New Segment: Behind the Music

This is the first of a regular series entitled “Behind the Music”. It will be obvious to many of you (“many”, Matt? Fourth post, and you think there are “many”? More like mini¦) that this name was taken from the popular VH1 series from the 90s. If you do not remember this show, make sure to check out the Metallica episode. Any metal or hair band, really. There are some entertaining stories behind their music, to say the least.

We do a great number of original songs at @V21Church, hymns and originals make up 85% of our regular rotation. This is because we are inspired by the Psalms, which are the original worship songs of God’s people. Mainly, God’s love, mercy and revelation draw us to praise him. He is constantly teaching us, growing us, and loving us. We can’t help but respond, and this comes in different manners. If you’re a teacher, you’ll teach for God’s glory. A construction worker builds for God’s glory and not his own. A clown, well, no offense to any clowns reading this, but I just don’t like clowns, and have a hard time seeing how you’re glorifying God by making children cry. Point is, if you’re a songwriter or musician, one way you respond to God is by writing music.

Somehow, this art of response is seen as uncommon today. The majority of churches simply sing worship songs written by others. Not only that, but there is a great deal of pressure for worship leaders to stay on top of the “latest” worship songs. I see several issues with this, but first let me say there’s nothing wrong with worshiping through songs written by others. Our gifts are to be used for the edification, or building up and encouragement, of the church body, whether it’s the corporate body or the local church.

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
1 Corinthians 12:7

While this can be applied for the church, I’ve seen firsthand the effect of carrying this out within the specific local church. When we study scripture, and God blesses us with a song from that scripture, it’s as if we’re in the midst of the Triune God. God the Father reveals himself to us, and then it’s almost as if God the Spirit says “and here is how you respond”. As musicians from the church work on songs, the sound is organic, growing out of the local culture and scene. The songs written in-house at Vintage21 are the ones we know and love the best, the songs we own and treasure. A few weeks back I met someone after the service who asked about a song written by @TaylorRobertsOK called “You Made It All”. She asked if that was one of the original songs for Vintage21, and said it was obvious that song was special to our congregation. We’ve only sung that one three times in 2008, yet people just raise their hearts every time.

This site is meant to be a resource for worshipers of God, specifically at Vintage21 Church, so look for this segment at worship.vintage21.com, as we feature original songs and tell the story and share the scripture (cue theme song) -Behind The Music.