On The Radio

I have been doing a radio show on Tuesday afternoons on 95.3 FM, The Edge. To say that I am not the target demographic for The Edge is putting it lightly. The radio station is aimed at teens and young adults. They play a lot of rap, not necessarily my favorite music. They also play some really intense music that sounds a lot like my dog growling at the other dogs when he has a bone. Well, Bolt with a bone if he could play tasty guitar riffs. Heck, I have socks older than the target demographic of this station. When they do Throwback Thursday songs I just mutter to myself. Sorry, Throwback Thursday should be Sweet Comfort Band, Steve Camp, LoveSong, or Petra, not some band that had a hit five years ago!

As I listen to the music that Victor plays during our show I get a chance to really listen to the lyrics. I keep the headphones on while the music plays, because otherwise I have to talk to Victor, and neither of us really wants that. Once I get past the style of the music, I find beautiful, challenging, honest lyrics that are amazing. Well, most of them are amazing. Victor and I still don’t agree on the one song that talks about battle dancing unicorns. I’m not sure I have ever heard a dumber song, and every time I hear it, I think to myself, “Well, there’s three minutes of my life I will never get back…”

Every time I think of criticizing the songs, even the growling dog ones, I think back to the days when I was in a Christian band. I had hair back then and everything. We played a few gigs and sang a lot at our home church, Faith Assembly. We weren’t exactly everybody’s cup of tea. Some of the older folks didn’t like the loud drums, or the guitar licks. There was one guy who would clasp both of his hands over his ears and jam out of the building every time we started playing. At first I thought he just didn’t like my singing, but then he started leaving during the intros and I knew it wasn’t just me he didn’t like.

A couple of people were pretty sure that nothing we played was godly, and shouldn’t be played in church. More than once, my motives for singing this type of music was questioned. More than once, someone tried to say that the way I praised God was wrong.

What they didn’t realize is that every generation has a new voice to praise God with. There’s nothing new here. In Acts 5 the disciples are almost killed because they won’t quit preaching. As the Pharisees are plotting, Gamaliel gets up an tells them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are planning to do to these men! Some time ago there was that fellow Theudas, who pretended to be someone great. About 400 others joined him, but he was killed, and all his followers went their various ways. The whole movement came to nothing…

“So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go. If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!” Acts 5:33-39

So I may not like all of the music The Edge plays, but I won’t criticize it, and I certainly won’t say that it’s not of God. I fought too hard for my music when I was young to do the same thing to the artists of today. Hey, old folks (you know, like me), let the kids express their praise to God their way. We all win.

Still not too old to rock (and I don’t mean in a chair)… Jerry