Music brings us closer to God?

There is a fascinating piece in the July edition of Eternity Magazine (an Australian church paper). The question is: 'Can music bring us closer to God'. Two songwriters who I respect immensely, Rob Smith and Ben Fielding answer differently.

On the side of "No and Yes" is the typically measured and balanced Rob Smith, a lecturer at Sydney Missionary and Bible College.  He points out that only Jesus can bring us closer to God: 'if as a resul tof the Holy Spirit's work in us we have come to put our faith in Christ, then we have already come to God and cannot come any closer in this age'. He draws our attention to Rom 5:1-2, 1Pet 3:18, Heb 12:22-24, Eph 2:13 and Eph 3:11-12. The once for all sacrifice made by Jesus when he sacrificed his own body for us is not to be repeated. On the other hand, once we have experienced this incredible grace, we are freed to continually 'draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb 10:21-22). To the extent that our singing involves the word of Christ dwelling in us richly (Col 3:16), we find a means of being filled by the Spirit with the fullness of God. He uses the analogy of a married couple having dinner together - it doesn't make them married, but does bring them closer.

Ben Fielding is a songwriter and worship pastor at Hillsong Church in Sydney. In the past I have had the benefit of Ben's generosity in sharing his insights on songwriting with a group of church music directors, and I was hugely impressed by his concern for good teaching through music. He takes a different angle to Rob. While Rob starts with the atonement and works backwards, Ben starts with creation and works forward through redemption to show how God uses creation, and music in particular, to draw people to himself in repentance and faith: 'God does use music to draw people unto Himself, to tell His story and beckon repentance.' He is talking, first, about music in general not just church music. It's a rich place to begin a theology of music. Yet he is working towards the same point as Rob - the two meet in the middle, at the Cross of Jesus:

Though music can be a wonderful, spiritual and powerful expression of God-given creativity, its importance must be held in the perspective of Jesus. It is Jesus who overcomes sin and makes a way to the Father. Nothing takes the place of Jesus - not the apostles, not the prophets, and not music. However, they are not in competition. Through Jesus we can boldly enter God's presence with worship and singing.

Music, then, can be a means by which the 'character of our faithful God' is declared. 'We should concern ourselves with presenting biblical truth that necessarily points towards Jesus.' The emotional expreiene of music should not, according to Fielding, be confused with the presence of God. It is the work of the Spirit that brings about repentance and change. 'Music enables us to turn to the Lord in agreement with one another as we sing the same words and melodies, powerfully depicting the unity that is taking place.' Music is used 'by God to draw us closer' - closer, he means, in the sense of drawing our gaze to the cross of Christ.

What a fascinating study in two able songwriters from different traditions arriving at the Cross together. 

Small churches: alternatives to drums

At the small church plant I attend we used to have a full drum kit each week. But for smaller weeks when there are only a few people, the echo-y school hall really makes for an overpowering sound.

But no more! Our minister bought one of our youth group drummers (who happens to be the minister's son!) a Cajón - a small box shaped instrument originating from Peru.

It's pronounced car (as in what you drive) + HON (to rhyme with on).

It is played by slapping different parts of its side to produce a cut down drum sound - there is a big bassy sound at the bottom, and a snare like sound at the top.

A seriously portable solution to an age old problem - and it suits acoustic style music perfectly by giving some rhythm without overpowering the space.

Plans for new album

We've just finished a couple of days at the Grove Studios, a beautiful recording studio on the Central Coast. Our friend and longtime producer David Nicholas whipped us into shape, with Ben Whincop assistant engineering, and Andrew Hood keeping everything under control as studio manager. (We were also very grateful for Lisa Massey and Steph Judd's cooking to keep us going through some long days!)

We recorded live to tape as we have the last few albums - this is largely David's philosophy, as he is all about capturing a band performance. This time we allowed time for a few overdubs as well - the nice acoustic grand piano, some extra vocal takes, harmonies, taurus bass synth and piano accordion.

We managed to get four songs recorded, and these will be sent off shortly to be mixed in Nashville.

We will be releasing these tracks, God willing, as a special EP which will only be available directly from our website in high quality download, or at gigs in a special limited edition CD.

Stay tuned!

The best worship music I’ve ever heard

This last weekend we had the privilege of being asked to take part in Revelation Conference, in Adelaide. The conference is run by Mark Peterson, who works with the Trinity network of churches.

