Written By: Pastor Tim Smith

The last two weeks of music at the Ballard campus have been unusual.

Two weeks ago Pastor Mark was preaching on worship as part of our Doctrine series. We decided that it would be a good opportunity to emphasize the larger context of worship by stripping things down musically. I stripped it waaaaay down to just me with an acoustic guitar. We haven’t done something that sparse in a long time. It was a very interesting experience. I actually really wrestled with having a band or not. I realized just how dependent I had become on the experience of having a band.

It turned out very well and it was a good reminder that worship comes from hearts before it comes out in music. Stripping things back to just voices with a simple guitar emphasized the fact that the congregation is (or should be) just as much a part of the band as the drummer or guitar player. There’s nothing wrong with the whole band thing but I learned that it can be a very useful exercise to mix things up from time to time. My friend Bob Kauflin had a similar experience.

Part of how I led that day was to intersperse themed passages from the Psalms working through a progression from lament to praise. I began with a great song of lament, “It is Well With My Soul,” and ended with a joyful rendition of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” We read the Psalm passages together as a congregation; it was powerful to hear the word read with one voice and then fill the room with song. I realized that I have never done congregational readings except at the very beginning of a service. I’m not sure why but it’s something I will likely use more of in the future.

You can hear a recording of “Amazing Grace” from that day here.

Then, last Sunday, we did something in our evening services that has never happened at Mars Hill: hip hop! To be honest it’s pretty difficult to get more white than Mars Hill. We’ve talked and almost dreamed about a day when we could add hip hop to the list of musical styles we use in corporate worship. Unfortunately this was only a one week thing but we were blessed to have Lacrea and Tedashi from Reach Records join Joel Brown and Red Letter for a song. Check out the video here.

Lacrea and Tedashi along with Trip Lee, Sho Baraka and a number of other artists did a concert last Tuesday at MH Ballard and they are the real deal. They are tremendous artists as well as outstanding missionaries to hip hop culture in general. I was able to get them in the studio for a series of interviews on worship, hip hop and redeeming culture that will be posted in the near future.

I praise God to be at a church where I have the trust and freedom to follow my convictions, go with the Ghost and try new ideas. At the end of the day I think the only way to keep musical style from becoming an idol is to mix it up as much as possible. You can’t change it up so much that your people can’t even follow you but a good rotation of musical styles and dialects keeps folks on their toes. It emphasizes that music is just one of a “thousand tongues” with which we can declare the glory of Jesus Christ.

So mix it up. Try something new. Go back to something old. Just make sure you explain what you’re doing and why. Make sure Jesus is always the only mediator of God’s presence. And always make sure that He looks much, much, much better than you.