I’m so over musicians saying, “God gave me this song.”
No, I’m not saying God didn’t give you the song. You just don’t need to say it.
When you say, “God gave me this song,” it’s like you’re saying, “You have to like this, ’cause it’s from GOD.”
Of course, the same applies to preachers and teachers who use God-talk to claim the truth of what they are saying. Truth eventually will speak for itself.
Brad Bull
One truth history teaches is this: For all the good things leaders can do, there exists a pitfall of being loved and admired by the people we serve. While serving others is a source of joy, the service should be joy in and of itself; if our goal becomes gaining adulation for our service, we are being manipulative if we fish for it — whether through the delivery of a song, a sermon or a chicken casserole.
When we say, “God gave me this song,” even if God did give that song, a skeptic like me will say, “OK, maybe God gave you that song; that doesn’t mean God intended it for everyone.” Furthermore, the “God gave me” language comes off as a defense mechanism for an insecure person to force people to like the song because it’s from God.
And there’s the rub. As opposed to a cynic, a vulnerable congregant is likely to go along and think they have to like the song (or sermon) because it’s from God. And that’s how the defense mechanism for the insecure leader works. If the congregation doesn’t like the song or message? Well, it’s not that the listeners don’t like the deliverer’s material or performance, it’s that they don’t like God’s chosen melody, lyrics and key. In the manipulative preacher’s case: the congregation is rejecting God’s wording, cadence and delivery.
Worship services — from music to proclamation — involve elements of performance. Sermons rarely get published and repeated the way songs are, so it seems the performance-oriented pitfalls are quicker and deeper for musicians.
“Performance-oriented pitfalls are quicker and deeper for musicians.”
The nerves involved in performance require soothing, and it’s easy for defense mechanisms to become spiritualized.
For instance, I was visiting a church during a Sunday evening hymn sing. (I think I once heard a Christian comedian tell a story very similar to this, so it’s not just me.) A woman went to the pulpit to sing a solo. She first spoke through sobs saying: “I grew up singing, but I stopped. Recently, God told me that if I didn’t use my gift, he was going to take it away.” After composing herself, she nodded at the accompanist and started singing. I guarantee you, every honest person in that church was thinking, “Too late.”
To be fair, I don’t think humorist Garrison Keillor has a beautiful singing voice, but I love hearing him sing because it feels to come from his heart. Maybe God isn’t a voice-taking Ursula from Little Mermaid. Maybe congregations need a combination of the excellence of polish and the humility of amateurish — just without attributing either to direct intervention from God.
Speaking of a congregation’s needs, I once chaperoned a church youth group outing to a regional denominational event at a water park. Several hundred teens and adults spent the day in the scorching hot sun, climbing ladders on water slides and treading water in the massive wave pool. At the end of the day, we were herded to a giant pavilion.
I had not known the day was to end with a worship service. The timing was a bit short-sighted by the organizers. The processional of brain-dead worshippers looked like a scene from The Walking Dead.
A praise band from a local church started playing. You know the type. “HELLO, BELIEVERS! LET’S ALL STAND UP AND OFFER PRAISE TO OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!”
They might as well have been playing to university Greeks on a Sunday morning after a booze-baptized Saturday night home football game. The zombified hung-over brothers and sisters were having nothing of it. The music felt like hammers to the head. The lead singer’s hyperactivity with that congregation felt like the Village People were singing YMCA at Lady Di’s funeral.
“Don’t use spiritualized exhortations to inflict guilt on a bunch of kids.”
If your song doesn’t match the setting and audience, certainly don’t use spiritualized exhortations to inflict guilt on a bunch of kids. So help me, in response to the bedraggled congregation who started taking their seats rather than standing with arms in “touchdown Jesus” position, the leader of churchy “Village People” got all huffy, and she scolded, “Come on, y’all! Our savior is worthy of praise! Stand up and show your love to Jesus!”
When only a few people-pleasers stood, the song-leader’s face looked like an eighth grade queen bee who just found out the captain of the football team had dumped her and was going to the homecoming dance with “Oh. My. Gah! Katelinn Summersby?!”
I wanted to go up, take her mic, apologize to the abused teens and offer a prayer for good sleep in the vans on the way home. I wish I had. Maybe I would have if I had been awake on the front row instead of near comatose on the back row.
What happened on that stage was that the “worship” leader’s feelings were hurt that the congregation wasn’t excited about her music. The attention of the leader was not on the needs of the congregation but on the leader’s need for affirmation.
Guilting the congregation for that is manipulative. It’s easy to see how a congregant would feel demeaned for being tired, so the leader’s behavior was abusive. It’s easy to see how one of those young people — especially a visitor — might have subsequently shrugged off church and faith.
That made the leader’s behavior a stumbling block, and Jesus and his allegorical millstone were pretty clear about the severity of that.
Now, I can hear people saying, “But Moses said God gave him the Ten Commandments. Jonah said he was puked up by a whale to bring a message to Nineveh. Paul said he was blinded by the light and had a message from God.” True. But God asked Moses to bring along Aaron. And neither Jonah nor Paul exactly rushed onto the stage with visions of a Dove Award.
God’s messages tend to have multiple witnesses and come not with a supply of gel pens but the ink of blood, sweat and tears.
I’m not going to clarify the deeper issues of the doctrine of inspiration here. I just want to gently suggest, if God gave you a song, just sing it.
Brad Bull has served as a hospital chaplain, pastor and university professor. He currently works as a licensed marriage and family therapist in Tennessee and Virginia. He is a freelance writer and speaker whose services may be accessed at DrBradBull.com.