im so over the so called chrsitian music industry ..and that is all it is - an industry , there i threw my spanner in .
I think you make a good point here. A few times in church I've heard people talk excitedly about "the great new (songwriter) song" and asking if people have heard it. It's really no different to getting excited about the latest (secular band) song and wondering what people think of it. I wouldn't blame the songwriters themselves because I have no way of knowing whether they are putting stuff out in the hope of maintaining a high profile for themselves or their heart is truly about worshiping God, but the situation seems unhealthy to me.
BUT .. the question asked here is " Why do some Protestants put on rock concerts?" and i feel it is a valid question even if i suspect it is asked with "other "agenda .
i answered based only upon my opinion that they do so in error ,i an attempt to draw the world by means of worldliness..into the congregations.
and it isn't working..if you want large crowds you need to make large claims of blessing and wealth and appeal to folks sense of need and greed -then you wil get large crowds to perish along with you .
OR you can teach them that if they join and you wear a fancy robe and bless them .they will be saved from hell (even though they have no love for God nor shred of repentance) and get them also to perish with you .
From my experiences in my younger days it does seem very easy to get a lot of people in one place, play (or get people to sing) very upbeat and very repetitive music for an extended period, then either passively let them think (or actively encourage them to think) that the euphoria induced by the upbeat repetitive music is "a great move of God" and sell them a bill of goods. Then they go away thinking they've made a huge change and they are fired up to change the world, only to realise that the euphoria faded away after a couple of days and the world around them still wears them down. Then over time they conclude that there's no point trying because every time you get a new experience (or new anointing, or whatever fancy term the preacher comes up with) it lasts a couple of days and then fades away. Sometimes you don't even get out of the parking area before it faded away.
Doing THINGS in the flesh is the trap we fall into when we have begun to lose faith in The promises of God .. because the promises of God are taken hold of by faith ..in prayer and fasting in patience and endurance .. but these things are difficult on the flesh , so we take the easier road becaseu we think we can do Gods Job for him.. so we remodel congregational meetings on worldly templates to "bring the world into the congragations" but there that thing .. the world is not supposed to be in our congragations ..they are the world . the church .. being every one of us is commanded to GO out with the Gospel , not stay IN with it and expect the world to come .
As with so many other things there's a balance to be struck. I don't have a problem with particular musical styles - there would have been a time when the contents of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" were considered pretty radical - the problem is when we dilute the message. And that's something more associated with contemporary songs that might be described as theologically thin or compositionally lazy. Compare and contrast:
"Praise my soul the King of Heaven, to his feet thy tribute bring, ransomed healed restored forgiven, who like me his praise should sing?"
"You laid aside your majesty, gave up everything for me, suffered at the hands of those you had created / You took all my guilt and shame, when you died and rose again, now today you reign, in heaven and earth exalted"
"And if he goes to the left then we go to the left and if he goes to the right then we go to the right, we're going to jump jump jump jump in the river, jump jump jump jump everybody"
Spot the lyrics that have no theological depth at all in them...
we Need the manifestation of the power of God out in the world .then the lost will be saved and come and join in congregation with us .and when we need something according to God wil he tells us that we should .. "hold meetings styled like the word"?.. NO !! he says" i know what you have need of before you ask ".. SO ASK . but so many no longer ask ,because they no longer believe God means what he says .
and the result .. congregational meetings that look so like worldly motivational gathering you can barely tell them apart (except that they are sometimes even crazier the world version )
I remember years ago attending an outreach program (as a helper), hoping for lots of people to come through the doors to figure out what the church was all about. In the end we had a few people who were fairly familiar with the Christian faith who wanted to know more about the church and one young lady who attended wanting to know about Christianity. At first I was hugely disappointed - we'd done all the preparation and said all the prayers and we had one person arrive. But God put me straight on that one - it didn't take long for him to let me know that if one person came to Christ as a result then the course was worthwhile. And, as it happened, the young lady in question did come to Christ (and also became a good friend).
My error there was expecting divine fireworks, lines of people wanting to know more and the rest of it. What God wanted may have looked modest from the world's perspective but fits perfectly with the parables of the shepherd who left his 99 sheep to find the one lost one.
polished smooth singing that makes us feel "nice" .. does not always equate to "annointed " ..
Very true. Having been there myself several times I was always a little concerned when the young people in my church used to come back from some concert or another and gush about how awesome it was to be among 20,000 people all praising God. I did wonder how many were praising God and how many were having a good sing-song that happened to mention some God guy in the lyrics.
