Viva La Vida by Coldplay
Some people ask why we do “secular songs” before a service. This is one
of the ways I explain our reasoning. Students who come to church for
the first time are already freaked out, and feel like an outsider. I
mean think about how different the culture inside a church is compared
to the outside world. Obviously, we Christians and the way we live our
lives should not be the same as the world, but the way we reach
students and people should be strategic and purposeful. Yes, our hearts
are most important, but the way we reach doesn’t have to be wierd.
Think of it this way, if you were to walk into a Buddhist temple and you
see people chanting and humming, this is not normal to you. Well for a
lost student or a “seeking student” when they walk into church, everyone
is singing songs they don’t know about content they don’t understand.
So strategically doing cover songs that are clean can break down the
walls from the very start for first time students.
Anyways, our High School pastor, Josh Griffin, sang it while at the same
time threw some cheeseburgers in the crowd for people to eat.
Anyways, our High School pastor, Josh Griffin, sang it while at the same time threw some left over cheeseburghers in the crowd for people to eat.
Worship Well
Taffy
August 5th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
….lets listen to some Coldplay and eat cheeseburgers my friend…cause we all know that when it comes to Jesus… and His word… and His sacrifice… and His blood… and His Spirit …well, you just wouldn’t get it if we gave it to you straight…
August 14th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Hey I hope all is well.
I am a worship leader in a church in Florida, and I was just slightly distraught to read what you posted about your church… Not to pass judgement because thats totally not the right thing but really the church is a place to worship God. Secular music doesnt worship God, so it makes me question who does it worship? You shouldnt feel right in a Buddhist Temple for more than just because of the hummings… Its because it isn’t right and the holy Spirit isn’t dwelling there. To reach out to people who are lost doesnt mean transforming into the world. Look at Billy Grahma for an example… he never had to take an Elvis Presley song and play it so the ones that werent Christian can feel comfortable. The word of God should be enough to touch the heart of the most hardened person… When you mix two things together not only are you not respecting and not showing REVERANCE for God’s temple but you are adding confusion to the mind of the newcomer and of your own youth. When will the line be drawn? Isaiah 14:11 All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you… ( this is the fall of lucifer) note that “… along with the noise of your harps…” the harp can stay but the sound of it the music is no loner welcomed inside Heaven…
I wont even go to eating cheeseburgers in a church…
Doesnt God deserve some sort of respect?
The Church is to talk about and spread the news about our Lord and Savior.
When a newcomer comes to church they are taking a step to search for something different to what they were experiencing (from what the world was offering), why then would they want to stay in a place that is mimicking the world? For that the stay out and get the real stuff..
And to close, when you raise a new Christian in that kind of environment yeah they will accept Jesus but their foundation is not strong and when a storm comes what will they run to? I also hope that when those youth listened to the Christian songs the became just as excited…
September 4th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Just a thought (because I war with this decision too), but did you know that Martin Luther, the great reformer, used “secular” music for alot of his “hymns?” He used bar tunes and put new words to them. Interesting…
October 5th, 2009 at 8:31 am
for all you naysayers…whatever happened to “becoming all things”….he said a clean secular song…i bet it got there attention…legalism is a sin that should die…why do you think non christians don’t take us seriously…a like the move..was thinking of doing it myself…matter of fact a played bob marley last night before my small gruop that is growing and reaching kids that won’t come to church normally…
October 6th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I agree with Yvette and I also go to a church in Florida (north east) and I am a youth leader there. I would never dream of playing this song or any song of the world for the unsaved to “feel comfortable”. How do you think that God talks to the sinners?….through His music, teachings and preachings not the world’s music. I see the youth are very excited about it but next time try God’s music and the same excitement will still be there.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
@Yvette and Rebekah
I am a worship leader in Mobile, AL. First of all, your view on worship, and music in general, saddens me. Everything the above video described and depicted IS furthering the kingdom of God. Rebekah said to “try God’s music.” What exactly is God’s music? Is it only God’s music if it contains the phrase “praise Jesus” or “I love you Lord”? No. If it is furthering the Kingdom of God, then it is God’s music. It’s the heart and the intent that make it “God’s music”. Despite the fact that Viva la Vida is a song about giving your life to Christ, if it was otherwise, it could still be used as a tool to reach the youth. We are called to make a joyful “noise” to the Lord. As long as it furthers the Kingdom, it is worship. “Secular music doesn’t worship God…”? False. Untrue. It can, and in this case, it does. Like I said, just because it doesn’t say “Jesus love me” doesn’t mean anything. In a broad sense, I can worship God by helping an old lady across the street, by giving water bottles to construction workers, or even by smiling at a random person on the street. In none of those things have I said “praise the lord”. But you don’t think that people and youth volunteering to practice and sing a relatively difficult song, with the intent of reaching youth is pleasing to God? I think I would be bored at your church, and I wouldn’t come back, even if I am a Christian. Worship doesn’t have to be the same ol’ boring routine of cliche lyrics. Change it up a little bit.
