Musical Excellence

In the wake of Miley Cyrus' destruction I wanted to address pop music and its lack of, for a better word, "music". As a matter of fact it was news to me that the VMA's were even on. Doesn't that stand for video music awards? Do music videos even exist anymore? So here's how I look at music in terms of excellence: vocal presentation, creativity, emotional involvement (goose bump effect), lyrics, story, , presentation, and harmony, harmony, harmony.

Pop music that is on the radio today is terrible. The only redeeming excellence aspect of it is that these artists have found a brilliant way to market mediocrity.

Here's what I mean. Most of these artists can't sing in public unless they can have someone there to synthesize their voice. They don't tell much of a compelling story and lyrically and emotionally they don't move you. The only emotional involvement you feel is the beat of the song. There is little to no harmony, but tons of creativity/marketing, because how else are they going to sell their "music"?

As Rob Gordon says in High Fidelity "Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" My answer to that is "Yes".

So my goal is not to bash pop music, but to encourage you to seek out more excellent music. This can take many forms. I don't really listen to country music, but I love Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, and Brad Paisley. These guys sang/wrote some very unique songs that required some creativity and guts to do. Toby Keith and his patriotic songs and red solo cup, Garth's friends in low places, Paisley's "Celebrity" song. Incredibly creative musicians, I'm sure there are others and I would love to hear about them.

As far as pure quality of harmony you must give Barbershop music a shot. Four part mens harmony is without peer when sung well. There are cords and harmonies that the majority of musicians and non musicians have never heard. Take a listen to one of the best quartets of all time singing "Tonight Tonight" from West Side Story. Don't mind the mullet. Not Excellent. And if you can't bring yourself to listen to the entire song, just go to the 1:40 mark and listen to the chord progression and change.

The second song you must listen to is them singing a rendition of The Beatles "Blackbird". Once again if you can't listen to the whole thing just pick it up at the 1:45 mark and be amazed till the end of the song.

When Whitney Houston died last year the world lost one of the greatest voices ever. If you don't believe me, just watch some of her videos on You Tube. I think I spent a good day or so online watching her sing. It was her voice that made the songs what they were. I get goosebumps thinking about her voice. To be cliche, she could sing the phone book and I'd listen. Barbra Streisand and Glee's Lea Michele are unbelievable as well. Barbra and Lea lead me to my next thought: GO TO A BROADWAY SHOW!!! The music and voices are unbelievable and without effects.

In regards to Worship music at church. The songs that move me to tears and cause me to be unable to sing them are the hymns many grew up singing. The vast majority of the contemporary worship music today doesn't come close to the messages and lyrics or musicality of the old hymns. I'm not talking about singing them with an organ either. When done with a full band, hymns are incredible. I remember being at the chapel services at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where they only sang hymns. But something amazing happens when you have a full chapel of people singing their hearts out in four part harmony. God has to be smiling not only at the worship but also at the ear candy that it is. Not all hymns are excellent nor is all contemporary worship not excellent. (Disclaimer: God doesn't care what we praise Him with, just that we do it.) Look up the words to some of the greatest hymns sometime: It Is Well With My Soul, How Great Thou Art, Be Thou My Vision, Amazing Grace, Crown Him With Many Crowns, and others. Modern versions of some great hymns are crazy good, like Jesus Paid It All and Before The Throne. One Contemporary song that I believe is excellent is "Revelation song". But I've decided that if you have to use the word "Everyday" in a worship song then the author is not being creative enough.

Anyone watch "The Sing-Off" before it was cancelled? This show combined some of the best music, creativity, musicality, harmony, vocal presentation, and emotional involvement all in one place. The group that won the last season, Pentatonix, were the best of the 3 seasons winners. Watch the video and see if you don't get goosebumps, and by the way I don't really like the original song that much. These guys are just that excellent. The song starts at the 1:45 mark.

Oh yeah, and the one dude in Pentatonix did this on his cello. Unreal.

All of this is simply my opinion and preference. After all my blog is called demand excellence. So why waste time on mediocrity or even below average entertainment. Again everyone, help me out and point out who and what I've missed.

