Romancing Jesus
Tom’s asking “Does Jesus want to be my friend forever?” finally prodded me to post this (it’s been sitting unfinished since November).
During my college days, I attended a church with a more “contemporary” style of worship. Despite attending for three years, I never found it easy to worship seriously there. At the time, I rarely talked about it, nor was able to put a finger on why that should be the case.
Eventually, I figured out one thing, made obvious when “Shout to the Lord” by Darlene Zschech was sung during the service. There was a particular point during the song when, without fail, a bunch of people would shoot up their hands and do the hand-waving thing. This was when there was a modulation (change of key) and the volume was kicked up a notch.
It was the music itself that was eliciting such a response from the congregation, not the song’s content. (Perhaps this is one of the reasons that music is frowned upon in Islam?)
While at my parents’ house some time back, a second point was revealed. One of the articles in the October 2007 issue of Tabletalk discussed contemporary worship. Here is what Gene Edward Veith had to say:
They are mostly in the form of secular love-songs to Jesus. They are often from the feminine point of view, singing “Jesus, I am so in love with you” in a way that makes men squirm. Sometimes, “Jesus” is never mentioned, with the song being addressed to a “you” who could just as easily be a human lover.
These “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” types of songs can be sacrilegious or profane.
Now I remember. That always felt weird to me, even as other students tried to convince me it was not.
I have always had a hard time with the emotional aspect of these type songs. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy them but when the songs become the focus of the worship service I think we have a problem.
Many of our churches today seem to be all about the experience. They try to illicit an emotional response for the attenders. My former church was like that and I often left felling drained from all the emotional energy I exerted or, to the other extreme, like I missed something. I think emotion and music have a place in our worship services but they can’t be the primary reason we are there.
Many churches are very successful at increasing their numbers using these tactics. The problem is that when the emotion changes so does the commitment. Dr. James White says it this way…”What you win them with is what you win them too.” Jesus, and Him crucified, has to be our main and only focus.
Reply to TomnI do not care for contemporary church music. Often it has more to do with the person writing/singing than with the Lord. And that constant beat, beat, beat of the drums. Oh, my. Some older songs do speak of love for the Lord: My Jesus, I Love Thee, I’m in Love, Deeply in love with the Lover of my soul. I have no problem with them – I don’t know about what men think. I have wondered, rarely and briefly, about male feelings in connection with songs like that. The big problem is that churches that emphasize that kind of music have no deep Bible studies that we need to grow spiritually.
Reply to GrandmaDid you ever see the episode of South Park where Cartman fronts a Christian contemporary band? That is my problem with the genre in a nutshell. I am glad to get my contemporary-sounding Jesus on from the radio, but no love ballads or pop anthems to the Redeemer please during church.
Reply to Kate Dinoto me, spirituality–and by that i mean something distinct from religion–is a matter of the heart. you feel god or source or goodness or the pull in your heart. the heart does not lie. the heart will tell you the truth. ‘Always follow your heart’.
Reply to David K, SeattleI am sorry David K, but that is not the way. The Bible tells us about the heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Following our heart can get us into trouble. We need to follow the Shepherd.
Reply to TomThank you, Tom, for your reply to David. We certainly cannot trust our deceitful hearts.
Reply to GrandmaI finally left a church and found a new one because I was so fed up with the theatricality. Sometimes it was subdued, but at times it would be way too obvious. It seemed like they were willing to do too much for numbers, and I kept thinking how we were not supposed conform to the world, yet the very way they would present themselves to the world in sermons and otherwise seemed like the height of conformity to the commercial and theatrical.
On the contemporary music, I think it is a little frightening when we have a generation who can happily repeat a simple refrain praising God twenty times in a row but which doesn’t know the words to more than a single hymn or two if any. When I hear a part of a song I’m uncomfortable with I often just stay quiet for that portion of the song, words like “I’m in love with you Jesus.” may be the type of thing I might be quiet during. But I have no problem with “I Love you Jesus.” Another thing about the more modern music replacing the old which I think churches need to consider, is the cost it has to some of the elderly. It is kind of like taking away some of their more precious memories, by taking away their favorite hymns from the selections. I think we can have contemporary music, but do we have to do away with the older so thoroughly? I agree with Grandma, and have often been irritated with the focus on the singer in the songs. It particularly strikes me how many times the word “I” pops up in so many songs as opposed to “you”. And I agree with Tom, the emotional is overemphasized, and I doubt its long term contribution to a person’s spiritual growth. Seems more often like a temporary high, of the emotional type. Not that I think we shouldn’t have exhilarating songs, but the emphasis seems a bit much.
