Tag Archives: consumerism

Sentimental Saturdays and Message Mondays (How Fast do we Consume Music?)

Gone are the days when you can appreciate music for what it really is- a song to be savoured, a song to be listened to again and again, with every listen a new meaning is imparted to whomever listens. With the advent of Spotify, youtube, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora and every other musical service at your fingertips, skipping songs seems to be the norm nowadays. Listening to a song to death, until another track comes along, seems to be all the rage, when in fact sometimes we are called to just sit and mull over a song more than usual. Often, we may be so hasty to move onto the next new song, that we may skip over things that God may even want to say to us. We may be in fact rushing so fast from one thing to the next (music is a clear example) that we may miss what God may have in store entirely. Which is why this new post for Sentimental Saturdays is about lament, lamenting that how we have listened to music in the past (really listening to the tracks, because without the ease of access of music, we are forced to focus on what the lyrics really mean for us as people) is sadly how listeners of music don’t listen to music now. We live in a now-centred (and me-centred) society, that any hint of anything taking longer than expected is shafted, for the new, quick and convenient.

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Message Mondays: Building Up Our Kingdoms (Casting Crowns’ “American Dream”)

casting crowns

Welcome to another Message Mondays post (which was originally going to be a Throwback Tuesdays post- funny how God works and what He puts in your heart when you’re typing away!); this week we are delving into the topic of consumerism, trying to build our own kingdoms up, and what the Bible says about that (as a continuation of the TV show review of Selfie, which was about a young woman obsessed with improving her image for self-gain). I’ll also be linking that topic to probably one of the most confronting CCM songs over the past decade- “American Dream” by CCM/pop/rock 7-piece band Casting Crowns.

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Futuristic Fridays (The Future of Worship)

futuristic fridays- worship

I love worship music. If I analyse myself carefully, I can say that the one ‘style’- if you will- of music that I am always consistently pleased about and enjoy on a regular basis is music that is of a worshipful atmosphere. That’s not to say that CCM, pop and rock music aren’t great, but if I were to pick one music style to listen to from here on, I’d pick worship. With so many artists providing us with great songs for the church and songs for personal reflection and praise, from Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Crowder, All Sons and Daughters, and Gungor, to John Mark McMillan, Phil Wickham, Jesus Culture, Tim Hughes and Hillsong; worship, the genre of worship, and the whole atmosphere of worship music and the marketability of it towards younger generations, is always changing, forever reminding us of the wide variety of views and attitudes to worship music, and what it considered to be good, bad, unique or even terrible worship music to begin with.

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