Played a Gig @ Buffington’s

oooo – this is gonna be a good one!

“Why do you think the leader of the other band felt like he had to justify singing songs that weren’t spiritual?”

personal conviction?

but for me, i think in all things when done unto the LORD…IS spiritual. i can use my gifts and talents in a myriad of situations with the motive of pleasing Him in an honoring way and it stays God focused (in my heart at least…im not responsible for how others choose to see it).

there is band that brent and i like to go see here in town. they’re a great group of musicians. one of our faves in the band is Joe the lead guitarist. he is not a Christ follower…but when we hear and watch him play, we both are so moved by the Spirit. we know to the bottom of our toes that Joes talents are God given, he’s just not using them for HIM. yet. ;)

@tam, no you answered the question I asked.

Just to make sure though, what I’m talking about in the post, is the “atmosphere” that was created during my set. It was very sweet, very worshipful, and you could just feel the awkwardness when the next band got up to play, and they stumbled around for 5 minutes trying to justify how they were Believers but the music that they were about to play wasn’t “Sacred” (so to speak) but that it still belonged to God.

In my opinion, they shoulda just got up and did their thing. It was almost like they were trying to justify why they WEREN’T playing “sacred” tunes…

it really just came off as an awkward ramble that I don’t really think was necessary.

My question is why do you think they felt like they needed to justify singing non-spiritual songs, right after I had done a setlist of spiritual songs?

Is it because of what came before? Is it because of the “atmosphere” created before? I wonder if they felt bad? I wonder if they thought the crowd (which was mostly there for my set) would judge them negatively if they sang “Barefootin’” (which they did)?

Maybe that helps clarify a bit?

@Heidi, you beat me here, but I think that’s true, as did I.

Check my comment right above yours. If he just saw it as a “gig” then why did he ramble awkwardly for 5 minutes? Seems to me he’d just play. I would have.

I think the other band felt they had to justify themselves simply because they saw the crowd participating in your worship. They probably wanted to precursor themselves knowing that they might not get the same response. Which really is only natural not knowing the audience you’re playing to. If you knew that the audience wasn’t going to critique a set as “god” vs “fun” a performer would never have to say a word. It’s the dualistic mindset that we have as humans that makes us feel we have to justify things now and then. (By dualistic I mean things/actions are either spiritual or carnal, good or bad and there’s no mixing the two.)

@heidi, dan, tam, interesting thoughts.

Though I agree about disclaimers, and the fact that we ALL tend to throw them out (most of the time unnecessarily), points to our own human insecurities.

One thing we always teach our musicians and vocalists is to never give a disclaimer that draws undue attention to something that most people would never even notice. It sets the vibe for the entire song or set.

Just do what you do, people are either more forgiving than we think, or not as critical.

I just thought it would have been a whole lot more fun, and nobody would have thought twice about their setlist had they just jumped right in and gone for it.

Russ,
Thanks for giving me a heads up re: this post. I wish I could’ve been there. Honestly, I have no clue why this guy would’ve done that. Maybe he was convicted … but then again, why? He wasn’t necessarily doing anything WRONG, right? So, if there was conviction, it would only be on his own lifestyle … not what he was about to do.

Maybe he saw the crowd you brought … was your crowd a bulk of the audience? If so, he probably felt like he needed to explain that his music wouldn’t be what they were used to.

Here’s my question .. do you know the guy? If so … invite him to lunch … tell him how much you enjoyed his set, and maybe just say “I couldn’t help but notice you felt like you had to explain that your music wasn’t worship music, but man … what you did was great, and if that’s what God has you doing, then go for it big-time” … that would probably bless his socks off!

For the Kingdom,
Fred McKinnon
http://www.fredmckinnon.com
http://www.theworshipcommunity.com

@Brent, my sunglasses were indeed cooler, thanks!

@Fred, I don’t know the guy, would be cool to hang with them though. They seemed to be really nice guys. Older fellows, who really seemed to be enjoying singing songs like Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, You Look Wonderful Tonight, etc. And we all enjoyed listening to them. I never thought twice about it. I’m not one of those die hard music nazis that proclaim only to listen to music that is labeled christian.

