Popular music, worship
Group back, good as ever Burlap To Cashmere’s sound is eclectic, global
T
he New York band Burlap To Cashmere took the Christian music
scene by storm in 1998 with an award- winning album hailed as the best of the year. Then they disappeared, only to resurface now with a self- titled project that is garnering rave reviews in the mainstream press. The group has been featured on NPR, and American Songwriter magazine called leader Steven Delopoulos “the first truly great songwriter of this century.”
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congregational mission Collectively,
Week 1- Barbara Lundblad “Love One Another by Stretching Boundaries”
Week 2 - Barbara Rossing “Care of Creation from a Biblical Perspective”
Worship - Both weeks by Tom Witt & Mary Preus
The group’s mostly acoustic sound is eclectic, drawing on global influences that include Greek folk music. The closest equivalent on the modern scene may be the band Mumford and Sons, but listeners with good musical memories will find even more resonance with artists like Harry Chapin and Cat Stevens. Delopoulos’ songs wed multicultural melodies to postmodern poetry: lines and images from the songs weave their way into one’s consciousness like snip- pets from a dream. Those bits and pieces aren’t only compelling but, often, contain biblical allusions and other hints of cryptic spirituality. Moving from song to song, we hear about transcending glory, the salt of the earth, walking on water, a prophet in the land, “Selah, Selah,” and Nehemiah building a wall. It is at least an interesting trip, and the music is excellent. For those who make it to the end, the album concludes with a fairly straightforward gospel song about “The Other Country”: a “shining city” beyond this earthly one where the bride and groom are joined and pharaohs no longer threaten. The images here are pretty clear (if not, ask your pastor). See also
www.burlaptocashmere.com.
Mark Allan Powell is a professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, and author of the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Music (Hendrickson, 2002).
This column lifts up trends in worship beyond regular “Lutheran” circles Streaming video services like Netflix and
Hulu are changing people’s TV habits, but the technology is also having an impact on worship. Megachurches now have satellite congrega- tions with their own worship and leadership, but preaching by the lead pastor is streamed in from the main campus. This summer I presided at a wedding where the maid of honor couldn’t attend because she was recovering from a lung transplant. The sister of the bride, she wanted desperately to be there. Unbeknownst to the bride, we placed a laptop in her sister’s hospital room and set up a video con- ference using Skype. When the bride came down the aisle , she was surprised to see her sister’s
smiling face from her hospital bed. Opportunities to draw individuals into wor-
ship for life events are many. All you need at both ends is a laptop or iPad with a Web cam; the free Skype software (
www.skype.com); and a fast wireless or cellular connection. Skype is no replacement for being somewhere in person. But on certain occasions like this, it can create a foretaste of our great communion prayer, of when we gather as the church from all times and all places, that now can mean virtually as well.
Tom Lyberg is a pastor of Trinity Lutheran
Church in Findlay, Ohio, and host of the Wired Jesus Podcast (
www.wiredjesus.com).
38 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
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