Chris Kidd

How inappropriate is modern music? Church Relevance have highlighted some statistics, where researchers analaysed Billboard magazine’s top 279 most popular songs of 2005 to determine what percentage of songs referenced tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. Here are some highlights from their findings:

• 1 in 3 songs portray substance use (33.3%)

This includes:

• 4 in 5 rap songs (77%)
• 1 in 3 country songs (36%)
• 1 in 5 R&B/hip-hop songs (20%)
• 1 in 7 rock songs (14%)
• 1 in 10 pop songs (9%)

Only 1 in 25 songs have anti-use messages (4%)

The average teenager is exposed daily to approximately 84 references to explicit substance use in popular songs, although this exposure varies widely by musical genre. Although the study did not analyze the frequency of sex and violence in popular music, 46% of substance use references were associated with sex, and 29% were associated with violence.

It is worrying that the average teenager hears 588 messages a week about substance use compared to one message a week from the youth group. A youth leader better make his message count. [via Church Relevance]

Greg Gilbert is continuing his series on church and music, this time including some challenging questions:

• Do you get bored when someone reads a longish passage of Scripture in your church? Do you start wishing they’d get on with the music?
• Do you need music playing in the background for the reading of Scripture to affect your emotions?
• Does a prayer seem too “plain” or “stark” to you if it doesn’t have music playing behind it?
• Do you feel depressed a few weeks after a worship conference because you haven’t felt close to God in a long time?
• Do you desperately look forward to the next conference you’re going to attend because you know that, finally, you’ll be able to feel close to God again?
• If you’re in a big church with great music, are you able to worship when you visit your parents’ small rural church?
• Do you ever feel worshipful in the middle of the week, at work, at school, etc. just because of thinking about God and his grace? Or does that only happen when the music’s playing?
• Do you tend to feel closer to God when you’re alone with your iPOD than you do when you’re gathered with God’s people in your church?
• Do you feel like you just can’t connect with other believers who haven’t had the same “worship experiences” that you have? Can you only connect with other believers who “know what it feels like to really worship?”
• Is your sense of spiritual well-being based more on feeling close to God, or knowing that you are close to God because of Jesus Christ?

• Greg Gilbert on the end of music in churches.
• Bob Kauflin responds with his musical experience and expertise.