The album entitled, “Cannons” by Phil Wickham has inspired me to pursue the art of writing music and lyrics that touch and resonate with the very soul of the human being. Wickham’s opening song “Must I wait” talks about a heart that is longing and waiting for the Lord. All of his songs that follow are about the deep desire he has for finding God and wanting to give up his life to serve the Lord’s kingdom for God’s glory. The human purpose is to be servants of the God who created all the universe, to praise our Jesus Lord of Heaven. His songs profess the majesty, the beauty, and the love of Christ that he preaches to be worthy of praise. The description of the beauty of the Lord is well described in his song called, “You’re beautiful.” Here are the lyrics to this song:
I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You’re beautiful
I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who You are
You’re beautiful, You're beautiful
I see You there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful, you're beautiful
When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful
In the song, “Sailing on a Ship” Wickham describes life as a ‘sailing ship’ that will be hit by storms struggles and problems but he describes in the end of this song something that we can be hopeful for, a ‘golden shore’. Although there is evil all around us our lives are not in vain and we as believers have something to look forward to in the mean time, and that is the very constant steadfast character of Christ that will lead us to that very golden shore some day.
Phil Wickham uniquely portrays the victory Jesus has won over death and darkness in the song, “The Light will come.” It describes the truth that Jesus has overcome the night, death, and darkness but that there is still more to come, that the Light is still coming, and that it will come ultimately on the last day when Christ’s returns for the second time.
Discussion Questions:
1.) Christian Artists like Phil Wickham, Brit Nicole and Natalie Grant have become quite famous the past couple of years (if you haven't heard of any of these artists, shame on you...haha just kidding), How do you feel about the popularity 'contest' of Christian Artists, like the 'top 10 Christian singers/artists of 2009'? Is the whole idea of "GMA (Gospel Music Awards) Dove awards" becoming like "MTV's music awards"? What are the pros and cons?
2.) Some CCM artists like to make music videos that show themselves singing outside in nature with a beautiful background which, in my eyes, promotes only their own self image and nothing more. Videos like these lack the power of recording/filming images that could impact peoples hearts in a totally different way then does Brittany Spear's scandalous music videos. My question is- How do you feel about music videos like this, and do you think that their money could be used for a better cause? What do you think? Or is there a redeeming factor to videos like these?
While i am not familiar with Phil Wickman in particular, i would object to the idea of a 'top 10 christian artists', and even the idea of marketed christian contemporary music. What does it mean to be a top 10 christian artist? Is it based on record sales like almost every other 'top' chart, or on influence, because personally i don't think that many contemporary christian artists of today have a wide impact outside of their very selective 'christian' circles of fans and peers in terms of innovative musical style or themes. So what is it then? Do they have to try and be more 'Christian' than the other CCM artists out there? Does this mean having explicitly Christian lyrics or having the most worshipful song? I feel like another problem that CCM runs into is a very narrow and conservative array of topics for songs. I'm not saying that the things they sing about are bad, but there's a lot to be said for music that is apocalyptic, and i think CCM often doesn't do this. Its' sole target audience is Christians... so i feel like their music is often too tame because we are called by God to subvert the systems of the world. Too often the musicians of CCM write lyrics in a kind of 'me and God' way, and i think this goes along with your second question too about the music video. something about it just doesn't seem right.. like the focus should be elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteSorry if i just totally bashed music that you like.. i'm not saying don't listen to CCM, i've just had some frustration with it in the past.
CCM has morphed in the last ten years so that the genre is now almost entirely worship music (instead of Christian imitations of popular artists). While in many ways this is very good, we are still attempting to fit into the dominant, mainstream model. So we see things like "Top 10 Christian Artists," we have Christian labels owned by one of the big five corporate labels, and we sell worship music for profit.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's a big question that seems to be hanging unanswered for the current CCM industry: how has the empire seeped into the way we distribute worship music? What might a more kingdom-oriented approach look like?
We need to remember that just because something is labeled Christian doesn't mean we can shut off discernment.