Inspirational Music?

Monday night, in the car with Liam, I scanned through radio stations until I found a Christmas carol. It turned out to be a station playing Christian pop music. I don't usually listen to this stuff, but occasionally I like to check out a different genre just to stay familiar with what's popular and perhaps discover something new that I like.

We did hear one song that I enjoyed, How Great Is Our God, which is a lovely hymn with sort of a We Are The World vibe.

The rest of them made me want to vomit. There was a preachy one, a couple of love songs that (surprise!) turn out to be about Jesus, and the worst of all: a story about an ecstatic altar call. Some guy had never been to church before, and he tried it as a last resort, and changed his life around, blah blah blah. What bothers me about lyrics like this is that my experience being a life-long Christian has been nothing like that. Yet in Christian contemporary music, dramatic conversions and transformational moments seem to happen all the time. So either these songwriters are being dishonest, or I am a real loser.

I find these songs more depressing than inspiring. I mean, is something wrong with me? Honestly I don't often have strong emotions about God; faith is a way of life that requires discipline, and in many ways it's mundane. In worship, I'm too busy discouraging Liam from kicking the people in front of us to have any transcendent thoughts. I can only hope that if God's grace is free, it doesn't require me to be paying attention.

I suppose a song about that wouldn't sell many albums.