Rick Warren/Music Manipulations

[Robin]

"We have used film clips, we have used some dramas, we have used some object lessons. One of my favorite is called "point and play," which is separate the points by music. We always at Easter and Christmas Eve do a "point and play" message. For example, with my Easter sermon, I took every point and we divided it up into five sections, and we had a song that went with each point. So there is an emotional punch as well as an intellectual punch at the same time. We layer it: tension/release, tension/release.

I learned this when I was a consultant on the DreamWorks movie, "The Prince of Egypt," to help keep it biblically correct. One day I was in the hall at DreamWorks, and I noticed something on the wall called an "Emotional Beat Chart." They actually monitor the emotional highs and lows of a movie. I counted up and there were nine peaks and nine valleys in this 90-minute movie — about every ten minutes there’s tension/release, tension/release. Well, you can do that in a message: you can do it with humor, you can do it with an illustration, or you can do it with a feature, but it allows us to keep people’s attention longer in order to give them more material."

(Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Preaching: An Interview with Rick Warren. Sept-Oct 2001)

Who says music (of any kind) is benign in impacting worship or preaching?

Robin

 

[Bandguy]

"We have used film clips, we have used some dramas, we have used some object lessons. One of my favorite is called "point and play," which is separate the points by music. We always at Easter and Christmas Eve do a "point and play" message. For example, with my Easter sermon, I took every point and we divided it up into five sections, and we had a song that went with each point. So there is an emotional punch as well as an intellectual punch at the same time. We layer it: tension/release, tension/release.

I learned this when I was a consultant on the DreamWorks movie, "The Prince of Egypt," to help keep it biblically correct. One day I was in the hall at DreamWorks, and I noticed something on the wall called an "Emotional Beat Chart." They actually monitor the emotional highs and lows of a movie. I counted up and there were nine peaks and nine valleys in this 90-minute movie — about every ten minutes there’s tension/release, tension/release. Well, you can do that in a message: you can do it with humor, you can do it with an illustration, or you can do it with a feature, but it allows us to keep people’s attention longer in order to give them more material."

(Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Preaching: An Interview with Rick Warren. Sept-Oct 2001)

Who says music (of any kind) is benign in impacting worship or preaching?

Robin

Should music be benigin?

 

[panta dokimazete]

Benign...like Joshua's music?

 

[turmeric]

Music-at church-is primarily for the worship of God, not to give us liver shivers. However, worship should involve the whole person, including the affections. Music should be well-written for the glory of God, so it will be intense, or solemn, or joyful,etc -but the affections should be engaged primarily by truth, in my opinion, rather than something operating on a person almost unconsciously. I really don't think church should be like going to the latest blockbuster. I suppose some will argue about this but it doesn't make what RW does right - any more than when Finney tried it.

 

[Pergamum]

I have been to a reformed church where the preacher preached his first point, the congregation stood and all sang a verse of a song that related, then the preacher preached his second point, and the same thing, and then the third point too.

It seemed to be an effective sermon. THe text was exegeted, it was applied in a moving way to the audience, the audience remembered it and talked about it for weeks afterward. Nothing seems to have been violated.

Even if one were EP, the psalm could be sung at intervals during the service.


Is this permissible?

 

[alwaysreforming]

To me, Trevor, that sounds like a good idea. You're actually singing about what the message was just about, and it solidifies it into your mind and heart. Plus, you can sing more passionately since you've just been fed all the ammo for the song just before you begin to sing.
It sounds like a great way to glorify God and His attributes.

Structure and form for manipulation's sake is one thing, doing it for all the right reasons is quite another.