My EPIC Christmas Music Playlist

By Kevin, on December 5th, 2011%

For the most part, I find the Christmas season completely overwhelming.  The one thing that gets me through it is music — but not usually on the “all-Christmas” radio stations.   I prefer a bunch of scratched up CD’s from (gasp) almost twenty years ago.

My hands-down, number one, no contest, all-time favorite Christmas album ever is Handel’s Messiah – A Soulful Celebration, with the Boys Choir of Harlem, Stevie Wonder, Al Jarreau, Tramaine Hawkins, Gladys Knight, Patti Austin, and Sounds of Blackness, just to name a few.

I’ve been listening to this since it came out in ’92.  It’s probably not for Messiah purists, but I can’t help but think that Handel would somehow approve.  This is “soul” music at its best – R&B, modern, hip-hop, rap, urban, black gospel.  And when combined with the power of “The Messiah”, it’s pure heaven.  Read more...

One comment   Music, Theology   , ,  

Worship Leader Diseases

By Balaam's Ass, on April 20th, 2010%

Several months ago, our church hired a new WL (worship leader). Unfortunately for those of us who aren’t legally deaf at our church, it’s been a rather painful transition. Now I realize that you can’t necessarily measure worship solely on the criteria of how it sounds, but there’s something left to say when only 25% of the congregation seems to sing along on a regular basis and the WL himself sings on key roughly the same % of time.

A big part of the limited congregational worship participation seems to be directly related to the unfortunate rampant “Christian Artist Wannabe” disease that many WL’s have been plagued with.  As defined by C. Tomlin’s Christian Medical dictionary:   Read more...

29 comments   Music, Theology    

Amy Grant, Whores, & Christian Music

By Balaam's Ass, on February 19th, 2010%

I once heard someone pray years ago for Amy Grant and Michael W Smith because they were both crossing over into “secular music”. I didn’t get the sense that the prayer was for protective purposes, but more so to lead their misguided souls back to the safety and comforts of what we like to call “Christian music”.  Read more...

2 comments   Music, Theology   , ,