I can’t even begin to describe to you my feelings on this matter, and my slight animosity to the way you cast stones at those who do things differently than you do. Loosen up.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
@ Trevor
Noone is casting stones Mr.Trevor. It saddens me further to read what you had to write. From what I understand you are saying is: God and worldly things are almost the same, and that is really sad. Its pathetic to see how you also twist things. Point blank, it is wrong to bring worldly music to the church. Those people do not have the intent to praise Jesus Mr.Trevor. Should I bring Britney Spears to the church then? Or should I bring Santeria music that worships the devil, just because someone who was of Santeria comes to my church? Where will the line be drawn, and is that upto you to draw that line? Remember all SINS are equal in the eyes of the LORD.
I pray that you start reading the word and understanding that God is a JEALOUS God. The loosening up should be you Mr. Trevor, how bad is it when you start telling someone off because they desire to hear God or Jesus in a song, WOW. and the one that played Bob Marley, do your history background. Bob Marley belongs to a group called Rastafarian, where they take the Bible and twist it. They believed a man who was emperor of Ehtiopea as a Saviour, a man. How can you play that praising God? You cannot. And as far as agreeing with Trevor, yes you can worship God by doing actions, I did not at all say you couldnt. I am getting my Masters in music education, so I would think I have some sort of knowledge to where the foundations of music comes from. Many years taking the history of music has taught me many many things. I hope that when people start reading their Bibles they will SEE (because God will open their eyes) that playing worldly music in the temple is wrong, and leave, and go to a church that praises GOD. When you reach Heaven it will be worshiping our God, our Creator. I dont think He will be playing Madonna for fun… Do not be lukewarm, the Lord will spit you out. Read the book of Romans. And someone who was throwing around legalism… wow wow wow. I dont even want to begin with that.
When somebody accepts Jesus as their Personal Saviour their lives will change. and legalism is BAD when people believe that WORKS will get them into Heaven… when its both, remember its NOT faith alone.
It saddens me further to see how liberal churches are getting nowadays. God deserves respect and reverance. And if reverance is playing Coldplay and eating cheeseburgers in a church…
I apologize for my sarcasm, but this is one of the most upsetting things I have EVER read of a Christian. No wonder many people call Christians Hypocrites, its because they dont even know where they stand.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Right on Yvette! We MUST come to Him CORRECT.. not “just as we are”. It’s time Christians take a stand for His word and what is right according to His holy and righteous standard… not ours. Like John the baptist said in John 3… “He must increase, but I must decrease.” I love you all and pray that you continue to learn and further understand His truth.. and present it the way it was meant to be understood.. not camoflauged by what mimics the world. I encourage you in this because I love you!
God bless!
December 14th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
wow…im “saddened” to see how we still are divisive on things like this. Jesus was known as the friend of sinners. that title would rub people the wrong way today. there is a way to be in touch with the culture without becoming a part of it. i’m afraid that if we cant agree about a song that it spells bad news for us reaching this generation. i believe in using this world against itself to reach young people. instead of the world using us. this doesnt bode well for the church reaching people…”i wont even go into eating cheeseburgers in church”?? this is exactly the kind of things that keep young people from coming to church because we make the building a holy place instead of teaching that God is alive on the inside of you and you are the temple of God…but i too am prob adding to what the bible says about not getting caught up in useless debates…the real question about anything crossing over into secular and christian is – is it causing your brother to stumble? or is there fruit
December 15th, 2009 at 8:50 am
scott, Jesus did not sin – He would teach them, but not FOLLOW their ways. big difference, thus that is not a valid argument. My ultimate point, is you cannot take something made for the world = devil and use it to worship God. That is silly, and you are right, what fruit is coming from this? If anything its a STUMBLING block to those who arent sure what to give up. Realistically, open the door to worldly music and people will stay playing with one foot in church another out. The temple is a HOLY PLACE. That is where you worship God. If you just consider it a building, yes its true, but a strip club is also a building will you let those things take place in a church? i’d like to point out in the song Viva la Vida ” i know st. peter won’t call me name” funny, you are playing that in a church, people are singing that, thus where are they going?! heaven? obviously not. They basically proclaiming they are going to HELL. wow interesting.
people shock me, there is no validity in this, so stop trying to make it valid, its wrong. period.
