How should the arts be used in church?

This is a response to Matthew Eades’ post on Facebook.  He stated “Has the church lost its footing in the art world? Is this the way to get it back?”

Matthew then posted the following link:

 http://www.creationswap.com/article/6532

Instead of trying to get everything crammed into a little Facebook response box, I thought this would be a good opportunity to blog because I’m very interested in the subject of the arts in church and where it should fit.  

To start, here is a quote from Vince Lombardi which will help to prove my point: “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

In addition, I do not believe that the church should regain its footing by trying to be shocking; I believe that the church should regain its footing in the arts by striving for excellence.

Overall, I believe that the church should be THE leading, driving force in the arts and not followers (where we currently are).  In other words, WE should be the ones creating original compositions, films/videos, choreography, etc. which should be head and shoulders above anything else produced in Nashville or Hollywood.  We have been followers for way too long.  The Christian music industry (as a whole) has been churning out second-rate music for many years by its own doing.  Sure, there are some bright spots out there (I’m not naming names), but for the most part, almost every Christian band has a secular counterpart.  It’s been set up this way because this is a safe business model.  For example, let’s say there’s a band called “Big Awesome” who is currently charting top 40 on Billboard and making major dollars through record sales.  The CCM industry will quickly churn out 1, 2, or 3 bands that sound like just like “Big Awesome”...only these bands will have “spiritual” lyrics.  Once “Big Awesome” breaks up, those Christian bands will then fade into obscurity or join other bands that are already on the road, emulating another band.  Once the CCM machine has made a little bit of cash off of these bands, it will be on the look-out for the next “Big Awesome” to emulate and the cycle starts over.  While this is a safe business model to follow, it makes Christian music a laughing stock…and with my head hung low, I’m with them most of the time.  As a matter of fact, I don’t listen to a lot of popular Christian music anymore.  Why?  Because, in all honesty, most of it’s not that good.  There are some bright spots out there, but they are few and far between.  The Bible, on the other hand, is an excellent read, and I suggest it to anyone. 

Please keep in mind that it should not be this way.  As a matter of fact, this should be the other way around.  Music (and the arts as a whole) should be soooo good inside the church that outside artists would want to emulate the excellence seeping its way from the church doors into the community and surrounding areas.  Here’s the thing: we can’t rely on the industry to help us along the way.  This must start at a grass-roots level that begins with the individual and the decision to strive for perfection in the arts within the church, and maybe in our pursuit of perfection, we can catch excellence.

You never know who's watching you on the internet!

I was playing around on my youtube channel and, and I thought I’d poke around on the “Insights” feature in addition to other statistics.  What I found is pretty amazing:

My video of “I’ll Fly Away” has over 11,000 hits/plays as of today.  45% of people that have watched any of my videos have watched this one.  I HAVE to get a better camera.  If I would have known, I would have borrowed a better video camera.

Lifetime worldwide views of videos on my channel: 42,320

Countries/regions that have watched my videos:

USA (#1 watcher of my videos)

Germany (#2 watcher of my videos.  Move over Hassellhoff!)

Japan (#3 watcher of my videos.  I would sooo tour Japan!)

Canada (#4 watcher of my videos.)

Mexico

Brazil

India

Thailand

South Korea

South Africa

Russia (Someone on a Russian website either linked my website or a video to theirs.  I found it on my website report.)

Norway

Slovakia

Netherlands

Denmark

UK

Ireland

Hungary

Italy

Spain

Portugal

Belgium

Switzerland

Austria

Albania

Serbia

Montenegro

France

Israel

Kuwait

United Arab Emirates

Here are some phrases that have been used to find my official website:

Martin moore singer

Martin Moore Country Singer (what?)

PHONE NUMBER FOR MARTIN MOORE AT NOMURA (???)

Marty Moore musician (must’ve been from either a relative or childhood friend)

Martin Moore Music, Angelic Songs, Somewhere Around The Throne (and a partridge in a pear tree.)