Be Like Jesus Disconnect

Not sure where I start this conversation this morning. For the last few years I've been part of a body of believers that has been very heavily focused on the life of Jesus. This is a good thing. What has transpired is this massive call by church leadership to live a life like Jesus lived. We are to, in the words of the Message Bible, be like Jesus and "move into the neighborhood". Outstanding concept, instead of asking people to come be like us (at church) we need to go and be with them where they are and take Jesus to them. An awesome and completely biblical approach. It makes sense because Jesus moved and lived and mingled with the outcasts, the poor, the sick, the riff raff. He loved people where they were, he healed the sick, fed thousands, gave sight to the blind and showed how much He values children. He got in with the people, got his hands dirty and showed people they were valuable and didn't condemn them the way the Pharisees did. The church has done a much better job in recent years of compelling people to live a life that mimics Christ's.


"So where's the disconnect that my title suggests", you may ask? It is a recognition of a disconnect between what Jesus did during his years of ministry and what he did at Calvary when He died on the cross for you and me. I believe that the church has, unintentionally, made His death and resurrection a separate thing from the way He lived his life.


In fact I'd say that His death and resurrection were a continuation of his ministry on earth and are not separate things. What I'm not saying, is that we are to die and be resurrected, but we are to obedient as Christ was even to suffer unto death. He was modeling obedience to His Father.

But another important thing is going on with Jesus' life on earth. He's showing us a new way to be human. He's literally demonstrating how and what we are to be like and what we will be like in the age to come. When he hung on the cross it was customary for the accused to call down the wrath of God on their torturers. But Jesus didn't do that. He said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". You didn't find him teaching that in a sermon, but demonstrating to us a new way to be human.

If a Christ-like life is what we are to attain to then we cannot separate His earthy ministry from His obedience to the point of death. Jesus was teaching us, as I said above, a new way to be human. It is a more perfect way, a holy way, the way he intended us to be from the beginning. It is right for us to strive for this new "human" way that Jesus showed us. His obedience unto death is a key for us to understand. Paul grabbed that cue and ran with it. Paul figured out what Jesus meant when he said "follow me". Paul was present, he watched how Jesus functioned and moved and interacted. He also had some special divine revelation as well. But if you read about Paul and the letters that he wrote to the churches you'll see a guy who is saying "If you want your life to look like Christ's this is what it's going to take and this is what it's going to look like if you want it to happen."  His letter to the Romans highlights what we seriously need to remember about how to become Christ-like.

 Romans 5:3-5

³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Just like Jesus, who suffered and died, Paul is saying that we must suffer in order to persevere and from that perseverance we gain character and from that character, hope. Paul gets it. In fact he's pretty much saying this is the way it must be done in order for us to become like Christ. We'd all love a step program for becoming like Christ, and Paul gives us one. Paul's life actually takes this path, in fact is probably because of this path that he says, "this is the way". Take a look at what he went through in his life to make his claims.       2 Corinthians 11:16 - 33

What is all this pointing to, suffering. Jesus suffered because of his obedience. Paul suffered because of his obedience. Jesus was showing us a new way to be human. Paul took up his own cross and followed Jesus and his Christ-like character was formed via his suffering. The fully "new human" way of living produces good fruit, or as the bible calls them, the Fruit of the Spirit. Paul speaks of this fruit in Galatians 5, they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. These are the attributes of a fully formed Christian character. This is what a new "human" looks like, and it cannot be fully formed without us suffering. We can't fully become who Jesus created us to be and who he is changing us into without suffering. 

Maybe I'm a little off track with the title of "Be Like Jesus Disconnect", but I titled it this way because it's important that we don't disconnect the Jesus who valued the outcast and served people from the Jesus who suffered unto death for our sins. His actions are all the same act for him, they aren't separate things. It's all part of his obedience to his father. It's imperative for us to be like Jesus, not just when our neighbor needs help, but when we must stand in opposition to our culture. So when the church says to be like Jesus, it doesn't just mean that we care for the poor, it also means we are to suffer for His sake and it's from this suffering that makes us like Jesus.

God determines our needs

Philippians 4:19 "And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus".

