Not Suitable For Church?

As though my weekend weren’t busy enough with releasing an album, entertaining out of town guests, and leading worship on Sunday morning, I woke up at 9AM on Monday in a slothful frenzy to get to Penn Station. We were playing a Halloween Festival in South Jersey for Lighthouse Tabernacle.

Yes, a church. But we were not doing praise and worship music. In fact, the plan was to just perform original music from my new album; but, after realizing that we would be playing for a transient crowd of trick-or-treaters, numbering well past the thousand-man-mark, we decided on an alternate plan of attack. So, I found myself onstage in this church parking lot, gazing at the evening sky as the sunshine wanes, keenly aware of the presence of God, as I try to remember the words to Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.” Funny how clear the lyrics to any song become when you’re singing them in the general direction of a church steeple. 

Something felt wrong and right about the whole thing. It felt wrong, because I was raised in a place where listening to “secular” music is generally frowned upon—not mention actually creating secular music and performing it. It felt wrong, in a sense, because there were actually some songs that, only as I began to sing them on holy ground, did I realize that maybe some things should not be sung by ME into the open air. However, it felt right. I’ve been invited to a couple of churches this year as a performer, not a worship leader, and something feels incredibly right about singin’ “from that one night we met in the club…” on a sanctuary platform, or a handmade stage in a church parking lot. It felt right because it’s not enough for the church to just say that worship is a lifestyle, but then only sing about hugging Jesus. 

There is way too much to this topic for me to unpack here; but, ever since I got in trouble for singing an MJ song in church as a child, I’ve felt pushed to choose between singing “sacred” music or “secular” music. Now, I’ve come full circle, haha!—being invited to do, as an adult, the very thing I was shamed for as a child. After years of wrestling with this issue, I’ve realized that all of life is sacred; we just haven’t learned to live that way. We don’t know what God has to do with enjoying life on earth, and that’s why we don’t understand how to sing about that. That’s also why many people find our faith unattractive. Now, I’m becoming more and more convinced that I was made to challenge the imaginary line that separates the one from the other. 

Thank you, Lighthouse Tab for having me. Not many churches would have.