Had a wonderful bible study on praise this past weekend. I was thinking to myself, “oh, okay on praise.” I wasn’t too thrilled at first because I really wanted get into the “deeper” things of God. But the bible study leader is pretty consistent in teaching us these deep things of God so I remained patient.
I was not disappointed.
Psalm 150 was one of several scriptures used describing praising God, but this one I want to focus on because of its use of musical instruments, something that is sometimes controversial in the Church. But here it is with its entire chapter – all six verses of it!
Psalm 150
Let All Things Praise the LORD
1 Praise the LORD!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
2 Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
3 Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise Him with the lute and harp!
4 Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
5 Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD!
Praise him with the trumpet, the lute, the harp, timbrel and dance, stringed intruments and flutes, loud cymbals, clashing cymbals! Wow, all instruments to God’s glory!
When I was young and went to grandma and grandpa’s church (we weren’t church goers in my home with dad an agnostic), I remember distinctively the talk of guitars and drums as being sinful. These days, that has been replaced with hip hoppers, rappers and praise dancers as being sinful by some.
But as I’ve glanced through some videos of today’s Christian rappers and hip hoppers they are using instruments in the praise of God. These days the instruments can even include the fascinating use of computers in music. Take a look from this scene in the “Fighting Temptations,” a movie that although wasn’t high on my list of good movies, but this scene caught my attention when it came to the mixture of old time gospel and modern synthesized hip hop music. Very interesting!
“To Da River” T-Bone, Lil Zane, Eddie Levert, Montel Jordan in Fighting Temptations
Two thoughts with this video. 1) “As long as they’re praising God it’s alright with me” one of the character’s joyfully says and the last character saying 2) “they better be baptized and in bible study classes!”
I kind of hated the fact that the last lady in the video is viewed as the “evil one” especially with the way she’s telling them what they need to do. But she’s the one that’s actually on to something here.
Today’s Christian music is great in the way that people are choosing to worship God – with music that appeals to them! Hip hoppers are going to gravitate towards hip hop music, R&Bers to the same type, Contemporary Christian, Jazz, Rap, Pop, Rock, Heavy Metal, Country and Traditional the same way. I don’t see anything wrong at all with any music as long as what the lady alluded to in that video – they are truly saved and in the word of God!
God created music for his glory and all musical instruments He is okay with! It is important how we worship him, as our words must be pleasing to God, our clothing non-offensive as well as dance. I don’t know if anyone noticed the young man dancing in the video grabbing his crotch like Michael Jackson while praising God…we can forgive him for that but you get the picture. Dancing must be pleasing to God as well!
I criticized a very talented musical/preacher named Tonex in my post below for exhibiting ungodliness while promoting his music. But he and anyone calling themselves a Christian must make sure that their lifestyle is in synch with God while in their praise of Him! There a many, many musicians that are truly making their music while being great examples of godliness! Those musicians we must praise and continue supporting them by buying their music.
I belong to a church where the instruments have all been used to God’s glory. Sometimes it’s Rock, Hip Hop and R&B, and if the pastor is flooded with complaints, its probably that all of us want to hear our particular type of music, being a multicultural, multi-ethnic church. But it’s great to hear music appealing to all types of listeners!
I’ll close this post with a video by Crystal Lewis, someone I never really knew about until she performed at our church. She is the same singer (which I didn’t know) who sang on the award winning song with Kirk Franklin, Lean on Me. I’m still pretty unknowledgable when it comes to Christian music, but I love R&B, Jazz and even some hip hop. Please feel free to recommend to me some good listening music. In addition to Crystal Lewis, I have Sunny Hawkins (daugher-in-law to Tremaine Hawkins of the famous Hawkins family singers), The Washington Projects (courtesy of my 20 year old daughter), Dean Mills (whose Jazz video I have shown in my video list), Kirk Franklin, Lanee (friend of Tonex), Lecrae (courtesy of my teen son), just to name a few. I’m not too into country, but I like the Nashville Star singer, Coffey Anderson’s Christian rendition of Rihanna’s umbrella song that is also in my video list.
ADDENDUM 8/26: Check out “Joyful Noise” below. Great Rap/Rock video by Flame, Lecrae and John Reilly. I love this song! (No, there’s no profanity as some folks think an “F” bomb was dropped. It was the word “fought” when he says “fought death.”)
Now, back to my music. Please feel free to share yours!
Crystal Lewis – People Get Ready . . . Jesus is Comin’
© 2008 – 2011, Carlotta Morrow. All rights reserved.
Twitter: christocentric
says:
Ya know?
It’s something how we’re so quick to judge other’s music as “sinful.” We just all have to learn that whatever we do, do “all to the glory of God!”
I saw Crystal Lewis at the Women of Faith conference several years ago. What a singer!
That’s funny about guitars being sinful, because I’ve heard that people said the same thing about Bach’s organ music that he wrote for the church. It stirred the passions too much to be godly. Naturally, my taste in music is the godly type, and all the rest are sinful styles. Gotta love it!