It was wonderful to catch up with our old friends Nathan Tasker and Nicky Chiswell, to hear talks by Peter Adam, and take part in all sorts of workshops. Every part of the conference was inspiring and helpful.

But the highlight, for me at least, was the final night. The wonderful house band walked off stage, the house lights were raised up slightly, and Mark Peterson walked alone in front of the crowd with an acoustic guitar. We were told before the session that everybody had to bring an acoustic instrument. And they did. Behind me was a piano accordion. In front of me a djembe being played by a ten year old. Nicky Chiswell had the triangle. An army of acoustic guitars stood by. There were obscure Arabic drums, soprano saxophones, and a bunch who, like me, had only their voices to contribute.

Mark began the session in his thoughtful and measured style with a single, simple question - ‘are you glad … that you have been saved?’. We thought about it for a bit. And then he put our first song up on the overhead. There were words, chord symbols and four part harmony parts. We sang through a series of hymns and popular choruses. For ‘Holy, Holy Holy’ Mark asked the percussionists to lay out and we all picked a harmony based on the SATB score on screen. For ‘Lord I Lift Your Name on High’ the percussionists led us most of the way.

It was the most extraordinary singing experience -- perhaps the most moving church experience -- I’ve ever had. God was kind to us and it did not descend into chaos, but a beautifully balanced harmony of diverse instruments and skill and styles of playing. Depending on where you were standing you could hear different sounds, but everywhere people were singing loud. The acoustic instruments perfectly complemented the human voices, and it seemed as though the instrumental sounds were coming up from within the voices.

Afterward, Nicky Chiswell said to me (perhaps with a hint of tears) ‘we’ve been trying too hard!’ All these amazing musicians on stage, workshops full of talk of genres and arrangements and careful planning - and yet when we took a step back and let everyone contribute the result was amazing. A taste of heaven’s music, perhaps?

But when the band went back stage, to my surprise they didn’t drown out the voices – rather, everyone sang with just the same focus and joy and passion. The moment of acoustic singing and playing had passed, but the worship continued with just as much integrity. 

Why we're taking our stuff off Spotify

"Hey Andy! I'm listening to you guys on Spotify!" said my friend at College.

"Really? Cool! I wonder how much money the band gets from that?", I reply, hastily logging into Garage Hymnal's Internet Distribution site to track the royalties.

When our Internet Distributor told us that Spotify was starting up (and unless we opted out, which would be mad because it is the next big thing, they would be taking our music) we had no idea how much money it would bring us - all we were told is that it would be a percentage of advertising revenue.

Turns out that for every person who listens to our music on Spotify we get $0.007. That's not a typo - that's point seven of one cent (on a good day - it can vary).

Given that figure, we worked out how long it would take us to pay back the money on the last album we made: roughly seven million people would have to listen to our song before we could afford to go back into the studio. That's not paying us anything for our time (we work for free) or even contributing to the cost of maintaining our instruments (our day jobs pay for that). That's just the actual outgoings on getting an album recorded and ready to upload.

Needless to say, if this is the model of content delivery the music industry is moving towards, then something has to give. Why have record companies agreed to this underpricing of content? Basically they have no choice. People like you and me expect to get things for free online. And if they're not free (paid for by advertisers hoping we'll spend our money on their site) then we will download them illegally anyway. A seventh of one cent is better than zero cents, and might keep the industry afloat for another month.

But if you'd like for bands to keep recording albums then we need to do something different. Something as simple as buying mp3s directly from our website. Here's a comparison table of how that decision helps us:

• Downloading a full album from our website costs you $16.90 and we get $16.19 of that (after credit card processing), which means if about 3,000 people buy our album we can pay back the cost of the latest album. 
• Buying an album from our website or in a retail shop like Koorong or Word costs you $24.95 and we get roughly $7 of that (after retail margin, packing, pressing, and distribution), which means about 7,000 people need to buy our CD to pay back the last one.
• Downloading an individual album from our website costs you $1.69 per track and we get $1.35 of that (after credit card processing), which means if approx 37,000 people buy our music we can pay back the cost of the latest album.
• Downloading a track from iTunes costs you $1.69 but we get $0.99 of that (after Apple gets their cut), which means about 50,000 people need to buy our music before we can make a new album. 
• Listening to our track on Spotify costs you nothing and we get $0.007 from advertising, which means 7,142,857 people would have to listen to our music before we could pay back the recording costs.

So there you have it! Here ends the rant - and let the discussion begin. Are we just being old fashioned and clinging to an outdated business model, or is something wrong here?