My all-time favorite:

Cats playing musical instruments

The world is a smaller place with the internet in it.  Looks like I might need to get a better camera if I plan on doing more videos.  Better audio wouldn’t be a bad move either.  Thanks for taking the time to read through this.  I hope you found it as interesting as I did.  J

Best Advice

“Life gets better the older you get.” – To me, this is very true.  I feel sorry for those that believe that the years spent in high school are the best years of your life.  To me, they were not…by far.  Some like the college years.  That was a pretty fun decade for me I guess.  I’m 36 now, and although I’m tired most of the time, I’ve never been happier in my life.  I have a nice house, a decent car, a great wife, 2 kids (soon to be 3 kids), a fantastic job, a very nice stable of instruments (that I don’t play often enough), and I have a good relationship with my family.  Granted, life isn’t without its bumps, but overall things are pretty darn good right now.

“Get a good education and get a good job.” – I did, and I did.

Quick story:  The summer I graduated high school, I got a job working at North Myrtle Beach for the summer.  The night before I left, my dad sat me down and we figured out the route.  I don’t know how it is now, but 18 years ago (yikes! 18 years ago?!?), there was really no direct route to North Myrtle.  During that time, you had to go through all of these little towns and make lots of twists and turns and eventually you would end up there, but it wasn’t a straight shot.  Anyways, dad told me, “When you get lost, and you WILL get lost, don’t get upset.  Stop at a fast food restaurant, take your map with you (pre GPS days), get a glass of tea, and sit down.  Wait until you see an old grey-headed man sit down and start eating.  Go over to him and say something like, ‘Excuse me sir, but I have a quick question.  Can you tell me exactly where I am on this map?’  You should be able to find your way from there.”  No problem.

Sure enough, about 3 or so hours into my 6-hour road trip, I get lost and end up somewhere in the armpit of Southern NC or Northern SC.  I don’t remember exactly where I was, but I remember there being a Burger King there, so I did as my dad had told me to do.  I went in, sat down with my map and my tea, and waited.  I happened to have driven down on Sunday, and it was just after church, so there were plenty of folks there.  Off to the side, there was an old grey headed man sitting by himself so this is who I approached.  I walked up to his little table, and as I spoke I unfolded my map and put it on his table: “Excuse me sir.  I think I got a little off course, and I’m trying to get back on my way.  Can you tell me exactly where I am on this map?”  Not even looking at the map, he looks at me square in the eye and says, “Son, I can’t tell you anything – I’m from Chesterfield.”  He then returned to eating.

I still have no idea what this means, but I’ll always remember it.  I eventually made it to North Myrtle, but I’ll always remember my first trip down there.  It’s really great when I actually run into people from Chesterfield, SC.  For some reason, they seem to understand.

In closing, I just wanted to say “Love you dad!” here on Father’s day.  And to all of those dads out there, happy Father’s Day to you all too!  I hope it’s a great one.

Here are the directions to North Myrtle from Wilkes. Looks like it's still not a straight shot.

It’ll Get Done When It Gets Done

“Just wait ‘til you have kids!” People used to jeer at me when I was playing music out somewhere or when I would tell someone about staying up half of the night watching TV.  It was almost as if there was a level of resentment in their voice as they said this.  While I thought that I knew what they were talking about, I now know I had no idea.  During my pursuits become a full-time musician, I decided to do a solo record after the last band I was in dissolved.  It was during this time that Emma Kate was born.  Marci and I would drag her all over the place while I played coffee shops and the like, promoting my CD.  Well, after about 15 years of slugging it out, trying to be a full-time musician, I raised my proverbial white flag.  I was done, burned out.  I’m pretty sure that this would have happened eventually, but I think having my little girl sped up the process, and I’m glad she did.  I was so very unaware at how saturated the “scene” is with white guys playing acoustic guitars in Christian coffee shops.  Emma Kate’s arrival raised my awareness of this and caused me to step back and truly question what I was doing and why.  Looking at the track record of several friends with children, I was doing well to actually make it a year into the pursuit before deciding to hang it up.

