This is one of my favourite quotes by Martin Luther, the German monk, theologian and church reformer whose ideas inspired the Protestant Reformation. He said this in defence of his practice and encouragement of contrafacta – the German Protestant Reformation practice of setting sacred texts to the tunes of secular songs.I remember what first drew me to Christianity was the music. Unlike the hymns I’d grown up listening to, the songs and choruses sung by the Pentecostals were fresh, lively, upbeat and relevant. I now recognise that God’s Spirit was speaking and drawing me to a place where I would finally meet with Jesus in a way that changed my life forever.
As a new Christian, I was told that secular entertainment including music was bad as it did not glorify God, and that I should only listen to ‘Christian’ music. At the time there was this Christian documentary going around called ‘Hells Bells’ whose basic premise was - all rock music is satanic and anti Christian. So in obedience I destroyed my secular music collection and resolved to only listen to music by Christian artists. This made for very slim pickings and for some reason Christian CD’s are very expensive. Gospel and contemporary Christian music (which is really soft rock) seemed to be the only available music for Christians...
I’ve stopped pretending to like it.
I like dance music and I like clubbing- the atmosphere, strobe lighting, the wild abandon and energy with which people dance and easy camaraderie between fellow clubbers. I have been known to dance non-stop in a club the whole night!Surely I should be dancing like this in church, with all my might before the Lord, just like David did that time when he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:14).
There’s a deep house music tune by Dennis Ferrer that I love called “Church Lady” which has a wicked chorus “Glory, Halleluiah, let them show you the way.” I’m the one in the middle of the dance floor waving my hands and shouting out the choruslike a crazy woman.
There is a darker side to clubbing- drugs, alcohol abuse, sometimes violence, lust, predators etc, but wouldn’t it be great if we could reclaim this area for God and use it to worship Him in a style of music, that some of us can fully engage in, without compromising?
I discovered yesterday that there were others in my church who felt the same way.
Katie invited me to be one of the organisers for Digital Cathedral - an event to be held in October where we will worship God using creative arts technology associated with dance music and club culture. We had our first planning yesterday. As we went around the group introducing ourselves and highlighting our particular skills, I was overcome with feelings of inadequacy. Not sure why Katie asked me to be a part of this. Herself and Bridget have lovely singing voices, and can write lyrics. Julie is the administrator, Nigel and James the DJ’s. As I listened to everyone, my heart started racing and I racked my brains to figure out what skills I could bring to the table. When it was my turn I came up with “… bundles of enthusiasm?’
Hopefully, I will have a more substantial contribution by the time we have our first real workshop. In the meantime I will be involved in research for different venues, listening to God for direction. Prayer points - a free club venue, creative ideas, keep focus on God,
