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)

4 Things My Music Minister Does Well

At my small church we are blessed with a crew of strong ministers with good ideas and strong ministries. I previously mentioned my pastor as someone from whom other ministers can learn, but my music minister is quite worthy of emulation, as well.

Here are four reason why:

1 - He's smart. Really smart.

One day, I casually mentioned Irenaeus' view on original sin and my music minister chimed in and compared it to other parts of Irenaeus' theology. Not many people can do that. We've discussed late medieval mystics like John of the Cross and more modern writers like Watchman Nee. (Note: I'm not saying that he does or does not endorse all of these writings - I'm just saying that he's familiar with them.) He leads modern worship with an acoustic guitar, but he's not a frustrated rock star trying to use the church as his concert hall.

Man, that was the weirdest version ever of "His banner over me is love." We were all glad when John was done going through his "Greek" phase.

2 - He listens and tries new things

If no one at church responds to certain songs than he considers getting rid of them - there's no reason to lead songs no one wants to hear. He's not a pushover or a crowd pleaser, mind you, he's just wise about interpreting feedback. There are a lot of songs out there and there's no reason not to pick songs that send the right message that are also enjoyable for the audience.

3 - He reads my blog

That's all that matters. Just kidding. But he makes an effort to keep up with what's going on. Which probably involves reading my blog.

"Now, we've never met before, have we?" (John regularly incorporated magic tricks into the service until the pastor preached on Simon the Magician. Things got awkward.)

4 - Content. Content. Content.

My music minister is not interested in winning awards or recording worship CDs that will be the "cutting edge" of Christian music - he is interested in pastoring a flock through music. Theology is learned through songs as well as sermons and, thus, music ministry is not a responsibility to be taken lightly. A wise music minister does not ask his church to sing a song with weak theology just because it sounds good or happens to go along with the other songs well. And if the music minister at my church can't find a tune that adequately teaches a certain point, he simply writes a new song of his own - which is awesome.