Being relevant
Yo
Just reading. Found a nice quote from the old man Bono. Speaking about U2 he said:
“I was asking the same thing, “Can we relax?” And I thought, “Well we can relax but we’re about to become irrelevant any second. To be relevant is a lot harder than to be successful.” If you’re judging where we are by the fact that we can afford to buy this house, it’s a dangerous measure. I judge where we are by how close am I to the melody I’m hearing in my head and how close are we to what we can do as a band to realising our potential. That’s a different thing.”
I really want to be relevant. I’m a wee bit scared of us and our music becoming irrelevant. Have you any ideas what it means for us to become relevant? Is relevance similar to prophesy...like a ‘now’ word from God spoken into a life/situation? How can we take what we are doing and make it increasingly relevant to the people around us?
I sometimes get driven in the band by fear of what people think of us rather than by doing what we can do – rather than by realising our potential regardless of what folk might say/think. I want us to cultivate a safe place for us to be free and to take risks musically/lyrically etc to become increasingly relevant and ‘us’ even if that is not vogue/in mode or fashionable. I’d rather be unfashionable and relevant than fashionable and meaningless.
I really want this to translate into our music, our words, my voice, our instrumentation etc.
I’m writing lots of lyrics at the moment...none are congregational worship songs. All are hopeful/positive. They are really exciting me cos I feel like I am tapping into something else – tuning into a new frequency. It feels free. It feels a bit more relevant.
JP
Just reading. Found a nice quote from the old man Bono. Speaking about U2 he said:
“I was asking the same thing, “Can we relax?” And I thought, “Well we can relax but we’re about to become irrelevant any second. To be relevant is a lot harder than to be successful.” If you’re judging where we are by the fact that we can afford to buy this house, it’s a dangerous measure. I judge where we are by how close am I to the melody I’m hearing in my head and how close are we to what we can do as a band to realising our potential. That’s a different thing.”
I really want to be relevant. I’m a wee bit scared of us and our music becoming irrelevant. Have you any ideas what it means for us to become relevant? Is relevance similar to prophesy...like a ‘now’ word from God spoken into a life/situation? How can we take what we are doing and make it increasingly relevant to the people around us?
I sometimes get driven in the band by fear of what people think of us rather than by doing what we can do – rather than by realising our potential regardless of what folk might say/think. I want us to cultivate a safe place for us to be free and to take risks musically/lyrically etc to become increasingly relevant and ‘us’ even if that is not vogue/in mode or fashionable. I’d rather be unfashionable and relevant than fashionable and meaningless.
I really want this to translate into our music, our words, my voice, our instrumentation etc.
I’m writing lots of lyrics at the moment...none are congregational worship songs. All are hopeful/positive. They are really exciting me cos I feel like I am tapping into something else – tuning into a new frequency. It feels free. It feels a bit more relevant.
JP
posted by Johnny Parks at 12:44:00 a.m.
4 Comments:
Hey Jonny was listening to a Erwin on U tube. He said he was tired of being relevant and that the church should be unique. The world should be following us. Don't worry about being relevant....be inspiring. Personally, songs like 'Resuer' and 'Walls'(sorry don't know the prop title) I think are types of songs no one else is doing. Your right not to worry about what people think. Go for it Jonny. I beleive you know you and the band are going in the right direction.
Hi Johnny,
I completely see this tension at work alot of the time. As a worship leader I find it a real challenge not to simply put songs together that I know the congregation will enjoy and sing with vigour. Often God will speak to me about something that is relevant and challenging, and I feel compelled to communicate this through the sung worship we engage in. However, the challenge may not be comfortable and "easy" for the congregation to hear and deal with, so we take a risk in going in these directions. It can be so much simpler to just let it become easy, and in effect silence ourselves (as per a recent album title I heard about ...:-)). I have also found a real tension as I write my own lyrics and music, as it doesn't necessarily appear as "normal worship music" might sound, or as a congregation might be able to sing. I don't necessarily aim for this, but I think some conditioning has taken place which prevents relevance and creativity from bursting forth.
It's really encouraging to hear how you're "tapping in" to new creativity and direction. When you take a look at those who have most influenced music, politics, social justice, religion, art etc... you can see that they have certainly not stood still - there is a constant "movement". As with Christ and many of the prophets, their relevance often resulted in rejection by their peers, but the results were longer lasting, as they affected the course of history as we know it. Be encouraged!
loving it!!! loving the comments - lots of good food for thought.
i wanna be really relevant! by that i mean that i want to words and music to totally connect, stimulate, challenge, inspire the people inside and outside the church.
keep it coming
J
Relevance is overrated. You, JP, are Spirit led - your all-wise Teacher is THE definition of relevance - love, obedience, and trust. I get what you mean when you talk about being concerned with what people think and want. It is a constant tug on our motivation...still, submission and sensitivity to what the Spirit of God is saying is on target. I'm afraid the relevance concern might lead one off on a tangent, to the degree that it considers what people want rather than what God wants. Perhaps Aaron was being relevant when Moses went up on the mountain...going with what the people wanted.
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