NO MEGAN, I'M NOT UP FOR A CONCERT.

If you click that video, you might be offended. Ok, you've been warned.

It's a parody of a major Christian worship production house. I think it's funny. Megan invited me to a worship concert this week...er, actually, she sort of invited me. She invited the whole crew on the blog, and then when we were together as a group talking about it, she told me that she'd told Craig already, "Yeah, I don't think Angie is the type that would like to go to a worship concert really..."

I think THAT'S funny, because it's as true as it is UNTRUE. This week, it happens to be true. In fact, the very day that she said that, I'd started to blog out this huge post about the latest Cutting Edge.pdf, a magazine published by the National Vineyard office and how it just made me want to puke. Actually, the post was much more reasoned than that. I read it and mused to myself, "It's no wonder the Vineyard is comprised mostly of white late thirty somethings led by aging boomers." I have a growing disdain for the white American church, or maybe just the marketing of the Great White Church. There are places in the article that promote a STYLE of worship as the emerging way of worship and therefore the way to go if you want to grow and reach people (unplugged, reflective, emergent, earthy)...not to mention places where the author describes actual musical techniques that worship leaders should employ to make their worship team better and more able to draw people into the presence of the Lord...only those musical styles -- are styles that stand in opposition to hip hop and pop. If worship leaders employed those techniques, they could not physically draw out a hip hop beat, or string together a pop-sounding song that is also worshipful.

So I guess that in the Vineyard, to these guys, you have to fit this box, or better yet this circle ----> O <----- because there are no boxes in the Vineyard, it's too free flowing for boxes. Did I mention that on both American Top 40 and MTV's TRL, 70% of the songs currently playing are either hip hop or pop? You know the target ages of listeners for those charts are 30 and under? Why can't I go to church and hear a little happy in my beat? Why always with the forlorn acoustic and overlayed harmonies? Or even something that resembles the other 30% of those charts? Maybe a little Coldplay-esque? OH! How about something like Gnarls Barclay! WHY does the church think WORSHIP music has to sound like one dang thing in order for it BE worship!?

Did you know that three of my friends secretly listen to black gospel music, and like it? And when they found out that I do, too, were really happy to know that they weren't freaks? (WELL, you're not off the hook yet guys). They said, "I just love it. It feels so much less fake, like that stuff that we listen to at church. I mean, I like that stuff too, but this is the good stuff." One friend went so far as to say, "I mean, if I were really going through something rough, I wouldn't want someone to bring me some of the music that we hear at church, I'd want them to bring me some of this stuff. It's like what someone would actually SAY to you. This is like a conversation. What God might say."

Now listen, this isn't to say that we have bad or wrong worship music at the Vineyard. It's GOOD, it's RIGHT, it's QUALITY. It's the kind that makes space for you to meet God. But it's not the only kind...and sometimes, it would be really great to have a different kind, and I wonder if we wouldn't have a better representation of the flavors of the earth if we didn't also represent the flavors of worship better, too. I'm not talking about every little niche here, but when 70% of a major emerging market is listening to a type of music that we're just ignoring? Would it hurt to try to bring in a little beat or flava? (Yes, I know. I'm totally white and I just wrote flava. SO. I've got stripes, remember. I can say that and get away with it. Doesn't mean I don't sound like a dope saying it, but I can still say it.)