Music is a big part of my life. I don't go more than an hour or two with out poppin my iPod in my ears. By my calculations I listen to music for a minimum of 90 minutes every day. With the average song lasting about 3 minutes that means I hear about 30 different songs throughout my day. I have the one of the most random itunes libraries I've ever seen. It is about 7,000 songs ranging from musicals to country(like 10 songs) to worship to heavy metal and everything in between... like I said... random. Many youth pastors strongly encourage students to listen to only Christian music. While I do encourage young people to steer clear of secular media, I have to admit that a large chunk of my music is not by Christians. I do avoid content that is profane, violent or sexual in nature, but if it is clean and has a good message chances are I'll give it a listen. I wish the Christians had better music... however, that is a whole different discussion. I think what you can "handle" listening to depends on your current spiritual level & how much that music affects you.
Time to contradict myself... you cannot say that the music wont affect you. Humans are very impressionable beings and what we let in is what will come out. We can see this natural principle in the Word of God. Matthew 12: 34 tells us that "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Whatever you let into your eyes and ears does make its way into your heart. I know that by listening to love songs you aren't just going to fall in love. I also know that listening to the Wicked soundtrack doesn't make you believe in witchcraft. I understand that your music does not directly change your thoughts, but it does start to play in your mind and heart. One of the greatest attributes of music is that it has the ability to make you feel things when you hear it. There are songs that can make you happy, sad enough to cry or pumped up to work out. This is where the fast comes in.
Over spring break I got to spend a few days at Southeastern University with my oldest friend, and a guy that I just met (but I am sure that I will stay friends with). During one of our many conversations throughout the weekend the guys told me about a fast that they had done. They said that they set aside a certain amount of time and listened to only worship music. I told them that it sounded like a really cool idea, but I left it at that. Throughout break and my first week back at school I just continued to listen to random music. Lots of the usual pop-punk and Christian jams (Christian doesn't necessarily mean that the music is about Christ... anyone else notice that?) I have gotten really jaded by worship music lately. Other than a few standout artists (David Crowder Band, Hillsong London, Worth Dying For just to name a few) all of our current worship music sounds the same. I realized this when my sister asked me if a band was gospel before I put the CD in. She assumed in advance that the CD would be boring if it was Christian just because that is the lovely reputation that we have given ourselves. God has recently birthed a strong new desire in me to write worship music that kids like my sister will actually enjoy listening to. I have gotten off-topic, but all that to say that worship music is not the majority of what I've been listening to.
This weekend I started listening to worship music a lot more again. No reason really, I just came across a Planetshakers CD in my library that I haven't listened to in a while and got addicted to it again. Through the weekend I kept listening and then sunday I wrote a new worship song. I haven't written a full song in a long time. And as far as upbeat songs for worship this is the first one. That is when it hit me. What I was pouring into my ears & spirit all weekend through listening to worship had came out of me through my writing. This morning I remembered what Brandon & Justin told me of in Florida and I have now started my fast. From now until next week I won't be listening to anything but worship music as long as I can help it. I am not just doing this to improve my worship songwriting, but to renew my mind. The same renewal that we receive through reading the Word can come to us through listening to it in music. For as much as I listen to music I know that using this time to worship will put my focus on God for much of my day. I'll be blogging about this again in a week to let you know the great things that God did through this time. I encourage you to pray about it and give this fast a try for yourself. If you do it please leave me comments on my facebook or on my blog to let me know how it goes.
Be Blessed and stay electric!
Brandon
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