I was listening to the radio the other day and the host of the show told a story about a man who traveled from town to town preaching the gospel. He took nothing with him but relied on the kindness of people for a place to stay and for food to eat. Upon entering one town he had no place to sleep and no place to eat, so he slept on a park bench and went hungry for the night. He meditated on Philippians 4:19 and came to the conclusion that God determined that he "needed" a good starving for the night.

I sat in my car in utter disbelief at those words. Wow, how crazy is it that God would be the determiner of our needs and not us. I know for a fact that as Americans we read that verse and immediately conclude that God will provide our needs according to what we decide is a need and not Him. Don't we all do that? I know I have. If you don't believe me just think about what you think about when you read that verse. God will provide food and shelter and relative decent health or a job or enough money to pay the bills. That's what we do. In fact in America we have so much that we've gotten very Godly by shrinking our list of "needs" to just the basics - food, shelter, safety, etc... because we want to seem humble and show understanding for what the verse really says. Am I far off? I don't think so.

But if we really look at that verse and look around this world at some of the suffering that we see of God's people we have to wonder if we have our interpretation of that verse correct. I know I haven't had it right. We never look at our trials as "needs" in our lives. And yet God's plan for us is to become like His Son Jesus Christ, so he will do whatever he seems fit or is "needed" to transform us into the likeness of Him. If that means we go hungry for a night or a few days we must look for the transforming presence of God in it. If we go jobless, homeless, suffer ridicule at work, lose a loved one, suffer sickness, or have financial hardship we must look for God's hand in each situation because it transforms us more and more into His likeness. We'll never completely understand God's wisdom in what he does, but I rest assured that He is in control and that He loves me deeply, so deeply that he is working in every situation in my life to make me more into the vessel that He can use for his glory.

I searched to find the man in the story above but could not. But I will be forever indebted to him for bringing a new truth and a deeper understanding of God's word to me.

Well Said Sir.

Thank you Chris Broussard, of ESPN, when asked about his personal beliefs about whether you can be Christian and openly gay. I'm so glad a person of his public notoriety has spoken up for the truth. It's just sad he's taking a beating in the media for his beliefs specifically because he was asked about them. But the reality is is that the beating is exactly what it takes for us to mature as believers. Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character; and character produces hope. These are Paul's words for how a person matures and becomes like Christ. So while it's a shame that he's taking a beating, he/we should "consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters^, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything". James 1: 2-4

Persecution and suffering are going to begin to become the norm as Christians began to clash with the thinking of our culture. We must be prepared and be ready to embrace that suffering for it produces a mature man and woman who lacks nothing. That should be good news. 

Kids Belong To Communities???

Just when you think that nothing can amaze and astonish you, along comes MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry. Apparently she thinks that parenting a child is not the sole responsibility of their parents. That kids belong to the community and that we'll be better off once we realize this.

We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities - Melissa Harris-Perry.

Isn't this part of the reason we got into the mess we're in today, because parents wanted the schools to do the parenting and not themselves? It's too bad a well educated person, it seems, would be so off base and out of touch with the truth.

Top Down Approach

I was talking to a friend today who asked me a very good question.

"Matt, where do you start looking when you are trying to come to a conclusion about this Same Sex Marriage thing, or anything other issue?"

Wow, glad you asked. At the end of the day my answer is the same of any issue, whether it's about marriage, sex, pornography, gambling, finances, parental roles, giving, whatever.

I said to him, "I start with a top down, big picture, 20,000ft view of what is going on in the Bible. What is the real story that is going on?"

I explained further, "You must understand what the Bible is about, who it's about, and why it's written to/for us."

The Bible is a book with one main character (God) and one main supporting character (man). Now I can go in a lot of directions from here, but I won't. That's for another day. But to continue our conversation.

"The Bible is about God and man. So a big picture approach to the Bible is to look at 1. What were we originally created for/to do? 2. Why? 3. What happened with sin? 4. What did God do about it? 5. What is our response? 6. And what is going to happen when we go home to be with Him someday. Essentially, What is all of this pointing toward?

