I don’t really understand people who say things like, “The worship isn’t very good at my church,” or, “Our worship pastor doesn’t remove enough distractions for me to worship.” Man, this is America’s consumerism mentality at its worst. Since when does worship depend on a musical performance? Worship is not an event for 20 minutes on a Sunday morning, it’s a lifestyle of attributing worth to God in everything we say and do. Although worship includes singing, it also includes prayer, loving God, living blamelessly, sharing Christ with others, spending time in the Word, sacrificially serving those around us and more. We don’t go to church to worship, we go to church already worshiping. It can take place in a big church with a professional band and lighting, alone in the quietness of a closet or deep in the jungle of Africa. Worship is a week-long process, a lifestyle, not solely a Sunday morning activity. Sure, certain environments may promote an atmosphere of worship better than others, but worship never hinges upon such factors.

So if someone tells me they can’t worship at their church, who’s fault is that? True worship is not dependent on anyone or anything else other than ourselves and our heart’s attitude toward God.

I’ve been hearing a lot about SpiralFrog.com and its pending release in December. The company plans to offer legal audio and music video downloads in exchange for watching 45-90 second video ads per song or video. Surprisingly, SpiralFrog’s music database will not just be a lot of obscure artists no one’s ever heard of — they have agreements with EMI and Universal Music Group to make their entire music catelogs available as free downloads! Personally, watching up to 15 minutes of advertizing every month to download and keep just 10 songs that otherwise expires every 30 days due to Microsoft’s copyright protection (DRM encryption) probably isn’t worth my time. I think I’ll stick with my subscription to Rhapsody just because it’s so easy and convenient to use.

Derek Webb, on the other hand, is making his new album, “Mockingbird,” available for download from his site completely free — no strings attached. As a former member of one of my all-time favorite bands, Caedmon’s Call, Derek seeks to use his music to spark discussions among people by using the power of the Internet. He says this:

one of the things that excites me most about the future of our business is how easy it is becoming to deliver music to people who want to hear it. i heard a story once about keith green caring so much that people were able to hear and engage with his music that he gave it away for free, which was a very difficult and expensive thing to do at that time. it’s actually never been as simple as it is today to connect music with music fans. and i want people to have a chance to listen to mockingbird and engage in the conversation.

so this is why, on september 1st, we’re launching freederekwebb.com, a place where anyone can go online and not just hear but actually download, keep, and share ‘mockingbird’ completely for free. In addition, freederekwebb.com will give you an opportunity to invite your friends to download ‘mockingbird’ in order to get them in on the conversation as well.

I’m curious to follow Derek’s plan for communicating his message through music made freely available online. One thing is sure: he must absolutely believe in what he’s doing to go through all the time and expense of recording an album and then to give it away for free. I’m impressed that he would forfeit all monetary profit on something like this for the sake of promoting conversations.

Does anyone else find themselves singing popular worship songs (both hymns and modern) and thinking, “What in the world does this mean?” I like to think I have somewhat of a handle on theological concepts and jargon, but sometimes I still lean over to Dana during worship and ask, “What does that lyric mean?” to which she smiles at my critical evaluation and shrugs.

Sometimes it seems that we sacrifice solid theological truth in worship songs for the sake of something that just sounds good or rhymes well. It makes me think how many Christians across the nation are singing these words without even thinking about what they’re actually saying. Fortunately worship takes place in our heart’s attitude toward God and not solely in the words we say.

As CPYU always recommends, I watched some of MTV’s Video Music Awards to get a feel for the current trends and status of culture. Dana and I had some other things to attend to, so we weren’t able to watch the whole thing last night, but I recorded it so I can catch up on the rest sometime later.

The part I did see, however, was kinda disturbing, but unfortunately expected. It seems like the world is continuing to follow a downward sexual spiral. It was hard to make it through 60 seconds of the VMAs without seeing women dressed immodestly and sensual dances. Everything from Evanescence’s little talk on having sex with yourself versus group sex to Victoria’s Secret commercials that sold a lot more than just an underwear product. Other prevalent themes I saw were drunkenness, partying and pressure on girls to be physically thin.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though, since I can’t expect lost people to act like anything other than what they are.

Still, my heart goes out to the teenagers who watch TV programming like this and unconsciously adopt the hidden worldview being communicated as if it is liberating and carefree. Little do they know the damaging affect it will ultimately have on their lives. As a youth pastor, the need to instill Godly values in the lives of teenagers and develop them to be leaders seems to be more important now than ever before.

We’ve all heard the excuse from our teenagers, “Oh, I don’t listen to the words, I just like the music,” but if the song happens to come on the radio they know every word. Chron.com posted an article that supports Underage Sex Is Tied to Raunchy Music, backing youth pastors’ hunch that lyrics have a big influence on shaping teenagers’ view of sex and the opposite gender. This study suggests that “teens who listen to explicit lyrics seem to lose their virginity sooner.” Well worth the read.

