The Christian Music Thread Genre • Page 66

DC Talk is legit, as is Jars of Clay. I still listen to Jars from time to time. I love their album Much Afraid.

 

Anyone else surprised by the new Jon Guerra album? Really good!

 

Jars of Clay is great. I think Good Monsters is my favorite.

 

My fav Jars of Clay will always be the self-titled debut. “Flood” alone is one of the best songs to ever come out of the Christian music industry, let alone all the other dope tracks on there.

The Shelter also rules.

 

I don’t know this person. What does he sound like?

 

He's always been kind of a down-the-middle CCM-ish singer-songwriter. But this album is something else. Pretty eclectic—some simple songs, some really beautiful, sprawling songs (parts remind me of Jonsi in a big way). Here are a few I'm liking a lot, but it's a solid listen all the way through!

 

I'd say early as in up to Not Ashamed. Everything from Going Public on is gold.

Yeah, maybe not. I guess the hot take portion is I think everyone else is bad without him. Guess it reinforces that he and Phil wrote most of the songs haha. I find the Tait fronted albums to be unbelievably boring. I think Tait took them in a direction that was not my jam.

I really need to give the United album more love, because I enjoyed it for a week or two and then never really went back. It was quite good.

 

You ever listen to Tait's couple solo albums? The second one, Lose This Life, wasn't quite as good imo (though it had some good stuff), but Empty was the best of the initial 3 dc Talk solo albums. If I ranked all dc Talk & solo releases together, pretty sure it'd be in the top 5.

It's so weird to me that the guy behind this & 1/3 of dc Talk's Supernatural would join the Newsboys, who sounded the way they did at the time... and, the result was some of the blandest youth group music possible. The short lived Audio Adrenaline reunion w/ Kevin Max, which came after years of inactivity & only had one original member, somehow had moments that felt more like a continuation of what came before than the Taitboys did before United.

 

I love Empty! Could not get into Lose This Life, but yeah Empty is a favorite of mine. So I agree, it's strange he joined a pop-rock group when he himself was in that space and ended up pushing the group to boring pop. Youth group music is a great way to put it, it's just....bland and doesn't sound anything like Newsboys.

I was never a huge DC Talk fan. I enjoyed Jesus Freak, but the other albums just never clicked with me and now I just have no nostalgia with them. I should go back though and give them a listen..

 

If your lack of dc Talk nostalgia is like my lack of Newsboys nostalgia, maybe you won't end up getting any more into them than you already are, lol. But, if you love Empty & enjoyed Jesus Freak, I feel like giving Supernatural another spin when you're in the mood for that kinda thing could be worth it. "It's Killing Me," "Wanna Be Loved," "Fearless," & "Consume Me" are really strong Christian pop songs. "Red Letters" rules, too.

I also love "Chance" & "My Will," both off of their Intermission greatest hits album.

 

It seems like Ben Crist/The Glorious Unseen are back.

 

Tonight the Stars Speak was the first worship album I actually enjoyed. Glad to see he's still making music.

 

Josh Garrels has put out a quarantine album (currently name your price on Bandcamp).

To be honest, as a music fan, this was my dream outcome in this tough time - artists putting out homemade albums that are stripped back, intimate and capture this moment in time.

John Mark McMillan has one coming too.

 

Ravi Zacharias, who toured the world defending Christianity, dies at age 74

 

Ravi was not a perfect man and his shortcomings should not be dismissed, but I always felt his words overflowed from a place of deep love, compassion, and grace in a time when many Christian speakers spoke out of ego or bluster.

He will be missed here.

 

Ravi for sure had some skeletons that should be reflected on and learned from, but the way he held his composure and talked with gentleness and respect to those who sincerely had questions is something that I think everyone can use and practice. The man had his way with words.

 

Perfectly said. Will be praying for the family/friends.

 

I thought this would be a good place to share this. This year I’ve been having a lot of doubts and struggles in regards to faith and belief, along with a lot of mental health/OCD stuff as well that I’m still trying to work through. But it’s things that I’ve been praying about. Anyway I was feeling pretty down a few days ago, and just really questioning my faith. That night I had a dream that felt so vivid and surreal, it was just a small room with a table and chair, but on the table was a picture frame that had “Romans 3:22” listed in it. Not the verse itself, just the chapter and number. I know a lot of people know the verse after that (for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God), but verse 22 is never one that came to mind, nor one that I had memorized in the past. And it was just unusual to have a dream where in a picture frame I was fixated on that verse.

When I woke up the next morning I looked up that verse (22).

“the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:”
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It was the part “for all who believe” that really hit me and really helped me out because it summed up a whole lot of the doubts that I was having. Long story short, I just thought it was so surreal how I came across that verse and the ways God speaks to you. Hope it encourages someone else out there that may be struggling!

 

That's dope. It's wild to me how some people encounter God via dreams. Never been how He speaks to me, lol, but I know some people through church who have those kinda experiences a lot.

Also, as someone who knows that a single good God moment doesn't magically sort out matters of faith or of mental health & put a bow on it (as you alluded to yourself)... I hope you well on this ongoing journey! Especially during this pandemic we've all found ourselves in, lol. As I like to say, shit sucks, but God is good.

 

I really appreciate it! It’s definitely a journey but it’s always comforting to know you’re on the right track when you feel lost. Thanks for the kind words!

 

I think God speaks to everyone in different ways. For me, it has always been through music. I sometimes have dreams where I hear beautiful music, like music I've never heard before while awake, and wake up feeling so peaceful. Of course I forget what it sounds like almost immediately, but for me it's like a small slice of paradise.

 

This seems to be a common trend among artists who grew up in the Christian music scene, and another byproduct of growing up in an overly rigid religious environment. That said, I've had all of the same thoughts that he has, so I can understand where he's coming from.

 

I feel like a lot of Christians are gonna take this in a "you shouldn't pull on the sweater" kinda way, instead of a "maybe your sweater is a cheap knockoff & you need one that doesn't suck kinda way."

Which, to be clear, I'm saying that to the culture, not to this individual. People responding to stories like this by analyzing the person instead of the system are the worse. I'm just thinking of some of the ridiculous condescending comments I saw when the Rhett & Link thing was trending, about how deconstruction is bad and/or how these people hadn't taken their personal faith seriously enough. Maybe instead, what we need is some kinda macro scale deconstruction of the system & culture itself?

Even in healthy, robust, nuanced faith communities w/ genuine Holy Spirit presence, certain people will opt out. That's just how these things work. But, if you offer something real, if you have something real, then you end up w/ people saying that your faith community isn't for them, not that it's based on emptiness.

 

This makes me sad. But I can totally understand it.