He created us to reflect  His Glory to His creation and for us to reflect back to Him the praise and worship from his creation. He created us male and female and gave them both characteristics of him. The marriage of man and woman created an image of the invisible God to all of creation. We were created to be priests and rulers over God's new creation and bring it under our rule and authority. (But not in the way that we think of rule and authority today). That's the Why answer. Sin entered the picture and messed it all up. But even before it happened God had a redemption plan in place to restore things to the way they were and the way they are supposed to be. He did this through His son Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection on the cross. Even in our sin God works in unfathomable ways so that he gets the glory. By embracing Jesus as Lord and Savior, and that He rose from the dead we are now his heirs and His adopted children. But Paul goes on to say that the church (all people who proclaim Jesus is Lord) is like a bride and Jesus is the bridegroom. He uses the analogy to say that if you want to see a picture of Jesus and his relationship with His church, then look at a married couple. Sure, even happily married couples have flaws, but guess what, so does the "church" today. Warts and all He loves us and gave Himself up for us.

So, after we've said yes to Jesus, He is working in our hearts to change us into the people he created us to be in this life and the next. He's grooming us for the next life. We are to partner with Him to bring about his kingdom which is here and now and prepare for the coming of His Kingdom which is not yet. Let me say this again, He is changing us, redeeming us, molding us into the people He originally created us to be, before the fall. He's putting things back in order and he's allows us and expects us to be a part of the journey.  We are to participate in the Kingdom that is now in preparation for the Kingdom that is to come.

When we go home to be with Him we will experience no more sorrow or tears, no pain or suffering, we will have new bodies that won't fall apart or breakdown. He's redeeming us and putting everything back the way it was supposed to be. And we will worship and praise Him for it. All glory be to our God and Father. Amen.

So, back to the question that we started with. "Where do I start any issue from?" It's with the beginning and end in mind. The Bible starts with a marriage and ends with a marriage in Revelation. The big picture allows me to filter all sorts of information then.

We can get lost trying to figure out if alcohol is a sin, or what being modestly dressed means. Same goes for trying to understand issues like marriage, sexuality, Same Sex Marriage, pornography and so on.  If you only spend time down at ground level you're going to end up confused. Don't start trying to understand your faith from the ground up. Get big picture and work your way down. Start with who we were originally created to be and end with the understanding that God is going to put all back together the way He originally planned. It's a lot easier to answer the other questions in life when we understand that. 

Speak Out Boldly and Confidently

Speak up, don't be afraid.

It's time for Christians to stop defending themselves as being intolerant and focus on what is actually happening. We can't be distracted from what is actually going on in our culture and at the SCOTUS today. We must speak up for truth and what is right. Don't be timid, don't be afraid, don't let the "intolerance" rhetoric stop you from standing up for what is good and right and honorable. We were not given a spirit of fear or timidity, but given a spirit of power, love, and self discipline. Jesus says do not fear those who can kill body but not the soul. Fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Hell. Look toward the future, the promises of God await those who seek him.

American Christians today are weak when it comes to standing up for what is right. We shrink away from confrontation. I'm not advocating physical altercations, but I'm saying get off the sidelines on the issues at the forefront of society today. Get in the game, speak truth in love, extend grace, but not at the expense of truth. Put your pads on and say something. If you want to change the world then you're going to have to say something, if not your silence says volumes.

Let me explain the logic and reasoning of the vast majority of Americans who support Gay marriage (this includes Christians). The thinking goes like this, "I don't care what they do. They don't bother me, I don't bother them. If they love someone, I don't care if they want to marry them." That's it. That's as far as the conversation in their head goes. Uh, Houston, we have a problem.

Most people in our society haven't critically thought about this issue. They just plain haven't and do you know how you can prove this? If the topic comes up, see if the conversation gets past the reasons I stated above. Then once that's said, you say your piece about your position on SSM. If they accuse you of being intolerant or insensitive or traditional then you have your answer. It then moves from an intellectual argument to one of emotion and feeling. That's not an argument, it's a tantrum that we as Christians must recognize and avoid defending ourselves as people who aren't intolerant or traditional, or insensitive.

The trouble with too many Christians is that they haven't thought the issue through either, so they give up the discussion once they are labeled intolerant. Jesus followers get into your Bible, read, read, read. That's the only way you're going to be able grasp the magnitude of this issue fully. Think with the mind that Christ has given you. "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming." Ephesians 4:14

If you want somewhere to start on this issue, read this...
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/07/19/gay-is-not-the-new-black/