Fast forward to today.  While I’m not looking to do music full time anymore, I am still pretty involved in playing; however, the hammered dulcimer rules the roost these days.  I’ve been clawing and fighting to learn some folk songs, fiddle tunes, and bluegrass standards and maybe get some of these things laid down (in layman’s terms, this means recording/producing), but it just isn’t happening.  With my new work schedule and family, it’s not getting done, and for months I’ve been really bugged about it.  But, for some reason, this week I’ve decided to just say “It’ll get done when it gets done” and not put pressure on myself to get things finished as quickly as they once did because I’ve got more important things to do, like build towers out of blocks so the kids can knock them down, read Ten Apples Up On Top…again, throw my 2 year old into a pile of pillows, listen to nonsensical knock-knock jokes, kick the ball up and down the hallway, fill up the little outdoor pool so dirt can get thrown in it, etc.  It’s not that I’m giving up; I’m just slowing down.  I had a student come into the writing center yesterday, and her paper had the following statement: “I do believe that a slow life is the best life.”  I couldn’t agree more.

If I could go back in time, I wish I could have responded to “Just wait until you have kids!” with “Yup, I can’t wait to meet’em.”

My first time out of the gate...

I admire folks that have blogs, and I have wanted to start one for a while; however, I was unsure if I had anything worth saying.  With this said, I feel an obligation to start blogging due to my current position;  I work in a writing center at a local community college, and part of our mantra alludes to writing center workers being writers as well.  I haven’t really “written” anything in years, so I guess it’s time to start!  I’m hoping that keeping a blog will help me to become a better writer and thus will help me to become better at my job.  I’m not sure if I have a lot to say, so this thing may crash and burn in a week.  It may turn into an obsession.  I’m open to either.

When I have studied literature in the past, I was almost always instructed to study or read about the authors so that through their background, so I would better understand why they wrote what they did.  For those of you that plan to follow my blog, I thought I could give you a little background about myself.

I grew up in the foothills of NC.  When I was a kid, I was jealous of my friends that grew up in neighborhoods because there were other kids that lived close by, and they got to ride their bikes on pavement.  My grandfather was my only neighbor, and well, probably the only neighbor I had business spending time with.  The end of my front yard was where the cow pasture began.  The smell of “cow” and hay reminds me of being a kid.  As a matter of fact, one evening as I was driving to school in Hickory, I stopped at a convenience store just this side of Taylorsville.  It was late summer/early fall, and I stepped out of my car and the smell of cow pasture and freshly-cut hay combined with the slight cooling of fall washed over me.  I found myself closing my eyes and breathing it in.  What a smell that was.  I’ll probably never forget it. 

While my friends were playing t-ball on Saturday mornings, my family was usually helping my grandfather in the garden shucking and silking corn, stringing and breaking beans, or digging potatoes.  As a kid, I didn’t like it too much.  But now, I look back at the time I got to spend with my family with a smile and I’m glad that I did it.  I don’t think that t-ball practice would have taught me as much character as did those Saturdays in the garden.  I’d trade small farm living any day over neighborhood living…and I hope to one day.

From the time I was 15 to the age of 25, I had a job and went to school at the same time.  Throughout high school, I had different degrees of success.  Although I had many, many friends and excelled in music, many people don’t know, I barely graduated high school, and I never took the SATs.  I didn’t even bother applying to 4-year colleges or universities; I didn’t know if I was going to go.  This was due to a variety of factors: 1. I had very little motivation, 2. I worked too much, and 3. I had a few negative experiences in high school.  I’m definitely a different person.  I have 3 college degrees from Appalachian State: BS in English, Secondary Education; MA in Higher Education/Teaching with a Specialty in English; and an EDS (Educational Specialist) in Higher Education – Administration.  If I have learned anything, I have learned that I’m not smarter than anybody else; getting an education is simply something I concentrated on for a long time.

Instead of going straight through college, I tried my darndest to pursue music as a full-time career.  I played in many Christian-based groups, each with varying degrees of success and popularity, but none allowed me to become independent.  I learned a lot about myself during this time, and I’ll probably allude to it much more in the future.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and I am a Christian.  When it comes to my view of how I interpret things that I experience, C.S. Lewis articulated it best when he said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”  I cannot say it any better than this.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.  I hope to write more soon!  If you have any questions you would like for me to answer, please e-mail me at moorefamily2@gmail.com and I may answer them…or I may not. J