It's no secret that in my younger days, I wanted to be a rock star.  It was simple, really.  I would compose cutting-edge but timeless music, with relevant but flippant lyrics, creative but mindless dance grooves, and inventive but totally catchy hooks.  And rock and roll babes would flock to me, asking for my autograph, tugging at my leather pants, undressing me with their eyes, but loving me for my mind.

Actually, I was never that naive.  But I was close.

You see, the greatest part of my naivete was not that I thought it was easy, nor that I thought I was good enough.  It was that I didn't realize how vain and fruitless the quest for fame is.

This striving toward celebrity is embedded in many of us artists, isn't it?  When we are brutally honest with ourselves—and some of us may not have the emotional quotient to understand ourselves with that degree of authenticity—we find that our drive can come from unhealthy places.  The  pride which bubbles beneath the surface of our public image; the inflated self-image that we are cooler, more talented, more deserving than we really are.  Or the poor self-image that drives us to posture and pretend, forever comparing ourselves with others and coming up short; the insecurities that drive us to succeed so that we might break the chains of our self-perceptions. Then there is the unstated and untrue belief that fame will somehow bring us happiness and love and acceptance.  Ultimately, the things that drive us to want celebrity may often be found in a complex web of lies such as these.

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Since the advent of the praise chorus, there has been debate over the lyrical content of Christian worship songs.  The initial (and sometimes continuing) issues have centered on the depth of content.  Worship choruses were lyrically simple, hooky, and repetitive by design.  And in the early development of the praise chorus, I think that was the point—to create songs that were easy to sing and more emotionally evocative, not necessarily weighty in theology.  So in contrast to hymns, worship choruses—infusing contemporary folk and rock sensibilities—were composed that were sincere, singable, and hopefully meaningful.

Thankfully, the hymn-versus-chorus debate is largely a thing of the past these days.  In many churches, hymns and choruses peacefully co-exist in the expression of corporate worship.  In a real sense, the traditional vs. contemporary worship wars were as much a cultural issue as they were a style issue.  And culture evolves.  Of course, the culture wars continue, but they look very different these days.

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