richardson “God is teaching me that all the talents that I have, I received from Him. You might be saying that that is obvious. I know, it is. The thing about it that has really set me free to worship Him through my music is this statement- When I excel at what God has gifted me to do, then I bring that much more glory to Him. When I play and sing to the very best of my abilities, and I do it realizing that all my talent is from Jesus, then in doing so I pass all the glory to Him. Isn't that awesome? God gave me talents and abilities to bring glory to Him. When I do that, I shine the brightest for Him, and He deserves all that I am and a million times more.”
With These Concepts not so refine or conveyed, we still practiced these tenants. I learned from these friends what it meant to praise God. I’ll be honest, some of the edgy stuff - I was unsure about in the beginning, but I was like, I can do this for the sake of this guitarist, or the person who wrote this song. Like some of the beats on the drums was a little too wild for church stuff, so I would always worry about thing like this, because that is what I was taught. Christian Music has to be “a certain way” for it to be right. That meant it had to be southern gospel, and could not have a driving beat. No one sent me the memo that God was from Nashville, I thought he was from Nazareth. Wow what about those poor Chinese people, the ones who are Christians, they can’t play their koto anymore, because ‘God does not approve of their style’? Legalism – hogwash. What about people in India that are Followers of Jesus, their music scale is totally different (in 1/3 step increments, rather that the far western culture ½ step increments). The funny thing is Jewish music- sounds like neither. Anyway, Psalms says to Worship God – to sing unto the Lord a New song – All the Earth. For God to say Come up with something new… Speaks volumes… new style, new way of singing praise, new story, new testimony, new experience.
It is neat to see that we were on the cusp of the revolution that was happening all over – this modern worship movement- that kept Jesus as the centerpiece of salvation, and use aggressive style to convey that truth. And that multitudes would accept this relevant push, that it is ok to engage in the culture, as long as you bring the cross over. And tell people to Worship the Lord God with their whole heart.. the best way they can. And be passionate about it. Isaiah 26:8 Yes, in the way of your judgments, Yahweh, have we waited for you. Your name and your renown are the desire of our soul.
Being in this band taught me how to function in a band, and inspired me to learn other instruments for the Glory of God. Now I can lead worship with a guitar instead of just piano. I was forced to say there is really not many ways you can play it, and not be boring about it… the skill and the craft of knowing your instrument, became the freedom of seeing that this is harder than it looks. I could not criticize (as I had been taught to judge) that that I could not do myself. How can I say, No playing the guitar that way is wrong. Well if I could play, then how could I say that, with integrity, ‘cause I can’t offer a way to ‘correct’ it. So when you embark on studying a skill, you see the complexity of a persons skill set – that the craft is hard, and art is not easy, but we can be excellent for him, and convey the emotion and feeling that need to be transmitted. If it is Praise, or Worship or Thanksgiving or sadness, and morning over sin, repentance, gladness Joy, peace, righteousness, Spiritual Warfare, Call to action, Conviction, contrition, wrath, love, forgiveness, laughter, grievance, comfort. All of these concepts can be conveyed in Christian music. And I appreciate the melancholic nature of these songs of Quincy- the composer of most of the songs that we did in P1F. it was hope from hopelessness, with a real feeling of circumstance. Our music was evangelistic. We always talked about Jesus. In fact, at 1st we didn’t understand songs that just talked about God as ‘You’. Not realizing the power of signing a song to God is much like praying a prayer if it is done with faith. We caught on to that later too, but nothing is as sweet as saying in a song “Jesus, Name above all Names” Because People know who you are talking about… Way to be evangelistic, even motivation to the Christian. Consider the words to This song “Sometimes”
Jesus, name above all
names
Chorus:
Jesus, name above all
names
And lyrics to “Maglight”
I want to be your
maglight
Vs. 1
Vs. 2 ________________________________________________
I could be more tolerant
of a foreign style of music (that I was used to...), So I am glad for my experience
with Psalm 150 Funk that changed the way I approach ministry. ..::Learn::..
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