@ Brad, people come as they are, and are transformed, thus they leave what they were and are created into a new creature.
January 27th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
I am a woship leader for a our churches youth group in N. Ga, and have never played secular music in our church, but I can relate to this in some aspects. I was a Younglife leader while in college. For those who aren’t familiar with Younglife, it is an outreach ministry in high schools who reaches out to students where they are; pot heads, drunks, gothic, prep, jocks…whoever they are where ever they are in life we reached out to them. At the beginning of every club/meeting we started out with two secular songs that had no controversal underlying messages followed by 3 or 4 worship songs, and this was done because the majority of the students who came were not church going students. The students didn’t feel uncomfortable in this setting and were more like to come back..each meeting had a 20-30 minute devotion brought by a leader. And if the cheeseburgers were given out in the youth area, I see nothing wrong with that…we have food in our youth and college/careers areas quite often. But, there is a fine line with secular music being played…but if the gospel of christ is brought forth, isn’t that the most important part!?!
February 17th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
My main concern with this is that we try to teach the kids to steer clear of secular music all together. It’s like kinda telling them it’s ok to straddle the fence. Not bashing you, just my opinion.
February 21st, 2010 at 11:27 am
To Yvette,
you didn’t understand what he was trying to do. You can’t just hit someone across the head with the bible and hope to God that they will be saved. If you read in John 3, you will see how Jesus talked to Nicodemus and tried to explain how to be saved. Nicodemus was confused, so Jesus had to explain it in a way that a Pharisee (Nicodemus) would understand. And if you knew, a Pharisee was also a judge, someone who deals with politics basically. He didn’t understand Jesus with his “spiritual” talk, so he talked as if he was a judge also. What im getting at is, is that Jesus comes down to our understanding and speaks to us in a way that we understand. If you speak Japanese then he will speak in Japanese. So if you listen to nothing but secular music (which there is secular music that isn’t bad at all) then God will use that to bring you in. Last time i checked, God uses bad for the better of his Kingdom. So yeah, maybe God had to use a guy singing Cold play and throwing cheeseburgers around to get someone’s attention.
Also, i just simply love how you people think that singing Cold Play is a sin that deserves death. (sarcasm)
July 14th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
As a youth group leader myself, I have to say this is the worst youth group meeting I could possibly imagine.
This is 100% about the ego of the youth leader. His singing is not good so he should have gotten a student to sing it if this was really about “making kids feel comfortable.” But I’m sure he figured he has to sing the song because it was his idea (and it wouldn’t feed his ego if a talented student sang instead).
The supporters of this approach paint such a black and white picture of outreach. Either you’re singing Coldplay or you’re handing out Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Those are the only 2 options right? How about teaching Scripture in an engaging way and placing some faith that the Holy Spirit will inspire students to commit their lives to Christ? That’s not gimmicky, it’s not out-dated, and it has worked for the last 2000 years.
August 18th, 2010 at 10:09 am
I think that this is a creative way to start worship. I disagree with the statement that secular songs cannot worship God. Just look at the lyrics for Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.Often times I feel that “those three words are said too much , They’re not enough”. I feel at a loss for words and struggle to express my love for my Father. Also, when life gets crazy, I feel better to just manifest myself in his presence and “forget the world”. Worship is not about the lyrics, because words cannot even grasp a millionth of what should be said to our God. What makes worship is not music either, but it is your state of mind and your heart. If you look at the reason why the song Heart Of Worship was written was to show that worship is all about your heart and NOT about music. If you can worship and love on God through a secular song then go for it. God is not limited to work through only hymns or Christian songs. Our God is so mighty and amazing He is able to work through anything. Man’s biggest mistake is to limit God.
