Quoting Brian McLaren

I just read something from Brian McLaren on Leadership Journal. In the article, Mr. McLaren writes:

“…We praise God for holding us close, for keeping us secure, for making us feel loved and blessed and forgiven and warm and cozy in our electric blanket of eternal security (with a warm comforter of national security thrown in too). We congratulate God on how well God is meeting our needs. When we say, “You’re such a good God,” it sometimes sounds like comforting words spoken to a pet.”

I’m not the sort of person who wants to be pegged as a Brian-McLaren-quoter. Nor do I want to be accused of being the sort of person who defines leadership through Leadership Journal. Nevertheless, the article is noteworthy.

In it, Mr. McLaren points out something that many have been pointing out for years: modern worship music is too individualist and self-centered. The content isn’t exactly revolutionary, but the fact that it is in the pages of Leadership Journal is.

Our church plant, Missio Dei is starting its larger gathering this week, and because of this, we’ve had to wrestle particularly with the question of “How will we handle music?” We all want something creative, collaborative, and rich. We also want it to be theologically tight. Our goal is to have music hit on themes that are raised in Scripture. The funny thing is, it is incredibly difficult to find a good supply of music that fits. We want to write some of our own stuff–but the fact that existing stuff is so dang anemic and relatively un-diverse in terms of style and content is just plain sad.

for further reading . . .

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