Arts used for Theology

Jeremy Begbie is a very interesting theologian - a serious piano player before the decided to be a theologian, he has thought quite a bit about music and theology from two angles. The first is what Theology can do for the arts (helping us to understand the place of the arts, in his case music, in creation). He calls this 'theology for the arts'. But the other aspect is what the arts can do for theology, helping us to understand theological things through our experience of creativity. He calls this 'arts for theology'.
Here is a wonderful little video where he demonstrates some of the main contributions that music can make in helping us to think about God and life.

Some of his great observations (demonstrated by some quite nice playing):

• The most wonderful music can come out of the most unlikely things. Variations by Rachmaninoff on Paginini's theme. Inverting the theme, making it major not minor. Something beautiful can be made out of something angular and cranky.
• Even the worst can be woven into God's purposes. Once you've made the mistake - there are 88 keys on the piano but no delete key. You can turn it into a passing note, a note that doesn't fit with the underlying harmony but can be made to fit the context. He says: 'God can take your worst mistakes and turn them into his passing notes. I think every leader needs to recognise that.'
• There is a type of non-order which is not destructive. Many of us think that the only two options in our lives are order and disorder', but there is also non-order. The jazz factor.
• The connection between tradition and innovation: Every player has to be apprenticed into a tradition before you can innovate. 'Improvisation is the exploration of occasion' - having in mind these people, on this occasion, and not some other. 
• The role of the Holy Spirit: For Begbie all this links up quite nicely with the doctrine of the holy Spirit. The Spirit's role seems to be bringing the great truths of Christ to bear on these people in this place and this time.

Why spend so much money on producers and studios

In a few weeks Garage Hymnal will be spending a fair chunk of your money (that is, money which was yours if you support our ministry by buying CDs or making tax deductible donations!) recording a couple of tracks towards a new album. We are rehearsing and writing for the next few weeks and God willing will then head up to the central coast to record at the Grove Studios with our longstanding friend and producer David Nicholas.

Are we wasting our money?

A lot of people aren’t using studios or producers any more. I spoke to a friend yesterday about the declining studio and production market – globally, but particularly in Sydney. He reckons it goes in cycles. Ten years ago the record labels were letting all the bands record themselves and self-produce. Then they realised the bands were bringing out sub-standard albums and started employing producers again. The cycle has flipped back to self-produced again.

I think it’s worth us resisting the fashion and spending money on a studio and producer.

While computer setups in our bedrooms have advanced, and reduced the cost of recording hugely for everyone, studios are still worth hiring. They do make for better music. No matter how good your software is, if you’re recording music with real human involvement (vocals, drums, real pianos, etc) at some point that music has to be made in a room, into a microphone, gained up by a mixing console, and converted to digital form. All those processes can be done cheaply, but they will sound less like the real instrument or voice. You can record your band in your bedroom, but few people have the space to record a whole band at the same time, meaning music is more pre-planned and less interactive because you can’t be all in the same room at the same time making the music (like writing out a conversation with someone before you talk to them, you can’t interact you can only guess what they’ll say).

Of course, some forms of music thrive in the bedroom – things with programmed drums and highly processed vocals, for instance. And I like that type of music – sometimes. But it’s not the only type of music.

The other thing we think is worth our while is bringing in a producer. Anyone can call themselves a producer. There is absolutely no reason why a band can’t produce themselves. Our band has several members who have produced records for other bands! But what our band doesn’t have is an experienced, impartial coach to bring the best out of us. Self produced records are all the rage – but it takes maturity to recognise you have things to learn, and to seek out people who can develop your talent. We are hugely grateful for what David has done for us as a band in honing our sound and helping to get the best out of our songs. Most of what he does is actually to do with song structures – helping the listener’s experience to flow through the song so they are always left wanting more. You’ll never know the difference – you can’t hear his work, as such. But we have made better albums because of him!

Can’t wait to get into a nice big studio with our favourite producer!

Now THAT'S a good PA

On Friday night we played a gig for the Bush Church Aid Society at St Barnabas' Anglican Church, which is on Broadway, just down from Sydney's Central Station. A historic church building, it was destroyed by fire six years ago. Our gig was the first official public event to be held in the new building.

Needless to say we were very keen to check out many aspects of the new building. It's an elegant design which draws you in off the busy Broadway. It's an accessible building - lifts, accessible doors, and clear entrances and exits. You're never in any doubt where to go - the building draws you in. And, of course, it's got much better fire safety than the old building!