Honestly, I could care less about the fact that what they were doing was not “sacred” – I just didn’t get why he felt the need to give that long awkward disclaimer…and then later in their set they talked about getting “spiritual” and sang a worship song that I think they honestly had in their book but hadn’t planned on singing it. Anyways, it would be really cool to get with them sometimes and just get to know them.

@Rich, I appreciate your line of thinking, I really do…but that’s not what happened at least not from my perspective. When I play out in the community, I don’t “have church” I just sing and talk to the crowd like any other artist would.

The bulk of the crowd (all but about 4 people) were there to see me. Not because I’m a big shot, or because I’m that good, but because i did decent promo.

Again, just to reiterate that I did not conduct an altar call or serve communion I just sang and made some dumb jokes and pretty much just did my thing. My folks sang along with me. Nobody danced or waved banners or brought hymnals or asked for the words to be projected on a screen.

The only thing that made my set spiritual was the fact that I sang a few worship tunes. Obviously, I sang them with passion.

I think I’m just wrestling with the idea that they (he) especially felt like he needed to convince us that they were good people too even though they weren’t singing spiritual songs.

But nobody would have ever even questioned that.

@Mike, thanks man. Good thoughts. I didn’t mean to belittle my choice of choosing worship tunes, I just meant to reiterate the fact that I didn’t do what many would consider to be churchy.

I too believe he was convicted. In his own heart. Also, as someone else said, he felt like the bar was set….the crowd had an expectation (or so he thought) and he needed to explain things (like the chili story Tam shared). P.S. Got here thru Tam’s blog.

Hi Russ, :-)

It’s my observation that as humans we rarely if ever truly get into someone else’s head and actually correctly figure out what they are thinking – we mostly think what would we think in that circumstance and frequently cannot understand why someone else did what we would not have chosen to do.

I am not going to rry to get into his and you have done as much as you can to share what is in yours on this.

it is another ‘observation’ i have that in many instances Christians are quite quick to ‘judge’ others and are more than willling to put their own take on what someone else might be feeling or thinking instead of taking the time – as Fred has suggested, to actually ask the q of the person concerned?

Why are you asking your blogfriends the q you should clearly have asked and had i assume the opportunity to ask of him/them? Perhaps like me and most of humanity your mind did not ‘work’ quite ‘fast’ enough at the time?

Anyway just to put up another ‘option’ for his thoughts that no-one else seems to have proposed yet…

As the ‘headline act’ t’he’y may have had the expectation that people had come to see them and their music. From your post it seems like they usually play to a ‘certain’ crowd who want ‘good old country entertainment’.

i assume they were frequent performers and knew a thing or two about crowd dynamics and had felt some if not all of what you felt in the crowd. during your ‘warm-up’?

rathr than trying to justify his band’s ‘perceived’ inadequacy of worship compared to what they were about to perform for the crowd, the man may have simply respected his audience and known that changing so rapidly the ‘feeling’ in the house your music had generated into a completely different feeling could very likely have come as a kind of ‘shock’ to those he wanted to entertain.

His ‘ramble’ may have had the intent of letting the crowd ‘come down’ from the height your songs and passion had raised within them – to allow them to come to a place where he and his group could take them from and move them into a ‘new’ place – not better, just different. a new ‘mood, a new feel and range of emotion.

Did his group ‘connect with your friends as much as you did? would everyone present have felt ‘comfortable’ from being in a place where HE was almost tangibly present to a place where you could let your hair down and do some bootscootin’ in a few minutes without some ‘down time’??

I was not there, obviously, i don’t know what went through the man’s mind as he spoke. But sometimes what we ‘see’ in others is so far from the truth of those others.. the only way we have of ever ‘knowing’ is by asking those directly involved.

in every other case it is best to live in and operate from ‘Charity – brotherly love’ Isn’t that what Christ wanted from us all?

