Last Sunday's sermon, Pastor Chris had a catchy phrase: Don't ask what would Jesus do, ask what did Jesus say. It's great phrase when in context - those who ask what would Jesus do, normally do not know who Jesus truly is, they based Him off of their own version of Jesus, their own basis for what a nice guy would be. In that case, this phrase works. On the other hand, which I won't bicker about too much, is that if you truly know Jesus and wish to imitate Jesus, of course that's begging the question: WWJD?
On Contemporary Christian Music, I am glad Keith Getty, a CCM artist, lamented about the direction of CCM today. Temporary euphoria. I find that I must begin to look deeper into this as our church began to incorporate CCM more intently. What I need to look for and find lacking, is the critique on the musical composition of Christian music. Everywhere I look, the discussions are always about the lyrics, which is definitely most important, but the musical composition, melody, dynamic use, harmony, chords, etc. these I believe firmly also require sacred treatment, not just the lyrics. There is a meaning to why Holy Holy Holy repeats 3 times (Trinity) and the harmonization contrasts ascending tunes with descending (men's prayer to God vs. God's grace upon men), I can only find a hint of such talk if I attend, say, a workshop on Bach's St. Matthew Passion. This is my lament to God. Where were the geniuses God has gifted in Bach's time. After knowing David Chin, not personally, a Malaysian conductor promoting the works of Bach, I realized that it seems that in the East, we are doing careful theological analysis of church music while in the West, they lack such pursuit, especially in the church, their limit is only in the lyrics, not the music composition - why? Perhaps due to the disease of "don't judge", judging creativity is something Western post-modernism is getting very weak at now. But I should start looking into this, since the church I love maybe invaded by Contemporary Christian Music.
I couldn't find the video now, but Steve Lawson in I believe 2017, during GRII's Refo500, was interviewed in a van for what he thought about the Indonesian church. His response was Adrian Rogers' is the biggest. I think Adrian Rogers was the name mentioned, an American Baptist preacher. Of course, I thought to myself, you are comparing megachurches between a Christian country and a Muslim country, are you out of your mind?! Though I would really love to get my hands on all those recordings, Refo500. Must be great.
Recollecting this video, which during Professor Robert Kelly's BBC interview his little half Korean girl and toddler danced into his unlocked virtual interview office. Seeing now there are 51M+ views, the social media once debated about how Kelly raised his children, whether he abused them or not. I would just want to add here that there are 3 scenarios where someone in Kelly's shoe would react:
- As shown in the video - trying to respect his interview and apologizes while not displaying any extreme reaction towards his children, but trying to push them away which interpreted by some ultra-sensitive type as abuse.
- Scolds his children and be angry and look bad on public television.
- Just sits there, non-apologetic, letting his children roam about like they own the world, facing the camera with the attitude of "What are you going to do about it" - That's what the progressive, BLM, etc. movements today love. It's all about me, my benefit, my like, my etc.