I’ve wanted to write about this for some time now but never had the inspiration to do so. But this past weekend was the tipping point.

The book of Jude is often ignored or skipped by many who read the Bible. In fact, in my 6 years of being a believer, and the last 3 being employed by the church, I have never heard anyone quote the book of Jude. In fact, just in the last year, I was the one who led a Bible study on the book of Jude for my staff group meeting, which was met with my manager looking at me like I had two heads.

Jude essentially talks about the falling away of the church. This short book is a warning to the church that ungodly men had crept in and have and will distort the truth and defile the Gospel.

While this is happening in so many different ways, one clear platform of this deception is in worship music. Now to understand where I am coming from, let me give a little bit of personal history.

I was born in 1983 in the thick of hair bands, glamour metal, and cheesy electronic pop. But it wasn’t until the early 90′s that I began to show a serious interest in music. I quit piano lessons in exchange to teach myself the electric guitar. I bought a flannel shirt and began cranking out Nirvana and Soundgarden tunes. It was the advent of grunge rock and a new wave of teen rebellion. Then i got into metal music. Metallica became my absolute favorite band. I couldn’t go a day without listening to it. It fueled my anger and rage towards the world. And my guitar playing was steadily improving as I learned Metallica songs note by note. I was also very much into blues music and one Stevie Ray Vaughn, who I still consider one of the greatest guitar players of all time. In any case, my goal became to make it big in music. I wanted to be a rock star. But as I grew into my late teens and early twenties, I began to realize that the music industry was changing. Once the internet came into play, popular music became way more of a business and a product rather than an art. The change was disturbing because I saw the radio waves turn from good music, to one hit wonders and shallow repetitive nonsense. Nevertheless, there were still many bands that were big in their own right and I worked hard to get to that place where I could write and play music for a living.

It wasn’t until I came to understanding fully what it meant to be a Christ follower that I had a major paradigm shift in my thinking and understanding of the world, especially music. In fact, worship music was the one thing I despised, even after i declared my faith. But I came around to it. Now I think bands like Hillsong United are great in bringing glory to God while remaining fairly artistic. But the reason why I wanted to make this post happened this last weekend.

There was a major conference happening at my local church of which I was an AV for. The opening day came and there were hundreds, if not thousands of young church leaders gathered to talk about moving the church forward in the 21st century. It began with worship. There was a single candle lit on the stage with a keyboard player singing on the left and a guitar player on the right. That was it. The worship leader began the conference with a very interesting proposition; “Take a deep breath and clear your mind. Let go of all the troubles and difficulties holding you down and just open yourself up. Invite the spirit to make his presence known.” Accompanied by long drawn out ethereal chords with lots of re-verb and echo, this sounded more like new age meditation than worship. After the small “moment of stillness,” the duo broke into a popular worship song. It sang of Jesus and God as any worship song would even though the style was still ethereal and new age-y.

After the first song, the worship leader stepped away from his piano and picked up his acoustic guitar. He plucked some chords while encouraging to pray for God to manifest. “Ask God to manifest right now. We know God is present and He is everywhere, but we want Him to manifest. A doctor could be present here in the crowd, but once he steps on the stage and begins to perform surgery, he is manifesting. In the same way, ask God to manifest.” Okay. What in the world is this guy talking about? God manifesting is first off, in Jesus, God who became flesh, and secondly the Holy Spirit. Am I wrong? In what other way does God manifest? And does he mean in some allegorical way or literal? This was very vague and confusing for me.

I was happy to find out that a couple of fellow co-workers of mine felt this was strange as well. But this was only the beginning. The following weekend, I set up the band for the High School Ministry as I always do on Sunday mornings. The band came in as usual and began their rehearsal. One of the “traditions” of our high school services is to perform an opening song that is catchy, poppy, and popular in main stream pop culture, but somehow also relates to the message for that weekend.

This weekend, the message was on “Talking to God” from the story of Jonah and the Fish. So what song did they choose for the opener? A song by Carly Rae Jepsen entitled “Call Me Maybe.” Keeping in mind that this was sung and performed by a band of high school kids to high school kids, check out the lyrics:

Verse 1

I threw a wish in the well, Don’t ask me, I’ll never tell I looked to you as it fell, and now you’re in my way,
I trade my soul for a wish, pennies and dimes for a kiss I wasn’t looking for this, but now you’re in my way

Chorus

Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?
It’s hard to look right, at you baby, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?
Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?
And all the other boys, try to chase me, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?

Verse 2

Chorus

Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?
It’s hard to look right, at you baby, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?
Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?
And all the other boys, try to chase me, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe?

The reason why I wanted to set up my history as far as music is concerned is because I am not some fundamental, conservative, right wing, republican, old school, Baptist church going, guy. In fact far from it. Yet I still have a problem with this. I didn’t say anything at the time, but my heart was hurting every time I heard the kids sing out, “I trade my soul for a wish”. It made my cringe inside. Why would anyone want to bring in this kind of song into the church? Some people unsurprisingly will tell me I am over reacting and the kids are just trying to have a good time and be relevant. But in all honesty, I consider church to be holy and sacred to God. And this song by no ways honors God in any way shape or form, nor did it have anything to do with the message, which itself was mediocre at best.

Jude warned us this:

“They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. ” JUDE 1:18-19′

The issue I have is with leadership. The entire week was a blast of seeing young church leaders talking about how to appeal to a changing culture and society, all the while maintaining the truth of the Gospel. Well, I just think you can’t. It’s a dangerous game to be playing. The fact is, the Gospel message is going to be compromised with such endeavors. It’s not meant to be presented one way or another. The Gospel is just meant to be preached as is. But the church has become a business. It’s about the numbers. It’s about attendance, donations and social justice programs. And while worship is meant to be simply that, worshiping God, it has also given way to the tentacles of the ways of the world.

I have friends who are part of the worship band and I know how caught up they get in political affairs regarding the worship team. There is judgment towards performance, ability, skill set, etc. The politics of who gets to play and who doesn’t, who get’s paid, who volunteers etc. is off the charts. Not to mention what songs get played, how they are arranged, who is featured…it goes on and on, and I often wonder if the main point of glorifying God alludes them. Are they simply lying when they tell the congregation to worship God? Or are they like all of us, just caught up in the affairs of the world?

I have no absolute solution for this, nor am I suggesting we can really do a whole lot about it. I simply write and brings these things to light for the sheer purpose of being a watchmen for the Lord. The point is to simply help people reflect on where their hearts are at when they do do ministry. It’s not an easy thing to do these days, and I get that. My only plea is that you and I keep our eyes on the Lord God and nothing else as we move through the world as aliens. And if I am off base here, I welcome the criticism and conversations about this or anything else.