tagged: the ccm praise meme

Reading through a few blogs over the weekend, I found that I'd been tagged by Tim to participate in a meme that's doing the rounds.

So here it is:

Please try to name ONE (I know, there are so many to choose from) CCM praise song that you find unbearable and at least 2-3 reasons why, pointing to specific lyrics if you must.

Tim writes a good answer, and links to a few others who make valid points about the lyrical content of some of the songs being sung in churches these days.

Well, Tim et al, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I can't participate. Not because I have any problem with the meme as such (although it is a little negative, and perhaps not the best way to encourage our worship songwriters to improve on their lyrics in future writing?) It's this...

When it comes to worship songs, I have literally no memory for them. In the moment I'm fine - the lyrics come back to me and I can join in with many songs without needing to see the words. But take me out of that context and ask me to suggest a song and I won't be able to think of more than one or two.

I was part of the service planning team at the church I worked at for a while, but this sieve-like aspect of my memory does become a fairly obvious disability in such situations and it wasn't long before the decision was made that my skills were probably better used elsewhere!

There's probably a reason for this, but I can't work out what it is. I'm married to a musician who has spent a fair amount of his time travelling across the country to play in worship bands at various conferences and events. Since 1998, Dan and I between us have worked at 17 weeks of Spring Harvest, 4 Keswicks, 9 weeks of Soul Survivor, 3 Soul In The City projects, 5 Youthwork conferences, 2 childrens ministry conferences and played at several services and concerts with the All Souls Orchestra. On top of that there's all the church services in various churches. So the exposure has been there!

It might be that I almost never listen to Christian music, worship or entertainment. There's reasons for this, which are probably for another blog post, or maybe better off not being publically aired at all?

So there are probably many songs that I could use for this meme. Lyrics which I find amusing or confusing or that I totally disagree with. But I can't remember what they are!

Having declined to answer this myself, some might say that I have lost the right to tag other bloggers. I'm going to do it anyway. I tag Liz, Jude and The Vicar's Wife