Listen to this: Borderland

I'm slow to take to new music -- especially new Christian music. I've heard the name John Mark McMillan floating around for the last couple of years, but I never bothered to listen. This March, McMillan released Borderland, and I started to see and hear his name even more. After two friends with trusted musical taste both insisted, on the same day, that I give this work a listen, I succumbed and watched this video of Borderland's first single, "First/Last."

I instantly liked it. As a worship leader, I'm always on the look out for songs that work corporately (that is, they are singable, memorable, and true), but that approach old concepts in a unique way. "First/Last" accomplished this goal nicely, so I looked up the rest of the album, expecting to hear more similar worship songs.

What I heard instead was a sonically surprising fusion of rock, pop, folk, and gospel, grounded in McMillan's enjoyably gritty baritone, and lyrics that would more likely appear in a literature class than in Sunday school. All McMillan's songs passed the musical side of my "corporate worship test" with their instant hummability, but the instrumentation -- which starts with contemporary worship's acoustic-guitar-fronted-rock band, but is deepened by lush strings and successful experiments with 80s synth and electronic elements -- would be unlikely in most church worship services. Most unlikely, however, are the beautiful lyrics, that seem to exult in ambiguity, thought-provoking figurative language, and evocative imagery. Take the album's opening invocation, "Holy Ghost:"

Dead in the water
Like lamb to the slaughter
If the wind doesn’t sing her song
And I’m speaking in tongues
Cause I need a Holy Ghost

It's not exactly what you'd hear at church on Pentecost Sunday. Even the album's perfectly singable single, "Future/Past," broadens the Christian vocabulary for speaking about the mysteries of God with lines like, "The constellations are swimming inside The breadth of your desire," before launching into the song's catchy chorus: "You are my first/you are my last/ You are my future and my past..." Here, cliches ordinarily applied to romantic love take on more resonance when sung to a lilting triple meter that, in the chorus's last line, seems to fluctuate and expand, demonstrating musically the mystery of a powerful, benevolent creator who exists beyond the confines of time.

And getting beyond confines is really what this entire album is about. Borderland is an album about the space between spaces, the "already-but-not-yet" of life lived between the fall and the fullness of restoration, when Christ's kingdom has come, but is not yet complete. McMillan luxuriates in the tension of this space, the place "on this side of the thunder" ("Holy Ghost"), "on the brink" ("Love at the End"), where we "see the light of heaven's porch" though we're stuck "outside [the] chain-link fence" ("Borderlands"). McMillan underscores the tension inherent in his theme by dwelling in musical borderlands -- between CCM and Indie-pop; between corporate and individual; between stadium rock and coffeehouse folk; between the strange and the familiar. And while you may never hear more from this album than "Future/Past" in a worship service, Christians and non-Christians alike will enjoy and benefit from spending some time in the musical and spiritual limbo of Borderland. 

(Note: After looking into Borderland, I realized that I already loved John Mark McMillan for penning the worship song "How He Loves."  See more lyrics here: http://johnmarkmcmillan.com/lyrics)

5 faith-shaping CCM songs

In light of Adam's post last week about why Christian music is still important, I thought I'd share 5 songs that came from the Contemporary Christian Music genre that have played crucial roles in shaping my faith.

1. "Let There Be Light" by Andrew Peterson. I can think of no better song to summarize the beauty and importance of God's creation relative to our human ability to create in God's image. As I have struggled through my own music and writing projects and through the mundane tasks of ordinary life, I just have to remember Andrew Peterson's words:  "And the work of our hands is the salt of the earth/and the music we make is the light of the world/let it shine, let it shine, let it shine..."

2. "Meant to Live" by Switchfoot. It's really hard to pick just one Switchfoot song, especially from their bestselling album Beautiful Letdown. This one was a mega hit for the band, but I never got tired of its discussion of longing and hope for a better life: "we want more than the wars of our fathers/ and everything inside screams for second life..."