But the thing we were most nervous to check out was the acoustics, and the installed sound system.

The verdict? Hats off to the good people of St Barnabas for one of the best sounding church sound systems I've ever heard. What you hear in the auditorium is exactly what it is meant to be: evenly distributed to every seat (no bright spots, or black spots), smooth across the frequency ranges, speech was very clear, and music was accurately reinforced coming off stage.

This is all the more impressive given the challenge of the room itself. A big space, with many oddly shaped reflective surfaces, we did fear a difficult environment. Contemporary music quickly becomes unbearably loud and unbalanced in a reverberant space (which is why most churches are better suited to classical, unamplified music). And certainly the space could be described as live - there is a decent reverb time which is noticeable on the snare hits - but it doesn't get out of control. The only challenge is the stage, which without carpets is definitely on the loud end. We brought extra carpets to soak up some of the sound, and wore earplugs on stage. Apparently during services the church musicians play using headphones to try to minimise on stage noise.

The three lessons I think should be learned from the hard working and wise wardens, staff and consultants on the Barney's project are these:

1. The church incorporated thinking about acoustics into the design stage. As a result, I suspect that some comrpomises were made to the architect's design (as a friend of mine puts it, architecture is a deaf science: you can't assume that they will have thought about, much less care about, acoustics. Bringing an acoustics consultant in early is imperative). Acoustics is the kind of thing that you have to get right before the concrete is poured, because it is notoriously hard to fix later.

2. The church was clear on its brief to the acoustics consultants. Many consultants come with strange ideas about what actually happens inside a contemporary church. One guy I spoke to was convinced that our youth group rock band would need nothing more than two choir mics. For a modern service the two priorities must be: (1) speech intelligibility,  and (2) ability to facilitate the type of music you actually have (a rock band is a very different proposition to a choir and needs very specific acoustics and equipment).

3. The church budgeted the sound system installation into the building project. Sound systems are often left off in the final stages of the project to cut costs in the short term - which ends up meaning a cheap and nasty system is installed which never works properly, hampers the ability for speech to be intelligible and music enjoyable, and requires constant bandaid repairs to keep it running. The error is made because it's usually the last thing to go in, and the easiest thing to say "we'll do that at a later stage". Of course, it never happens - once you've raised money for a building it's hard to turn around in 6 months time and ask for more. And this is a silly error, because hearing things is not an optional extra for a church building. I would have thought it's pretty core to our business (more so than carpeting, air conditioning, food preparation areas or aesthetics ... yes, even staff offices).

Good on Barney's for doing these things right! (Oh, and thanks for hosting the concert for Bush Church Aid!) You should be very proud of your new space. May God use it for the proclamation of his word (both spoken and sung) for many many years to come.

You should go to theological college

Musicians and Songwriters: you should go to theological college

A friend of mine just spent a few weeks in Nashville, hanging out with some incredible musicians and songwriters. It's a hub of creativity and musicality - an electric environment to be in, even for only a few weeks. I spoke to him last night and he was totally inspired - full of new ideas, and ready to write a thousand new songs.

I'm in my final year of theological college, hanging out with some incredibly prayerful and Godly theologians, pastors and teachers. I am totally inspired - full of new ideas, and ready to write a thousand new songs (and sermons for church!)

Now, you don't have to go to theological college to write great Christian songs, or for that matter preach great sermons. Nor do you have to travel to Nashville to be inspired and equipped to make great music.

But if someone offered you a trip to Nashville, you'd be mad to turn it down. Right?

Well, here's my pitch, take it or leave it - if you ever have the opportunity to study theology full time, go for it. Find the most Godly, the most intelligent, the most broad thinking group of teachers and students you can find, and enrol yourself in the most academically and spiritually rigorous  course* you can make time for.

For me, my time at theological college (Sydney's Moore College) has been a time of profound spiritual growth, as well as being the most intellectually stimulating environment I've ever experienced.

I would love to see more musicians and music directors and songwriters soaking up a theological education. I stress, you don't need a degree in theology to be a great bible teacher, or a great songwriter, or a great music pastor – but it almost certainly will enrich and inspire your ability to understand God's word and communicate it to others. At least it has for me.


So if you ever get the opportunity - please, go for it!

