Can I Just Say This?

I am bored to tears with “Christian” music–especially worship music.

(And the rebels shouted AMEN!)

Actually, to many people nowadays, that might not seem like a very provocative statement. But if you know me at all, you’ll know it’s kind of a strong thing to say. Why?

I am a worship leader.

I’ve been playing on church worship teams since I was a teenager. I was a church music director for six years, and for the past 14 years most of my “ministry” has been characterized by a passion for worship and a desire to teach the church to enter into worship more fully. As early as two years ago, we began an aggressive effort to establish a Tabernacle-of-David type worship expression, something we hoped would go into 24/7 worship, like International House of Prayer in Kansas City. I’ve been a songwriter most of my life, and for the past 13-14 years, nearly all my songs have been geared for church worship.

And I’m bored with the whole thing.

Okay, now to elaborate…I’m not backsliding, I’m not growing cold in my love for Jesus, I’m not turning into an “outer courts” Christian. I’m just looking for something meaningful, something REAL, and I’m just not finding it right now. I used to snatch up nearly every CD in the “worship genre” (I still can’t accept that worship music has its own “genre!”) the week it came out. I haven’t found a worship CD I genuinely liked in nearly 10 years. I can’t stand to listen to Christian radio anymore. It’s all running together, and it’s losing its meaning for me. I’ve been in such a rut with my own songwriting that even my own material is starting to bore me. If I were to record and release a CD right this minute, I’d be tempted to title it, Monotony: The Same Old Boring Stuff. And on the cover I could have a close-up shot of me propping my head up with my arm on the table, and looking half asleep. (That’s why I got the guitar, to try and break out of the ruts.)

I just think there has to be something more to this. A sound, an emotion–something in the music or the lyric that provokes and renews passion. Not necessarily a “feel-good” lifting up of the soul (I do know what that’s like), but a stirring of the soul. I’m bored not because I’m complacent, but because I know there has to be more…and I want it. Just little glimpses of it here and there have spoiled me for the ordinary. It’s like The Matrix when Neo takes the red pill (or is it the blue one? I can never remember) and wakes up to find his entire existence was a dream world, and the real world is stark and painful. Even though the real world sucks, just knowing the truth causes him not to be able to go back into his dream state. He’d rather deal with the painful truth than go back into a delusion.

I know there must be more–and so I can’t be satisfied with the plastic, boring, same-old-same-old anymore. I need to find out what MORE is.

These days, in keeping with what I’ve learned, I’m blurring the lines between sacred and secular and realizing that God can redeem all things in my life if I’m walking with Him. So I have a lot more “secular” music in my ipod right now, and a lot of it speaks to me and inspires me. We’re experimenting with some new concepts in our monthly worship time, looking for something more, and I don’t think anyone involved is genuinely comfortable with it right now–including me. I’m looking for something that will speak to my heart, and to the hearts of other wanderers. God hasn’t left us; He’s here, and He’s moving in new ways. When He touches our hearts, it inspires us to create, to reflect what He’s saying and doing in our day, in our generation. I want so much to tap into that. It’s something new, something more than our minds can fathom, something more that I think any one of us knows right now.

But I long to know.

Jer. 29:13-14a: “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD….”