What Should I Do?

@ariel-ashira Hmm… really, I can’t say that I know the answer. Ultimately, I think you should do what you feel God is guiding you to do, since He knows what is the ultimate best.

Personally, I think it’s okay, though. You can still do something for the glory of God in my opinion that isn’t related to religion/spiritual music, because other kinds of people in their work/activities still do things for God that don’t necessarily have a Christian message. For example, a Christian architect might do his or her work for God, even if that work doesn’t have an explicit Christian message. And you can of course record both kinds of songs.

As far as an album, you could certainly record that, although there’s probably a lot of copyrights on songs like My Heart Will Go On. If you were going to sell 😉

@ariel-ashira Maybe it doesn’t, but I think if you’re singing some popular songs that people like, and others that are directly Christian, you might get people who would normally not listen to Christian songs to move on to those, from your other songs. That’s just my ideas though 😉

@ariel-ashira I like what @sam-kowal said about how a person can do his work for God in any walk in life.  That said, of course I also believe there is such a thing as bad music, and bad lyrics, which a Christian shouldn’t sing.  I know some people believe you should only sing hymns, some believe you should only sing Psalms, some believe you can sing anything as long as it doesn’t directly contradict God’s Word.  It’s hard to know exactly where to draw the line, and different things could be sins for different people, as it says in Romans 14. 🙂

But I’ll give you the reasons I give myself for what kinds of music I sing:

In the Bible, there are five different “genres” of music listed as sung by God’s people. (That I have found in my own studies. 😉 )

1. Songs sung during corporate worship, which would include Psalms and hymns.
2. Songs sung to praise God for things He has done, outside of corporate worship, such as the song Miriam sang after the Egyptians were thrown into the bottom of the Red Sea.
3. Songs which are sung to commemorate historical events, again, such as the one sung by Miriam, or Psalm 137 which speaks of how they don’t like singing their songs in a strange land.
4. Songs about popular events and people which do not necessarily mention God at all, such as when the women of Israel made Saul jealous by singing about how “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” 🙂  Those I count as similar to “popular music” but I mean popular music in a different form than most people think of it as, since most popular music written now is very bad!  I listen almost exclusively to oldies in this genre, and I count folk music here, too.
5. Love songs, for which we have the Song of Solomon as an example.

So…anyway, those are the reasons I give myself for the types of songs I sing.  I believe those were the kinds of songs God’s people sang in the Bible, and therefore it is fine for me to sing them.  I do believe that we should only sing certain kinds of music and songs during corporate worship, but outside of corporate worship I will sing all those different genres listed above.

I hope this little research I’ve done for myself will be able to help you in some way! If anything I said here doesn’t make sense or needs to be explained more fully, please just ask! 😀

(Disclaimer: I am only speaking about lyrics here.  I have other views on which types of music are good to listen to and which should be avoided, but that is much too long a discussion to have here, so I wouldn’t bring it up except for my own conscience.)

@ariel-ashira

I personally don’t see a problem with it, but I will say that I see a destinction between non-Christian music and Popular music. I don’t listen to pop music because I don’t see it as uplifting, encouraging, God-honouring or entertaining, but I do listen to a lot of non-Christian music, such as musicals, because even when they aren’t explicitly mentioning God they often champion morals and Godly principals (not ALL musicals of course, just the ones I listen to).

So I think it depends on the songs you want to sing and I’d talk to your parents and/or someone at your church and ask their opinion. And of course pray about it!

@ariel-ashira I also agree with what @seekjustice said about popular music.  The only reason I mentioned popular music in my list was because I couldn’t think of a good name for the other genre, which would probably best be just called “Oldies.” 🙂  There may be some popular music that is good, but it is very hard to find, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend listening to loads of bad music in an attempt to find some good. 😛  I don’t listen to it either.

I listen to the oldies for the same reason SeekJustice listens to musicals: they usually have the good moral values which we don’t really get in popular music anymore.

Oh my goodness!  I just realized… @seekjustice Have I ever recommended Sight and Sound Theatres to you?  If I haven’t I really can’t believe myself.

@ariel-ashira Thanks for reminding me!  Sight and Sound is great!  You live in Missouri, right?  That means you’re near the Branson theater.  We’ve already talked about this, haven’t we?  On your introduction topic, maybe. 🙂

@ariel-ashira We haven’t seen Jesus yet, but I’m pretty sure we have tickets to go sometime this year.  I’m sure it’ll be amazing.  We made the intentional decision not to see Samson, because the whole story is basically about him sinning constantly with Delilah and a whole bunch of other things, so we didn’t think it was something we’d like to see.  We do have the soundtrack though. 😉

I’ve seen The Miracle of Christmas several times, since I remember going when I was a little girl, and then we watched it a few more times as I grew up.  Not every year; just sometimes.  When I was little my favorite part was when Michael came and fought with Satan over the roof of the stable, and then Satan rolled and flipped away.  It was so cool!

The other ones I remember seeing are Ruth, Moses, Joseph, Psalms of David(in the old Living Waters theater, which they don’t use anymore), Noah, Jonah, and In the Beginning.  So yeah, except for Samson, we’ve been going to basically every show for the last ten years or so. 😀  Do you have any of the DVDs? (We don’t, but SeekJustice would have to get the DVDs if she was going to watch them, since she lives in Australia, so I’m wondering how good they are.)

I hope you get to see Samson before you move!  Then you can tell me if you liked it.  Of course, it’ll be great, since their shows are always amazing!