[Sean]

Originally Posted by Starboard Wake

By this reasoning, would you tell our Christian brothers in Africa to stop using their traditional music to praise God? Would you advocate they adopt the sounds of past century Germany as their own?

Huh?

[Jeffrey]

Typing at 5 am made the words "not" and "concert" instead of "culture" appear in above posts. Apologies for confusion.

[Jeffrey]

I apologize, my "not" was ill-placed due to typing while tired.

Sean said:

BECAUSE THEY'RE GETTIN EMOTIONAL BECAUSE OF THE MUSIC. The song is driving the emotion. Every Move I Make gets people jumping because its upbeat. Its using a concert setting to generate emotion.

I would say to this, are you telling us to divorce emotion from worship just to make sure everyone is worshipping correctly? This will never occur, people will always come to corporate worship services with impure hearts. You can mouth along to the Apostles' creed as easily as you can raise your hands to a Passion song to follow the crowd.

As for my comments in regards to African Christian worship, their music is upbeat and exciting. Should they drop it just because it may lead some to just join in the dance for the sake of the dance, even if the majority are worshipping in purity?

Is "Every Move I Make" ALWAYS doing that? Can we really speak of the intentions of the lead worshippers 100% of the time?

I can't believe this is me playing Devil's advocate, but eh.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Starboard Wake

I would say to this, are you telling us to divorce emotion from worship just to make sure everyone is worshipping correctly? This will never occur, people will always come to corporate worship services with impure hearts. You can mouth along to the Apostles' creed as easily as you can raise your hands to a Passion song to follow the crowd.

Well, all music is inherently emotional. So it isn't possible to completely divorce them. To a certain extent its very reasonable to use the emotion of the song to fit the lyrics. It would be bizzarre and distracting to sing a joyful praise chorus in the key of d minor. Obviously a minor key will be very dark sounding and inconsistent with the lyrics. Matching the lyrics with music with a similiar emotion seems logical.

The problem is when the emotion of the song is more important than the song itself. When normally reserved "worshippers" go all out and start jumping up and down for a specifci "fun" song, I get a bit suspicious. A great example would be "Undignified." Having seen David Crowder in concert, I can say his fans are rather bizzarre. During "Undignified" the entire house went crazy. A very large man ran back and fourth through the aisle "in worship." Boy did he love that song......I mean boy was he worshipping.

And I'm not so much attacking any particular songs, well kind of I am, but more their usage. If you turn worship into a concert, of course people will get all emotional. The person I was responding to was claiming that that meant they were really worshipping. I was countering his claims more than meaning to attack specifcs.

As for my comments in regards to African Christian worship, their music is upbeat and exciting. Should they drop it just because it may lead some to just join in the dance for the sake of the dance, even if the majority are worshipping in purity?

Is "Every Move I Make" ALWAYS doing that? Can we really speak of the intentions of the lead worshippers 100% of the time?

As I said above, I don't mean to speak universally or single out this song. My problem is with the idea that "everyones all emotional and jumping up and down, therefore its worship." This is often the case with this particular song.

I can't believe this is me playing Devil's advocate, but eh.

What do you mean Jeff? I thought you loved this song....

[Role Modlin]

I use Waves of Mercy quite a bit....but I'm leading children's worship where the age ranges from 3-10. It works quite well.
I would feel kinda silly using it in a service with adults though.

[georgeo]

Originally Posted by Starboard Wake

By this reasoning, would you tell our Christian brothers in Africa to stop using their traditional music to praise God? Would you advocate they adopt the sounds of past century Germany as their own?

It is not about the sounds, its about what you are singing. You could sing na na na to the tune of Holy, Holy, Holy, but that doesn't make the na na na's any better or more worshipful.
No musical genre is "correct" for worship. Good theology and lyrical content is. There is no reason we can't have happy sounding worship songs we can dance to if we want that also have solid lyrical content. I'm not sure that Every Move I Make fits that catagory.

[Jeffrey]

I left out the "na na's," so I hope it's legal.

Every move I make, I make in You
You make me move, Jesus,
Every breath I take, I breathe in You

Every step I take, I take in You
You are my way, Jesus
Every breath I take, I breathe in You

Waves of mercy, waves of grace
Everywhere I look I see Your face
Your love has captured me
Oh my God, this love
How can it be?

Tell me what's unscriptural about these lines?

I don't care how the crowd responds, that's an issue of the crowd, not necessarily an issue of the song.

People twist fine Christian ideas and truth all the time. We haven't abandoned the writing of Martin Luther, though he was an anti-Semite.

[everyman]

Here's how I've been playing "Every Move I Make."

First, I choose a good overdrive setting. I play the main riff on the second string (with finger vibrato) and simultaneously play the open third string (G) as a drone. During the verses, I play a chunky, "Sweet Home Alabama" type of rhythm. During the "Waves of Mercy" part, I play G - C - D - C like this: G: 3-2-0-0-3-3 C: x-3-2-0-1-3 D: x-x-0-2-3-3. In other words, the G on the 1st string serves as a drone note to add tension before returning to the main riff.

On the last choruses of the song, I'll play chords similar to the "Waves" part above, but in 12th position. Or I may just play a G octave: x-x-x-12-x-15. Or if the mood calls for it, I'll jam off the 12th position.

As for any misgivings about the possible foolishness of the song, I put these aside and remember that first I'm a musician-servant. Having done that, I can thoroughly enjoy playing the song.