(*Now, you might wonder why the whole bother of a full on theological education. It seems like a lot of effort (often these go for one, two, three, even four years full time). There are shorter courses which are more practical and less academic - you can learn what Ephesians say, and take a course in songwriting or preaching or planning a good service. All these are good things. But it's like the difference between studying engineering and taking a course in fixing cars... I know from experience that engineers aren't necessarily any good at changing tyres, but if you want to design the next generation of cars you're going to need a deep grasp of engineering. Likewise a short course can teach you how to write songs like Chris Tomlin; a long one will equip you for a lifetime of Godly thinking outside the current paradigm.)

What I love about Darlene Zschech's theology

I’ve never met her, but I have a huge amount of respect for Darlene Zschech. Until 2007 she was a pastor at Hillsong church here in Sydney. She still tours and leads a growing church in Newcastle. Leaving aside the obvious debt we all owe her for bringing worship music to where it has come worldwide, her discipleship and church leadership off stage has benefited some of my dearest friends.

At the same time, I believe it’s often fruitful to compare and contrast our respective theological positions on worship. Our respective traditions may have much to learn from each other. Realising that I don’t have all the answers either, in this brief blog post I also want to provide some friendly critique of her theology of worship as presented in Extravagant Worship.

There is much I love in her theology of worship.

1. Zschech is dead right in pointing out that worship is bigger than merely music. Worship is bigger than music. “Although music is a wonderful expression of worship, it is not in itself the essence of it. The core of worship is when one’s heart and soul, and all that is within, adores and connects with the Spirit of God.”¹
2. She is right to make Christian education a central goal in our music ministry: ‘make the Word memorable and settle the message into our hearts.’²
3. She presents a balanced view of the place of emotional response in music ministry: music is ‘not about stirring ourselves into an emotional frenzy’, but ‘corporate worship’ should help turn the congregation’s ‘eyes to the Lord.’³

Yet, I do want to suggest some possible tensions in her theology of worship which make me reluctant to adopt it wholesale without thinking it over some more. The biggest tension I detect is over the issue of ‘excellence’.

Zschech rightly puts great emphasis on excellence, something which I have often written about and agree on. Yet I’m more cautious about the reasons she gives for seeking excellence: ‘We are to serve God with excellence because we know an excellent God.’⁴ Like the high medievalists, Zschech wants to ‘enter the throne room of God’.⁵

Largely I think this theology is reactive against more mainline traditions (such as Anglicanism), which have been (I’ll freely admit) too afraid of excellence. She thinks this fear has ‘kept almost an entire generation out of the house of God’.⁶

And to her credit, this emphasis on excellence is qualified: we give our finest ‘at whatever stage your finest is.’⁷ We bring our gifts in a context of grace, and Zschech is too experienced a pastor to seek to establish a ‘performance-based Christianity’ on or off the stage.⁸

However I do take issue with some of the arguments she uses to bolster this argument of excellence. “Extravagant worship grabs God’s attention ... Throughout the stories in the Bible, whenever someone demonstrated extravagant worship, God reacted with extravagant blessing. It’s cause and effect. Extravagant worship brings extravagant results.’⁹

My nervousness about this is that I am very unexcellent! I’m not talking about the quality of music, even. The fact is that the excellence of our offerings, as God measures it, is entirely dependent on the heart. As Hebrews 10 points out, God has never been pleased by sacrifices or burnt offerings. Zschech obviously knows this, and so concludes that ‘the only thing God wants from you is your heart.’¹⁰

I don’t think I’m being too nitpicking to say that there is a tension here. Is God impressed by musical excellence, or does he just want us to serve with the right attitude?

What is missing, I think, is a bridge between the Old Testament passages and the New Testament hope. In the Old Testament even our most righteous works are considered as dirty rags (Isaiah 64:6). In the New Testament, we are given the incredible invitation to continually ‘through Jesus … offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name’ (Hebrews 13:15). What is missing from Zschech’s worship theology, therefore, is the very important concept of a priest: not one who wears robes, but Jesus our great high priest. With Jesus standing as our representative before God, the excellence of our worship is guaranteed.

As much as it pains me to say it, therefore, the excellence (in a musical sense) of our worship, and the strength of our good intentions, becomes much less relevant to how acceptable our worship is. Don’t get me wrong, I want excellent music as much as the next music snob. But I’m not sure that we want to tie that excellence to its suitability for worshipping God.

1 Darlene Zschech, Extravagant Worship (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2002)., 27.

2 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 196.

3 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 169.

4 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 127.

5 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 155.

6 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 128.

7 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 127.

8 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 148.

9 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 34-35.

10 Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 46.