I suspect these changes are a result in part of the “seeker sensitive” movement, which seems to have gone too far in terms of like I said earlier, conforming to the world. It was an interesting confirmation of my dislike for the turn things have taken when willow creek community church, the flagship of the seeker sensitive movement, found in a well done study that while they were thriving in numbers, they found they were woefully low in the types of disciples of Christ who would continue to walk with God through home bible study, prayer, etc. after they left the church. The very things they were putting millions of dollars into thinking it would help people spiritually, weren’t working. And the things they weren’t focusing on, ended up being the things people were really crying out for. To their immense credit, the church has admitted its mistake and it now I believe is trying to make drastic changes to remedy the situation. Here: http://www.rfmedia.org/blog/audio/rf_audiocast-2007-11-04-72477.mp3
is an interesting 7 minute 58 second commentary on the willow creek thing if anyone is interested.
As to vague “spirituality”, it has sort of become a catch all for all kinds of weird beliefs, to quote someone who would probably address this much better than me. “What a person needs to do is not be spiritual, but be spiritually right. You have a right to believe whatever you want, but what you believe needs to be right.” This kind of heart/feeling focused philosophy seems to me to cut off the mind as an informer of our beliefs. One problem is that the heart does lie sometimes, it is often not the best informer in the decision making process. I think the view of “always follow your heart”, or, “if it feels good then do it”, has had all kinds of harmful effects on peoples lives. While typing I think of one in particular, divorce. People seem to think that when you get married, then if the emotional sparks dissipate (which they tend to do so at some point.), then something has gone wrong and the love is gone and its time for a divorce. Love has to transcend the romantic feelings, it is as much a matter of the will and of commitment as it is a matter of the heart. In other words, love is more than just the flutter of a heart, it can be hard work, whatever the songs and poets might say. But the follow your heart mentality tends not to recognize that, and so marriages end up being based mostly on the feelings and not much on the will or commitment, and so they often fail. I guess I was feeling verbose today, I think I might make this comment a post on my blog.
Reply to l3rucewayneOh, you beat me to it tom, I took a while in typing my tiny comment.
Reply to l3rucewayneoh i guess it is temporarily moderated. hopefully temporarily anyway.
Reply to l3rucewayne[...] Churches and “Spirituality”. Recently a blog called Liquid Egg Product had a post which has elicited some responses dealing with certain negative aspects of some churches and their [...]
Dang it. I go away for one Easter weekend and I miss a great discussion.
Great points brought up about love for Jesus being expressed from a feminine point of view. Come to think of it, if I were a guy I’d balk pretty hard at singing lyrics like “Jesus I am so in love with you”. I’ve been to churches where they “baptize” (their word, not mine) secular songs – basically, sub Jesus for “you”. Depending on your mood, it can be either uplifting or downright creepy.
Whether it’s profane or not…depends on our intentions. I believe the Lord knows our hearts and though we may be deceitful, He knows our true desires, no matter what our actions are. We can’t deceive the Lord. So if we truly wanted to worship the Lord by singing Faith Hill’s “The Way You Love Me” using “Lord” for “you”, then I believe that pleases Him.
As for “following the Shepherd”, what the heck does that mean? Is there some guy with a tunic and a curved stick pointing the way? Did not the Shepherd GIVE us a heart/spirit?
When David was saying “follow your heart”, I think (and correct me if I’m wrong) he was referring to simply listening to what God is saying – that’s the “pull” he was talking about. I don’t know about the other Christians on this board, but my spirit and my Bible are really all I have to communicate with my Lord. It’s not like He’s sending me emails or skywriting stuff for me. It’s up to me to seek Him through the Bible, and through prayer, and through constantly living like Christ.
Reply to annieAnnie said “As for “following the Shepherd”, what the heck does that mean?
I was obviously drawing on the language Jesus used to describe Himself in John 10. He tells us that He is the Good Shepherd and the His sheep know His voice and follow Him. Verses 7-18 say “7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” Jesus was using an illustration that the hears of the time would recognize and understand. My point in the comment was that we can only trust Him and follow Him…not our own heart because it can fool us.
It is true that when we are regenerated the Holy Spirit replaces our heart of stone with a heart of flesh. This allows us to understand our need for a savior. The problem is that we also still have the sinful nature that we were born with. Sin no longer holds us in slavery to it but it still has the ability to influence us if we choose it. So, you can see, simply trusting our heart is not always the safe thing to do…we must test where our heart is leading us by God’s Word, a.k.a. The Good Shepherd.
Reply to Tom