I’ll be upfront: I write contemporary music, I listen to mostly contemporary music, my church does mostly contemporary music (although we have a couple of congregations that do traditional, or a blend of traditional and contemporary).  But here’s the funny thing for me:  As I think back to my favourite musical moments in church, there are as many traditional moments as contemporary… perhaps even slightly more.

What about you?  I don’t think there should be a war between history and the present day.  I think the challenge for us is to connect.  But think carefully about that.  We need to be connected to our history, otherwise we have nothing.  We also need to be connected to our congregations today, as well as to those who might join our congregations tomorrow.

Call be boring, but I’m not going to come down on one side or the other.  Here are my conciliatory, complementary, and perhaps not particularly concise 8 points:

1. There is good contemporary music and good traditional music for us to sing, but there’s also bad contemporary music and bad traditional music – I don’t think the issue is how old the music is.
2. One of the benefits of traditional music is that you remind the listeners that we are connected historically. One of the benefits of contemporary music is that you are using sounds that connect with contemporary ears, so there’s an evangelistic benefit.
3. One of the difficulties of doing traditional stuff is that it can sound irrelevant and archaic because it’s from a bygone era. I have a few thoughts about making it sound more relevant (see link). One of the difficulties of doing contemporary is that it can feed a desire to be fashionable, which is irrelevant to being followers of Christ.
4. Different churches have different repertoires, with a different ratio of traditional to contemporary, which is their choice – this choice is probably something that should be discussed from time to time with a range of people from the ministers through to the parishioners.
5. You can’t please everyone ever, and you can’t please anyone all the time. In fact, singing a style of music that we don’t like but we know that others in our congregation do like is good, because it requires love, and that’s a good thing for the church. It’s something we should all be willing to do.
6. There’s a difference between the origin of the song and the style in which it is performed: eg contemporary songs are sometimes played on the organ or with a small classical ensemble; traditional songs can be performed by a contemporary band. We need to take account of the musical preferences and also the musical gifting of the congregation. If the musos would pull it off better in a manner in which they are skilled, it may work better to let them do this.
7. Although the musical elements are important, lyrics are more important, because the cost of getting them wrong is greater than the cost of getting the music wrong.  Though I still think the cost of getting the music wrong is high, in particular, a massive lost opportunity to connect with people.
8. Hymn lyrics are often more poetic and colourful (though not always); But contemporary lyrics are often more concise and simple (and not always!). People need a balance in this, because clear communication and rich expression are both essential to maintain. Try to find songs that do both.

What do you think?  Are there other things we can say?  Is anyone willing to say that one is better than the other?

Order here: www.emumusic.com.au

The Name of Love is my 4th solo album, pulling together a bunch of songs I’ve been singing in my own church Holy Trinity Adelaide over the last 2 years, some my own writing and some contemporary band arrangements of a few of my favourite ancient hymns.

It was a great pleasure working with Adelaide-based producer Michael Sinclair of Blackhaus Studios.  His creativity, energy and hard work have made an album that I’m really loving listening to.

The album is in 2 halves. The first 6 songs are full studio productions. The last 6 were recorded live at Men’s Katoomba Convention in February and March 2011.

Most of the songs on the album express in some way the forgiveness and cleansing that God achieves for humanity through Jesus Christ, expressed from the perspective of the needy sinner. The title track, “In the name of love” is an exposition of Psalm 32, where the Psalmist rejoices in his own forgiveness.

Track Listing

Studio Tracks
1. In the name of love
2. Our glorious King
3. Where are the words
4. Glory in the heavens
5. Psalm 103
6. Have you believed

Live Tracks
7. Stand up, stand up for Jesus
8. Holy holy holy
9. Beneath the cross of Jesus
10. It is well
11. Be thou my vision
12. In the name of love

I have just finished rehearsing for 2 days in Sydney for this year’s event, which has been great as always.  It’s brilliant to be able to play with some really fantastic musicians, including Javed Sterritt (drummer for the band Holland), Trent Prees (bass player from the band Garage Hymnal) as well as old friend and keyboardist/backing vocalist Rob Brown, and great new electric guitarist Cedric Tang.

Can I recommend MKC to any men living anywhere remotely within reach of Katoomba?  Each year I am challenged about my life, especially about keeping Christ-focussed in work, church and family.  This year’s topic is “Men at Work”, and I expect it will contain plenty of useful stuff that this rather busy guy needs to hear.

We’ve rehearsed 20 songs for the weekend – including a few songs off my new album (whose release will coincide with the conference), plus a bunch of great new songs to take back to the musos at your church, and plenty of old favourites.

Hope you can make it!

In the meantime, please put the dates for the conference in your diary, and let others know who might be interested.  We are aware that many people attended the conference in 2011 with a view to seeing if it would be the sort of thing they might invite others to in future, and I hope you found that it was!

So… the dates are: July 5th – 7th, 2012.

Stay tuned for more info.

M

I’m biased, but I think my father’s talks were fantastic.  At some point, we’ll develop the resources section of the Revelation website and upload them. He challenged us from Ephesians, Hebrews and Psalm 116 about making our gatherings places of praise, prayer, proclamation and edification.

We ran about 25 workshops on a range of topics, with much positive feedback… thank you so much to those presenters.  And not to mention the people who shared a song at the Open Mic sessions – wow… what talent.

And it was a wonderful privilege to share the platform with Nicky Chiswell and Geoff Bullock, both of whom had fantastic challenges about what’s important in our lives and ministries.

It was a conference with pastors, musicians and members of congregations present, and there was something for everyone.

So, was it a revelation?

What I discovered was how much the Christian community can encourage one another around a common ministry goal.  I was so buoyed by the vibe of the people.  Some come from smaller churches where they’re busting their guts week after week to do music; others came from larger churches with the pressures of lots of opinions to navigate.  But we all became increasingly aware that our gatherings together are places in which music plays a role in planting gospel seeds deeply into our lives.

I thank God for a great first conference!  Stay tuned for info about 2012.

Can’t wait to make the recordings available for you to hear… they’re sounding amazing.

Anyway, here are the songs: lead sheets from new album

I hope you like them.  A brand new song “Our Glorious King” is being debuted tomorrow night (Thu 14th July) at Revelation.  Or it could debut right now at your piano…