3. "He's Alive," by Don Francisco. This one goes way back, and it's one of my earliest memories of Christian music. In folk-ballad style, Don Francisco relates the tale of the morning of Christ's resurrection, and it's still a moving and hair-raising telling of the story. What we don't know at first is that the story is told from Peter's perspective, and the world-changing significance of the Resurrection becomes intensely personal. When Peter first hears rumors of the resurrection, he thinks, bitterly, "When at last it came to choices, I denied I knew His name/ And even if He was alive, It wouldn't be the same." But when he does see the Resurrected Christ, he encounters a forgiving Lord with open arms: "Guilt in my confusion/ Disappeared in sweet release/ And every fear I'd ever had/ Just melted into peace." Finally, after a Bob-Dylan-worthy eight verses, the song breaks into its hook and refrain: "He's alive, he's alive, he's alive, and I'm forgiven; heaven's gates are open wide."

4. "Shifting Sand," by Caedmon's Call. Even though I've been listening to this album since high school, this song didn't really hit me until college, when the refrain, "My faith is like shifting sand, so I stand on grace," finally came home for me as I began to understand that everything -- even my faith -- was a miraculous work of God's grace.

5. "If I Stand," by Rich Mullins. It's also extremely difficult to pick just one Rich Mullins song, but if I could only have one of his beautiful and insightful pieces, it would be this one, because it sums up most of what I want to say about why and how I believe -- there's "a music higher than the songs that I can sing, but the stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the Giver of all good things, so If I stand, let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through, and if I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you..."

Now, I'd love to hear from you: have any songs, Christian or otherwise, shaped what you believe? (Christian or otherwise)

How a Local Church Taught Me to Love Music Again

I'll never forget the first time I played a guitar. I was hanging out in the school band hall when my buddy, Jake, found a long, rectangular box in one of the practice rooms and found a guitar inside. He started playing and I immediately begged him to teach me. We started hanging out in that practice room every day, making music and rocking out. The ability to create moods and ideas with these instruments was our journey and we never looked back.

I knew that I wanted to make music for the rest of my life. My band director had helped me to become a darned good trumpet player, and by the time I was in high school I found myself pouring over music theory books and learning to play every instrument I could get my hands on. (Yes, there are some people who will read a theory book like it's Harry Potter.)

Reality came crashing into my life when I learned that there aren't many ways to make a living at music. The artists who are successful are the ones who can afford to market themselves, and if you don't look like a model you quickly learn that no one cares about your art. (The picture I've attached should easily demonstrate why I'm not a household name.)

The people who run the music labels are not concerned with making quality music, preferring to give pre-written songs to good-looking people that they parade around like in front of cameras. It's worse for the ladies; the entertainment industry is entirely dependent on its ability to exploit young girls, and few women become celebrities without taking off their clothes.

I also noticed that no one liked music the way I did. The crowds wanted celebrities and dance parties, not six strings and the truth. It dawned on me that computer work was my future, not music, and that it didn't matter if I was any good, because no one wanted to hear what I had to offer. To put it bluntly, no one cares about music. (Don't believe me? Ask someone who their favorite guitar player is. Most people can't think of one.)

Then I found a small church that needed an electric guitar player and wanted to know if I could help. It was exactly what I needed. I spent weeks designing and building a new pedal board and proudly played my semi-hollow body Epiphone with the church band. I added blues solos to songs that obviously needed them, and my groovy, psychedelic effects transformed boring songs into deep meditations. I was playing my overdriven guitar as loudly as I could, and the congregation loved it.

I had to move on, but my next church (where I'm currently serving) had even more challenges for me. Musicians love challenges. I have sat at the piano and found new melodies for old songs, and I've brought my mandolin on stage to bring an upbeat, old-style feel to familiar music. These days, I'm usually playing the bass, an instrument that can change the course of a service with a single note, and looking down a that instrument I am easily reminded of how I felt when I first picked up a guitar.

In our most recent Christmas season, we worked hard to create dark, somber music that brought out the intense feelings of longing so we could remember our need for redemption. Shaping songs like this is exactly why I fell in love with music, and church is the only place where I've ever been asked to do it.

I'm not a celebrity, and I don't make any money with my songs, but I do have a regular music gig that's incredibly fulfilling. Every week I play to a captive audience as we explore music, together, in a way that leads us to a better understanding of God. I no longer consider myself a frustrated musician, because I found what I was looking for on a small, local stage.

(For the curious, my friend Jake - the one who taught me to play - has an interesting story you may want to read.)