I am a creature of habit. I like routine, rhythm, and familiarity. Change and transitions are difficult for me. Sometimes my desire for routine makes me less open to trying new things. I’m also a music elitist, and I think there are certain types of music that are far superior than others. I normally listen to indie rock, acoustic singer-songwriter music, folk, alternative, hardcore/metal, Christian worship music, Disney music, and jazz (which is a pretty...
I have just recently returned from Scotland and there have been a lot of interesting adjustments in the process, like a reverse culture-shock. But one of the things that has particularly stood out is the fact that I haven’t known any of the worship songs at the chapel and church services that I’ve attended since returning home. Before moving to Scotland I attended Grace Evangelical Free near Biola where our worship pastor would create songs...
“Follow Your Arrow,” the catchy tune by singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves, has found a home on country music radio and is getting love from those who embrace its message: be who you are, live for the moment, stop caring what people think. Like many of today’s chart-toppers, it tends to clash with my beliefs. But that melody, those sweet-as-honey vocals make it hard to change the station. So I sing along, critiquing the worldview as I...
This Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, as it is Ash Wednesday. As we enter into this season of Lent to prepare our hearts in reflection on the passion week of Christ and Easter, I think about the value of this season of lament that is found in the liturgical calendar. In recent years, I’ve come to really value this season of Lent as a space to lament and reflect on God’s presence with us in...
Music is a powerful vehicle for memory and expression. I remember learning the order of the books of the Bible through songs I learned in AWANA as a kid. I can still sing these songs, and many songs that I learned in Sunday School. Song lyrics like, “Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so,” or “The B-I-B-L-E, Yes, that’s the book for me!” and “Father Abraham, had many sons, many sons had Father...
“Your love never fails. It never gives up. It never runs out on me.”* I stood, watching a gym full of hundreds of college students, singing these words of praise and truth. Arms-raised, dancing, clapping, and shouting – I admired their passion. The pulsing drums, the rocking guitars, the melodic keyboard, and the passionate vocals all came together to celebrate God’s relentless love. I joined them in singing these words, and I remembered sitting in...
As I’m sure any enthusiastic fan can relate, waiting for the sophomore effort from a band is full of hopes and fears. You pray in some way that it is more of the same, and yet you want them to be EVEN better. In this way, the band, Local Natives, did not disappoint. Their second album, Hummingbird, is noticeably different from their first in tone and lyrics, and yet the same vocal harmonies and infectious...
Today’s culture, we as Christians can agree, is riveted by postmodern thought. Morals and truths are relative to experience and perception, one would claim. And in response, Christians, historically, have made efforts to combat this kind of thinking (although even this is now a subject of debate, sadly). But one problem I’ve always had, as an artist myself, was reconciling objectivism (or the view that universal truth exists apart from the mind) with art. “Who...
I’m not sure what I thought I would find when I stepped inside the gymnasium the last Saturday night in March. I know that I was hoping to find my sister and enjoy the show–but I considered neither of those very likely given the crowd of people crammed inside the gym and the fact that I hadn’t been to a concert in over five years. As far as concerts go, I had thought that they...
Incapable of fully communicating the nuances of a fine wine with mere words, connoisseurs have at times resorted to using analogous terms like “tastes like a meadow” or even “tastes like a damp sock” (uh?) to describe its elusive and difficult-to-pinpoint qualities. Along similar lines, if someone were to ask me to describe Lecrae’s latest album Gravity, I would have to liken it to a slab of jet black asphalt that’s just been doused by a...
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