For Griffin Kozminski
This year is the first for me to be a parent during Advent and Christmas, and I have been enjoying the new perspectives it brings. I have heard many new fathers say that they found a new kind of love after the brith of their first child that they did not expect. While that is true, describing the experience of parenthood is not just a deeper sense of love, but a wider and expanded emotional palette. With the sense of joy and love for children also comes a more tangible desire for family and a heavier awareness of what could easily go wrong. Fear is often the dark side of love, and we want to hold on to whatever we can control.

When I was a boy, my family made a trip down south to visit my great, great, grandfather's farm, where seemingly mythical family stories were true; stories of lopsided cows, losing land rights while gambling, bareback horse riding, and eloping children. Scotch-Irish hillbilly blood runs deep in my own story, but setting foot for the first time on the remains of an Appalachian mountain farm felt like a foreign land. I realize now that is probably exactly how my kin felt when they too, as poor immigrants, first set foot on the mountain they would later call their own. I can still hear my great grandmother talk about seeing her first airplane fly above her while working in the fields on the side of a mountain. It was no wonder then, that I was completely awe-struck when my distant uncle, the last remaining relative on the mountain, brought out a wooden box of Native American (probably Cherokee) arrowheads he found over time while plowing the fields with his tractor. I had only seen Hollywood portrayals of "Indians" as a small boy, and getting to hold authentic artifacts of past hunters and warriors was a dream come true. I sat there, in the living room of a nice trailer house, imagining someone sculpting and sharpening every ridge of the stones I held. One, in particular, was perfect. Jet black, and perfectly symmetrical, I just knew as a little boy, that someone had taken great pride in making and using it. "Maybe a bear was killed with this... maybe a human? Why was it discarded? I bet someone was sorry they lost it..." To my astonishment, our host offered it to us as a gift. I could not believe his generosity, but my surprise quickly turned into envy, and later that night, my siblings and I got into an argument about it. We all wanted it, not to appreciate its history or craft, but as a toy for our own pleasure. I had quickly turned cultural gratuity into an entertainment novelty. And then it happened. I can still feel the snap of the tip as I broke it while trying to test its strength. My father was furious and my siblings were angry. We tried to glue it back together, but it just was not the same. Sorrow, shame, regret, embarrassment; I felt all of them, but it was not until many years later that I realized why. ​

If Christian worship is only about music and ritual, style and form quickly become the most important aspects of our communities.  As a boy, I tried to use a gift intended to honor our relationship with deep family roots as a tool for my individualized imaginations. I did not feel shame only because something old was damaged. As beautiful as the arrowhead was, I was sad because I knew that I had treated my family's trust with disregard. When the church treats worship like I treated that arrowhead, we end up using cultural treasures for selfish gratification. As beautiful as worship is, when it becomes about the experience, we end up breaking the gifts God has given us and scorn our relationships with him and his people. We try to "fix the problem of style" in our churches, but the glue we use only fixes our rituals, and not our hearts. 

As a leader and trainer of worship, I feel the weight of cultural trust and expectation continually. Everyone comes to worship with different cultural expectations, and as they walk into the room, I feel the potential for both trust and doubt escalate. The way in which we hold each other's cultural artifacts during worship has great potential to build trust in a community, but it also has great potential to break the beautiful tools God has given us. At its core, worship is a spiritual expression of our love of God, but all human expressions come from a cultural context. Therefore, all worship is both intensely spiritual and intensely cultural. In a ministry, church, and country that is increasingly multi-cultural, my job as a worship leader and trainer is incredibly exciting. But as I hold an armful of different cultural expectations and try to faithfully steward different communities to express devotion to God, it is also incredibly exhausting. More than ever, I am aware that I cannot accomplish anything on my own, and I am deeply reliant on a network of people who pray against the dividing nature of the Devil and for the unifying love of the Spirit. Will you pray for me? Will you pray with me, that the church would be equipped to worship in its full range of expression? 