August 27th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Amen i totally agree with shawn trevor and sarah….My name is Travis and i am also a worship leader.. Our God will not be confined to anyones Box so stop trying to shove him in it… hes too big and wont fit!… im reminded of the song God Speaking by mandisa… it says He’ll do and he’ll use what ever he wants to , to tell us, i love you… he can use a song a movie a book anything… it doesnt matter if its secular… in the bible it talks about God going as far as to speaking through a Donkey.. thats my view on this… ill leave all of you with this… in the end do we not serve the same God. don’t let your views divide you.. thats what the enemy wantss, to divide us , the church… God bless =]
August 29th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
My goodness… what ever happened to “exalting” Jesus, and He “would draw all men to Himself.” Not trying to throw stones at anyone, esp. since I wouldn’t know who it was aimed at anyway (but that’s beside the point); I think this is where “We” the church have lost our focus. We’ve taken the work of convincing out of the Holy Spirit’s hands and have embraced a “Spirit-less” approach to reaching the lost. Why are you even afraid about unsaved folk freaking out because you’re singing Christian songs? While you’re at it, why not preach – not from the Bible – but some other book, just so your hearers don’t get freaked out by the Gospel. God has given us much – by way of His anointing, the Word, and the Spirit; let’s use what He gave us, and not lay it down to utilize man-made ineffective tools that make no eternal difference in anyone’s life.
September 25th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Hi,
I am a teenager who’s interested in leading worship for my own youth group. I honestly think that your youth group starting out with a secular song is brilliant. I mean, when you think about it, where teenagers most comfortable? In their own home with their own stuff and their own music. So when you get a new student, you don’t want to start out with people singing about the blood shed of Jesus Christ because, quite frankly, that would freak me out if I weren’t a Christian and knew what that meant. But when they hear a song they actually know, it loosens them up a bit and makes them think “hey, maybe these people here aren’t like the other Bible Thumper’s.” Because really, youth group isn’t made for the “churchies, it’s made for their non-Christian friends to have a little fun with their Christian friend, learn a little bit about Jesus, and hopefully make connections that will lead them to a walk with Christ. You can start singing the more intense hymns in Teen Church or Sunday School with the people who are very deep with their relationship with Christ, but save it for then and only then. Because when you think about, the new students really aren’t going to care about the people on stage playing music or what the song is about unless they can relate to it. So my opinion is-that’s a genius idea.
Keep on singing.
Lauren
September 30th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
We regularly use secular songs in our youth services and our youth love it. They immediately relate to it and it helps them feel like maybe christians aren’t as wacky as they thought they were.
I struggle to clearly define what is “secular” and love that God’s truth is sprinkled all throughout our world. I think most people are on a journey of finding some kind of truth and many songs played on the radio express this.
Loving these resources and ideas you guys provide
Thanks a tonne!
October 14th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Wow. There are so many thing I agree with and disagree with on here that it would take me way too long to write, so all I have to say is this: The fact that people are so on fire about singing a secular song in a youth ministry group is a waste of God’s precious time.
A good friend of mine once said to me “Jesus doesn’t need defending, He is the son of God”. As long as we are speaking the truth to our students, loving the sinners the SAME as our brothers and sisters, reaching our gentle hands to the unbelievers and making meaningful relationships so they can learn from our actions not only our words we are furthering the kingdom of God.
January 3rd, 2011 at 11:49 pm
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January 28th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Acts 17, Paul reasoned with the Athenians (a group of people who worshiped numerous idols) by citing the idol who was an “unknown god.” Paul said let me tell you who that is. This idol was probably worshiped and had unthinkable sacrifices laid at it’s feet. Yet, Paul still used this as a bridge between the gospel and the Athenians. It would be one thing if Viva la Vida was followed by a One Republic Song and then a Miley Cyrus song and then followed up by a feel good message. But it wasn’t, it was a transition. This is a Coldplay song, one that doesn’t advocate sin in anyway and probably kids think about Heaven when they hear it. You can tip the scale both ways, we can bring in outsiders and expect them to understand everything that’s going on without explanation or we could the opposite way and be so relevant that students think they’re at a feel good pep rally. There needs to be a middle ground somehow. High Schoolers are nervous and insecure to begin with. I can’t imagine what’s going through their minds when they step foot in a church. If God’s word is presented with integrity, I’m not at all worried about a Coldplay song to calm the nerves of young outsiders.