If you stumble into a Servant Church or Mosaic worship gathering for the first time you will immediately notice one thing: you don’t recognize most of the songs we sing together.
For better or worse, you will get a unique musical worship experience at each of the community gatherings I lead. Attribute it to my deep desire to help restore creativity to God’s church, my indie-rock pedigree, or sheer contrarianism: we don’t ever employ any Contemporary Christian Music.
This is not to say that we don’t praise and worship God. It is, however, to say that we don’t employ music from the highly commercialized genre called ‘Praise & Worship’.
Why Not? I’m among a growing population that is not helped by this music. And to be honest, I think that most of this music sucks.
1. Much of it is Lyrically Anemic
Lyrically it seems that much of it is made for children and the parents who purchase the music for them. The bottom line for me is that most popular praise and worship songs simply don’t say many of the things I want to say to or about God. I have found that I am not alone.
2. Musically it is Lacking
Most contemporary music in white western churches is based on the premise that mimicking a popular artist/style/trend will somehow convince people that listen to regular music to abandon it for the Christianized copy.
3. Christians Aren’t Being Creative In Their Sunday Worship
Due to the lowest common denominator nature of CCM and P&W, we aren't exposed to a new expression of faith in God. We should reflect the sophisticated, complex, and beautiful God that we worship.
4. It Doesn’t Help Us Reach Those Outside the Church Doors
People outside the church don’t listen to CCM, and its not because of their poor spiritual state. It’s because it's second-rate. Genre is language. We can’t have people walk through our doors the first time and immediately realize that they don’t know the language. And worse, that they’ll have to learn it to participate.
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