Saturday, October 20, 2007

A few random thoughts on concerts

Last night I had the opportunity to go to a MercyMe concert in Baton Rouge with a group from Providence Presbyterian Church on Hilton Head Island. I'm not too familiar with MercyMe, but the concert was pretty good. During the show I was in awe as I listened to the music and watched the lights and the effects of the show. I am a bit of a nerd when it all comes to sound and lighting - especially sound...I really take an interest in it, but it's also a great opportunity to worship the God who created sound, light, and colors.

I haven't given this as much thought as I would like and haven't really thought about how I want to articulate this. So I apologize if it comes off as a bunch of random thoughts, since it probably will.

I was thinking during the show how awesome it is that God has created sound. There's the piano, guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. It's beautiful when they are all mixed together in such a way that you can hear each one of them. When one is not over powering and the people running the sound board strive for excellence in their service. When each individual instrument is tuned and the vocals are on the right note. I'm grateful the Lord has made sound and that He's allowed me to hear it and enjoy it.

The creativeness of music and lyrics is another thing I praise God for. It's possible for every song to sound the same and for every song to be about superficial things. But this wasn't the case during this show, though the songs did have a "common theme", but when the songs point you to Christ that's not a bad thing. Composing music itself takes creativity - a gift God has blessed some people with - praise God.

Obviously in a concert situation the performers and sound and lighting people are striving for excellence. There is nothing wrong with striving for excellence as long as self doesn't get in the way. There is something awesome about excellence and God is glorified through excellence. And though things are not always perfect, God can still be glorified through your actions and humility.

After the concert I reflected a bit on the greatness of God to allow us to sing, to play instruments, to hear the music, to see the lights, and to watch other people really worship God. It's kind of neat to be in a place with many other believers and worship together - some focusing on the lyrics of the songs, others on the technological aspects, but together worshiping the Creator of all things.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jamie stated,

"During the show I was in awe as I listened to the music and watched the lights and the effects of the show."

The lights and effects during musical performances are one of the world's way to entice people. They distract from the most important part, the words of the song. Unfortunately people hardly hear the words to the song at concerts, whether it is a secular or "Christian" concert. Christians are edified by the words of the song not by the music, lights and effects which are no different than what takes place during secular concerts. These things are really more of a deterrent. Unfortunately many young Christians do not know how to discern good Christian music from bad and the majority of CCM is deficient when examined. There are many CCM songs that could be played on secular radio and you could not even tell a difference. And this from someone who had a nice sized CCM collection and been to Creation and a number of other CCM concerts. Not all CCM is bad but most do lack some qualties that would disqualify it from being considered good Christian music. Even some CCM artists have made similar remarks about their music or another CCM artist's music.