imagine

I don’t know about you but I can’t imagine worship without instruments, all kinds of instruments. I know there are denominations that conduct worship services without music accompaniment even today (like the Primitive Baptists, Church of Christ and the Amish, sorry don’t mean to offend) but I’d find it hard to hang in with acapella singing or chanting week after week. Instrumental worship was not widely practiced until the 18th century, and it was opposed vigorously by notable Christian scholars such as Justin Martyr (100–165), John Calvin (1509–1564), and John Wesley (1703–1791). That from the very reliable source, Wikipedia! Maybe it’s something you have to grow up with. I actually grew up with an organ or piano accompanying the singing in the churches I went to as a kid. I’d have a hard time today if that’s all we had for instruments for worship. So I’m very thankful for that guy Larry Norman I mentioned recently. Pastor Darian (http://anuncommongrace.wordpress.com/) reminded me that Larry had passed away earlier this year, steering me to a Randy Stonehill recording with all the artists and bands we listened to in the early 70’s as young Christians. So this blog is a tribute to our old friend, Larry Norman, who broke the mold and introduced Christian Rock to the Church. Thank you, Lord, for his life. He was brave enough to confront more than two millennia of instrument starved worship, taking up where King David had left off (Ps 150), bringing guitars and drums back into our worship and opening the door for so much more. I bet the Lord was so glad to hear the creativity of it all. Even as I write this I can hear the grumblings of an earlier generation calling it sacrilegious and irreverent and I feel like a rebel again. But we wanted to express our adoration of our Savior through the form of music we were most familiar with and that was rock. It wasn’t to reach the lost in that day (like being relevant is today) as much as it was our generation’s true form of expression. In fact in the beginning, like most of the early efforts at using new media, some of it wasn’t even very good. It wasn’t done as creatively or radically as the world’s rock but we believers didn’t care, we still loved it. It was our way to worship. So here’s to Larry. Thanks again, brother. Rock on!