Twitter: christocentric
says:
Bev, I do remember you doing that with Crystal Lewis! I mean this woman absolutely blew me away, and to think she’s been singing for 20 years! I feel really stupid when it comes to some music.
Regarding Rap, since having young adult children I’ve come to appreciate SOME rap myself. Certain songs, by certain artists I tend to gravitate to. That little blurb of T-bone and Lil Zane rapping on the “The Fighting Temptations” was my favorite part of the movie! Just that transition from old gospel, which I did enjoy hearing by the O’Jays, and then these young fellas come up singing about Jesus in Hip Hop language…I loved it!
But I’ll admit, I’m still learning. I do know that I’ll tolerate the “boring” Christian music, but when it comes to super praising of God through music, only certain types will move me!
When my My mother was saved during my teens years, she found this Christian station that played some of the slowest, most boring Christian music. My father alway loved the music played on that station. I did not like that music back then. When I came into my 40s (I just entered into the late 50s), I started appreciating the stodgy boring Christian music played on that station. Their are quiet times when that old slow boring music ministers to me.
Now I am slowly coming around to some Christian rap. I find that I am liking a few Christian raps composed by my younger home and sister church members. Their raps are Christ centered. The choir and the praise and worship singers at my church are excellent. They sing contemporary Christian music. The Choir will also sing an old traditional black gospel song every now and then. I do like the contemporary sound, but I also like the old time hymns as sung from the traditional hymnal.
I have always liked Crystal Lewis. I also posted a Crystal Lewis youtube video for my August 17th Sunday Post on my blog. I had decided to post hymn music on the 3rd Sunday of each month and I started with Crystal Lewis singing two hymns – Just as I Am and I Surrender All.
Twitter: christocentric
says:
Pamela, you know its a shame that the body of Christ is so confused when it comes to racial things. But you know God knew what He was doing around that tower of Babel – and we ain’t been right since!
How wonderful that will be when we’re with the Lord and racial things will be of the past!
Twitter: christocentric
says:
Lol!
I’ve got to try that line one day!
I would agree that songs,music,and instruments that are used for the praise of God is good, but like my brother in Christ at holyleaven.org topic “Truly worship or have a barbecue.
I have not shopped in a music store in a very long time. Probably 15 years ago or so she was very popular with blacks. I had not kept up with her in recent years. The last time I saw her was a few years ago when a Christian network televised one of Greg Laurie’s crusade services. She was like right ready to drop that baby. She has several kids and I wondered if maybe she decided to take a break to raise them. Sounds like she is still singing. I always enjoyed hearing her.
I heard an interview with Nicole Mullen a year or two ago. The one song that she is known for is My Redeemer Lives. As popular as she has been the past few years she said there are still some Christian radio stations that will not play her because she is black. I guess it should not be a surprise that the music would be separated by race in some store chains. I know the Lord is grieved at this mess.
I happen to sing on one of the worship teams at church. I really enjoy it along with my team. However to say that the draw for me was the music I would be lying. I love the word being taught there. I can worship the Lord with any style of music because the point of worship to me is to open my heart to Him in adoration. I worship the Lord at home with no music most of the time.
Twitter: christocentric
says:
I confess I don’t like boring music either. Sometimes we have “boring music” on Sundays, but most of the time our music is pretty decent. You know the music is jumping when the young folks start jumping up and down in the isles. But that’s not too often.
Fortunately, I belong to a church where the preaching is the highlight and not the music so if patience wins out, we are never disappointed.
But I do want to be exposed to more Christian music – to expand my very limited knowledge of it. I’m like you. I’m older than you in fact but still love the young music.
Pamela, have you gone into a Christian store’s music section looking for music? They have all the black music in one section and the white music in another. I would have never gotten into Crystal Lewis if I hadn’t heard her from church! Although she’s white, she’s R&B/Pop and that’s my style of music! I’ve even tried telling one of the larger Christian stores here if they could arrange the music according to genre, but nope! They don’t get it!
We’re segregated even in the Christian book stores!
Chrystal Lewis has been singing for probably 20 years at least. She started very young. I think I remember some of her early hits in the late 80s. She used to sing regularly at Greg Laurie’s crusades. I think she has several kids right now.
The Salvation Army, when they were more aggressive in their evangelism, took the tunes of bar music and put Christian lyrics to them. The idea was that when the drunks came out they might stop and listen since they recognized the music. They heard the gospel afterwards and many got saved. They were more into street preaching in the initial decades of their ministry in the 1800s.
I’m really eclectic in my musical styles except for country (maybe one or two songs). If a person is carrying themselves in a way that does not detract from Christ I have absolutely no problem with it. People can be singing worship music and you can immediately tell that the focus is the singer themselves instead of Christ. The church I attend sings pretty sweet music for the most part. The songs have awesome messages but can bore me to tears. However one can sincerely worship the Lord with it. There is older leadership where I attend:) I guess I’m a young gal in an older body:) I like the stuff the young folk listen to.