<B

I’m just wondering what the club thought – had they any specific expectations re: your gig? Are they a church, a bar, or a coffee-shop? Was your ‘opening’ arranged through the club, or the other band?

I ask because, as an opener, your JOB is to ‘set-up’ the headliner: to warm the audience up for them. Personally, I’d be a bit ticked as a headliner – not because you ‘led worship’ corporately instead of doing a concert, though it sounds as though it was somewhat inappropriate at this venue – but because, like it or not, you made it about your agenda (even if you think it was God’s agenda, as some might say, I personally think God would have us respect our ‘authorities’, and when opening for another act, they’re it), rather than respecting the agenda of the headliner &/or club/establishment.

Not knowing more, I could be entirely wrong: my band has, on rare occasion – in bars (even in a ‘gay club’, once) played “Amazing Grace” (arranged as part of “Where the Streets have No Name”), but 1.) we were always the headlining band, 2.) it fits the nature and theme of U2 and that specific song, and 3.) unlike most hymns, “Amazing Grace” is generally pretty spiritually broad, and affirmable by many varied faiths (or at least they THINK it is)… even then, we tried very hard to be careful not to cast “pearls before swine”, which Biblically means to not throw our spiritual jewels out before folks that are not able to appreciate them, and will – as a results – “trample them”…

Plenty to think about, indeed…

@Lori and Emily, thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your comments. I think expectation probably had a lot to do with it. Doesn’t it in a lot of situations we encounter? :)

@Rich, I was actually there as a last minute fill in. I just got the word out and brought a bunch of friends.

@Love, you might be right :) I would like to ask him personally, but probably won’t happen. I guess in asking about this in my blog circle I’m trying to figure out what other people who would be in my shoes think about the whole “atmosphere” created when worship happens and does it affect people who aren’t even intending to worship.

I know the original question in italics is pretty specifically aimed at the one person’s intent, but if you read that question in context of the whole post, and I’m not even really sure if I got the point across, but I’m more curious if the situation I used as an example points to any shred of evidence that when worship (in song) happens people are moved. Moved towards God and/or moved away from God.

Maybe it was in poor taste to use such a specific example, but my question still remains, is it in any one’s opinion that the example I stated points to the next “band” feeling that certain something in the air?

1) Once they got to playing, the awkwardness vanished.
2) My wife and I hit the dance floor and triple stepped to Barefootin…
3) All through the set when they weren’t playing, he kept going back to the same, albeit brief, justifying conversation snippets instead of just doing their thing. Would say things like, we know all music is God’s; and He wants us to have fun, too; and we’ll get “spiritual” at the end of our set.

1) Nobody there expected them to do what I did, there really was no pre-fabbed expectation from the venue OR the audience. I think it was self-imposed.
2) I’m ALL FOR having fun with music. I’m one of the biggest proponent of blurring the lines between sacred vs. secular, because I believe God gave us music. ALL MUSIC. So we had fun, with no expectations attached.
3) Like I said, I really wish they had just done what they said, instead of trying to tell us what they were doing through the whole set.

“on the subject of worship songs.. would you put Rod Stewart Hits in that category???”

“You’re in My Heart” was written about soccer!

But, “Have I Told You Lately” was written by Van Morrison as a worship song. And let’s not forget Rod and Beck covering “People Get Ready.”

There are plenty of secular songs that fit in well in a praise/worship environment. I remember seeing the Audio A at a crusade once, singing “Let My Love Open the Door.” I remember laughing because there was one woman who insisted that all non-Christian music was of the devil, and there she was, dancing and praising to a Pete Townshend tune!

@Mike, right on. That’s always a little funny when people are so adamant about only listening to “christian” music and policing other people’s choices (or at the least just looking down their noses with disdain)…are jamming out to a cover that they haven’t done their homework on enough to know that it’s not one of their “holier than thou” tunes.

Again, I firmly believe that God created music and all shapes, forms, and fashions of music can bring glory to God. Do I go around listening to garbage, nah…but I do SEE in music (all of it) people’s need for something bigger than themselves.

you look a lot like andy hull from manchester…