Secular Music as Worship, Part III

"I've never been a swimmer,

but I know that I'll never drown."

Still Worshipping Through Secular Music

In a [Facebook note turned] blog post from several years ago, I contemplated the idea of secular music having purpose as worship. Over the years, there have been songs here and there that I have added to my mental collection of "secular worship" music.

Just before Christmas, I heard Phillip Phillips' song "Home" for the first time. Initially, I was taken in by the melody and the vocals (he sounds eerily like Mumford & Sons). But once I listened closely to the lyrics, I was impacted powerfully by the song as one of worship. Not Phillip Phillips--but Jesus--singing His song of protection and care in these lyrics.

Beautiful.

"Hold on to Me as we go

As we roll down this unfamiliar road."

Any Song is Worship?

So, I was loading up my iPod with songs for a bike ride this afternoon, and I was trying to decide if I felt like Christian music or secular (I went with secular in the end, but that's beside the point). As I was pondering this, I remembered something interesting from high school.

In my high school, we had a lunch-hour youth group kind of thing. I only participated when I was in grade ten, and I only remember two of the get-togethers. One was ice blocking (also beside the point), and the other was listening to secular music from a Christian perspective.

I remember we listened to "Every Breath You Take" by the Police, which talks about a guy who's pretty much stalking his ex. Except we were told to listen to it as if it was God speaking to US, and I remember thinking that was kind of cool (feel free to check out the lyrics).

So that memory went through my mind this afternoon as I was choosing between Christian and secular, and starting to wonder if it really mattered.

Now clearly, there are songs out there that can't be viewed from any sort of Christian perspective; and I'm not simply talking about garbage types of songs. There are just some that tell a very specific story and can't be viewed from another perspective... like the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," for instance.

But that still leaves a lot of other songs. In fact, Stephen Curtis Chapman took the one-hit wonder 500 Miles and turned it into a praise song (although he replaced the line "when I get drunk..." with different lyrics).

I think there are so many songs that could be re-framed. That could shift your perspective on your mid-day drive while you are stuck in traffic. That could offer up a new form of praise. That could alter your presumptions about what love really looks like.