Popular music, worship Songs of faith relate to daily life
Velasquez addresses ultimate significance N
ow in her 30s, Jaci Velasquez is well-known to fans of Christian pop music. A child star, she performed at the White House when she was 13 and sold 4 million
albums before turning 21. She also remains the only artist associated with the Christian music scene to have scored No. 1 “crossover hits” on the Latin pop charts. Although she competes with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira for Latin music awards, her style has always had more in common with adult contemporary singers like Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Gloria Estefan. On her latest album, Diamond (EMI, 2012), Velasquez delivers a strong set of songs that seek to relate her faith to simple matters of daily life, as well as to profound questions of ultimate significance. The title track describes how the light of God’s love creates beauty in any person’s life. The implications of that theme are then expressed in a more lighthearted vein in a bouncy song that mocks the mixed messages young women often receive about what constitutes beauty (“Girl”).
Other explicitly religious songs reflect on the surety of God’s salvation
(“Trust in You”; “Guilt”) and the urge Christians feel to share this with others (“Give Them Jesus”). The high point comes with “Con El Viento A Mi Favor,” a hopeful anthem sung in Spanish about moving forward in life after a time of
Travel with other Lutherans departing September 28, 2012
Autumn Leaves Tour Your Lutheran Chaplain: Pastor Ude
14 Days from $1598*
Start in Philadelphia and enjoy a historic city sightseeing tour including the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. The following day your scenic tour begins offering spectacular and colorful vistas through Amish Country to Gettysburg where you will see the most important battlefield of the Civil War. Continue traveling north with a stop at the Corning Museum of Glass into Ontario and awe-inspiring Niagara Falls for two nights. Then head back to upstate New York where you will board a cruise through the 1000 Islands, including a guided tour over historic sunken wrecks and narrative of all the highlights. Next, drive through the six- million-acre civilized wilderness of the Adirondack region, with a stop in Lake Placid. Then head into the forest area of New England: The White Mountains, including Franconia Notch State Park, New Hampshire and Flume Gorge with impressive waterfalls. Then drive along the New England coast to Boston, with a city tour of the major sites; Cape Cod for 2 nights, exploring Chatham and Provincetown with coastal scenery, village shops and art galleries; view the gorgeous Mansions of Newport, Rhode Island; drive along the Atlantic coast through Mystic Seaport and New Haven, Connecticut; and New York City sightseeing all the sights of the “Big Apple.” Stephen Ude is retired as pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Ogden, Iowa. This is his third trip with YMT Vacations.
*Price per person, based on double occupancy. Airfare is extra.
For details, itinerary, reservations & letter from YMT’s chaplain with his phone number call 7 days a week:
1-800-736-7300 38 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
feeling wounded and depressed. For many listeners, the highlights will be two lullabies Velasquez wrote for her young boys (“Stay”; “Good Morning Sunshine”). Here she seems vulnerable and unconcerned with exhibiting her impressive tal- ent. Instead of anthemic vocals or theological reflection, we get sweet, sentimental expressions of a mother’s love for little ones she knows won’t be little for long.
Mark Allan Powell is a professor of New Testa- ment at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, and author of the Encyclopedia of Contem- porary Christian Music (Hendrickson, 2002).
This column lifts up trends in
worship beyond regular “Lutheran” circles Our nondenominational sister congregations have the same problems we do: despite band- led worship and media ministries to rival paid art studios, they also have inactives and mem- bers who leave in nearly the same percentages cited on page 20. In The New Traditional Church, pastor and
church consultant Tony Morgan makes some great observations. On one hand, many con- temporary congregations have turned their innovations into a “new traditionalism” that can’t be challenged or changed. In digging into what draws people into
growing “contemporary” congregations, he wonders what would happen if these churches let go of their modern complexity and cult of personal choice and focused on four things: participate in corporate worship; read your Bible; serve others; and make disciples. The church shifts focus from keeping ourselves happy to a sacrificial serving of others. He finds that what grows congregations is a relational simplicity that has been the traditional core of the church since the Acts of the Apostles.
Tom Lyberg is a pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church,
Findlay, Ohio, and host of the Wired Jesus Podcast (
www.wiredjesus.com).
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