Now, as an adult, when I hold the arrowhead, I am still in awe of its story and beauty. The fact that I damaged it in my youth is no longer a source of shame. Instead, it reminds me of the part I play in my family's history and leads me to humbly accept my own faults. An object that once caused my isolation is now something that unites me to my family. As the global Church worships, we bring all sorts of damaged pieces of ourselves, and as I teach others to worship, my hope is to help them see these fragments not as problems to hide away and avoid, but as opportunities for redeeming acts of worship. Will you pray with me that the Church, specifically the next generation of worship leaders, would be equipped to graciously enable the saints to offer their broken fragments to God as a spiritual act of worship? ​

While "worship" may be a word we all use, the practical, day to day nature of how Christians worship is diverse and multifaceted. The current vocabulary that people use to "like" or "dislike" worship resources forces people to polarize around a few narrow concepts and we miss the broad range of what music, God's word, and culture can offer. Instead, I have tried to develop vocabulary that is easy to use, gracious to a broad audience, and practical for Christians who are trying to find new resources. I avoid criteria such as "it's good or bad", rather, I have made four spectrums of worship elements that, when well done, help us worship with a broad range of usefulness. These criteria assume that the lyrics are true, the songs are well written, they are worshipfully useful, and stylistically flexible.

This simple visual review system is designed for quick access on your instagram feed, so head over there and follow new posts! Here is how it works:

​SCRIPTURE USAGE
This spectrum measures how an album or song uses scripture. Many worship songs, while not quoting scripture directly, are clearly inspired by or are concepts from a particular verse. An example of this is Bethel's No Longer Slaves,​ which is taken generally from Romans, but expands into other themes.  However, many songs use direct scripture word-for-word, or verbatim, as their lyrical content, such as Kevin Twit and Mac Purdy's version of Psalm 73. By placing scripture usage on a scale from direct quotation to derivative theology, the conversation about lyrical content can become less antagonistic between Christian traditions and hopefully more useful for actual worship services. 

Participation Purpose
This spectrum measures how a church or individual should engage with the music. Songs that are strong on the singing end means that a church could sing these songs as part of corporate worship. This includes singable melodies, rhythms, lyrics, ranges... However, what is singable in my church may not be singable in a different church. The sing-ability spectrum is based on the composers original audience, not all churches for all people. On the flip side, songs that are too complicated or vague for the congregation to sing are often designed to be listening songs for faith, either through personal use or special music. The goal for this spectrum is to help people differentiate between helpful songs that inspire them and songs that are suitable for singing at church. 
 
LYRICAL STRUCTURE
This spectrum measures how the lyrics, or structure of the the song, function. Some song, like I Love You Lord, by Laurie Klein, spend time simply reflecting on an idea or feeling in worship. These songs are often also called Praise & Worship, have less lyrical content, and more dramatic or repetitive structures. However, reflecting songs can also be older hymns, like I Need Thee Every Hour, which stays focused on one idea. Expanding type songs focus on beginning with one idea and following it until it resolves. They tend to have more lyrics and less repetition, but could be from different musical styles. Many hymns, like Come Ye Sinners, are an example of this, but O Praise The Name, by Hillsong, follow the whole story of Christ's death, resurrection, and then our resurrection, so would be considered developing. 

WHERE YOU HEAR IT
This spectrum measures where the song or album can be heard. Widespread music are songs that literally have a large following, like K-Love, Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation etc. Or it can also be songs the broader culture knows, like Amazing Grace or In Christ Alone. Contextual music is anything that has a smaller audience, but is still known and used in those contexts. Some examples of this are the retuned hymn movement, independent contemporary artists, and global music. The key to this spectrum is that it measures how likely other people will be familiar with the music, -not- exactly what it sounds like. There are way too many cultures, styles, and genres to try and classify in a helpful way.  

What do you think?
My goal is to make finding worship music easier and more helpful to a broad audience. Let me know what you think! Feedback is important to developing helpful resources. If there is a song or album you think I should review, let me know! 

​Here are the slides and an audio recording of my Jubilee 2016 workshop on the Spiritual Life of an Artist.