Mark Batterson has a great post addressing creativity in ministry leadership and “keeping what is sacred from becomming routine.” Please read and apply.

A couple weeks ago I was asked about my personal relationship with Christ and what I did to maintain it. I guess most people except an answer like, “I read my Bible, pray, and have personal worship time and 6:00AM every morning.” Although I participate in these things (rarely at 6:00AM, though!), it’s not a forced disciplined routine for me. My time with God is different all the time. I find new and creative things to do with Him. Otherwise my spiritual walk begins to feel like a rut, not an active and vital relationship.

Although Mark Batterson’s post relates more to ministry philosophy than to personal spiritual growth, I think his concept can be applied both ways.

I was fortunate enough to get in as a member for the beta testing of Lala.com, a program that allows users to exchange their old music CDs for new CDs they want. The concept is quite simple: you list all the CDs you have to trade and then make another list of all CDs you want (listing is simple and quick). When someone wants a CD you have, you send it to them with Lala’s pre-paid CD case and envelope and thereby gain one credit to get a CD you want from someone else’s “have” list. The only expense involved is paying $1.49 to receive a CD you requested.

The program is still in beta and will not release to the general public until July 4th of this year. However, as a beta testing member, I was granted 5 special membership invitations to extend to friends, family, or whoever. Check out the site and read around a little. PCWorld also did a review that may be helpful.

If you’re interested in trading your old CDs for new music, let me know and I’ll gladly send you an invitation. Obviously, I can only invite the first five people to contact me (either by e-mail or posting a comment). The only info I’ll need is your e-mail address.

PC World reported today that digital music sales sky-rocketed last year.

The market for digital music downloads via the Internet and mobile phones nearly tripled in 2005, accounting for 6 percent of total record industry sales, a sign anti-piracy efforts are working and digital music is catching on.

I’m not really an expert on this, but as a consumer it seems to me that the increased sales of legal music isn’t really due to anti-piracy efforts. All their law suits and hissy-fits didn’t do a thing to deter me from downloading from newsgroups as fast as my Internet connection would allow. What sold me on legal digital music was that they finally made downloading simple and flexible enough that it was worth my money. I would’ve gladly started paying earlier, but the music industry took so stinkin’ long to catch up to the ease of newsgroups and peer-to-peer networks.

Although I am generally happy with my Rhapsody-to-go subscription, there are still many times I feel like to switch back to illegal mp3s. The music licensing technology still creates all sorts of annoying errors and problems for me. Several months ago I even had to completely format my Creative Zen Micro and re-flash the firmware because, according to forums I googled since Rhapsody’s online support is weak, some music licenses somehow became corrupted and were unrepairable. Fortunately I know enough about formatting and firmware to make my Zen usable again, but I bet the average person would just trash it and give up.

Legal online music may have done better last year, but it has a far way to go until it’s as simple and easy to use as illegal music. I’m looking forward to whenever they stop tempting me to ditch their legal services.

I started writing this post about the portrayal of teenage-hood in Green Day’s music video, Jesus of Suburbia, but became so burdened by the seemingly impossible task before us as youth workers that I had to stop and approach this from a positive angle instead. Just watching the video breaks my heart, making me wanna reach through my computer monitor and say, “Dude, someone loves you!” It contains some graphical images that I do not feel comfortable posting here on my site, so if you decide to watch it, be forewarned that it is very real. It’s clear that they’re not holding anything back about how they feel, and apparently America’s teenagers identify with this since the song has been on the charts for some time now. I know I’ve posted about this before, but I’ll say it again, “Why can’t our churches be as real, open, and transparent as those in secular world?” How can we so blatantly miss the fact that this is what youth are looking for? They’re not looking for hype, big programs, or even “cool” youth leaders. What they want is to be real and authentic in an environment where they feel safe and accepted. Green Day’s video shows that this isn’t happening at home and maybe sometimes you think you’ve found it in a peer, but even that can quickly turn around to stab you in the back. Ugh, it’s all so heart-wrenching.

*deep breath* Okay, so after watching the video I decided I needed a good “pick-me-up” and that this entry should do more to offer encouragement for the answer that lies in Christ rather than point out what most of us already know to be true about America’s youth. Jeremy Camp’s video also addresses pain in life but from a much different perspective. His message offers hope, a message I intend to communicate to as many students as possible.

Saw David Crowder in concert last night at Irving Bible Church. Although I’ve seen him lead worship at different conferences and stuff, I’ve never seen him do a show just to entertain. He’s actually a pretty funny energetic guy! I really enjoyed the performance and time of worship. Shane and Shane was good too, but Robbie C or whatever band that opened, well, they weren’t so hot. Pretty boring, in my opinion. I took my camera along, but only took two pictures before the batteries went dead. Unfortunately, my second set of batteries were dead, too, and neither picture turned out very well. Doh!

Looking forward to seeing David Crowder again in Nashville at the Youth Specialties Convention next month, too. NYWC is gonna rock! I’m so excited!