After having several (ongoing) conversations with many people who tend think that all modern christian music has bad theology, and is all fist-pumping, empty rhetoric (although some of it is)–I’ve decided to start posting up some music (some of my own acoustic versions) I’ve come across. I hope that these songs/hymns
will be helpful to christians who are searching for songs and hymns that have deep meaning, good theology, and good musicality for various types of worship.
The first of these is “I Will Go” by Jon and Tim Neufield–two brothers in a Canadian band called Starfield. This song addresses the need for christians to understand and heed God’s call to minister with the poor, the oppressed, and the broken–“the ones the world has cast aside.” My favorite lines (perhaps one I most identify with) come in the second verse: “Let me not be blind with privilege/ give me eyes to see the pain/ Let the blessing you’ve poured out on me/ not be spent on me in vain/ let this life be used for change.”
This is an answer to the ever-present question of “what do you do with privilege?” In recognizing and using one’s privilege to help those who have none is what God calls us to do. God calls us to go and join the effort that God is already making in places of need and hurt. As Starfield articulates on their website:
“We are so privileged, yet we’re so dissatisfied with our lives no matter how well we’re doing”, lead singer Tim Neufeld says. “There’s always this underlying pressure to be doing better, when the exact opposite should be the case. The pressure and call on our lives should be to live with less and give away more.”
May we live our lives in ways that allow others to fully live.
Rev. Dr. Joseph McBrayer 