Legacy Youth Ministry Resources

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Youth and Music

One study found teens listening to 10,500 hours of rock music (more than twice the time they spend in high school) on their journey from the seventh to the twelfth grade (Elizabeth F. Brown and William R. Hendee, ?Adolescents and Their Music,? Journal of the American Medical Association 262:12 (22-29 Sept. 1989) 1659. A survey of 4000 teens found that five of their top 8 heroes were rock stars. (World Almanac and Book of Facts)

Jim Morrison's Interests

Jim Morrison of The Doors (your youth may have seen the movie about his life) once said this about his performances: ?I?m god up there! I do what I want! I?m interested in anything about revolution, disorder, chaos, sex, and especially activity that has no meaning.? (Newsweek (6 Nov. 1967), 101. ? Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved

Any Good Songs Out There?

Speaker Bob DeMoss has challenged thousands of youth ?to name just one song that they?ve heard on top-forty radio which says, in effect, that waiting to have sex until marriage is a good idea, a noble ideal, or even a possibility.? For 10 years, he?s offered a $20.00 reward. But not one person has been able to cash in on the deal. [Robert G. DeMoss, Jr., Learn To Discern (Zondervan, 1992, p. 15)].

What If A Song Cut Down Someone You Loved?

?If someone wrote a song that cut down my girlfriend and everything she believed, I?d despise the song. I could never enjoy it or buy the tape, even if I would otherwise have enjoyed the tune. So, if I love God with all of my heart, how can I enjoy music that comes against Him and His teachings.?? Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved

Does Music Affect People?

John McCollum took Ozzy Osbourne?s song, ?Suicide Solution? seriously. He took his own life while listening to the album.

Studies on the Effects of Music

?h The Journal of the American Medical Association found that those who are part of heavy metal subcultures (following groups like Metallica and Slayer) are more at risk for drug abuse and Satanic activity. ?h Certain rock videos have been found to make men !?calloused and antagonistic!Ktoward women.!? [Dena L. Peterson and Karen S. Pfost, !?Influence of Rock Videos on Attitudes and Violence Against Women.!? Psychological Reports 64 (1989), p. 321]. This makes sense when we realize that over 1/3 of all music videos show sexual violence against women. (Kane, Misogyny in Rock Videos (NY: Women Against Pornography, 1984). ?h Another study found seventh and tenth-graders more likely to approve of premarital sex after watching selected music videos (L.E. Greeson and R.A. Williams, !?Social Implications of Music Videos for Youth: An Analysis of the Contents and Affects of MTV, !?Youth And Society 18, 1986 177-189).

Graham Uses Youth Music

On becoming all things to all men in the church's style of music... "It was Saturday evening, Oct. 29, 1994. On the stage of Atlanta's vast Georgia Dome, a high-energy rap musical group called dc-Talk was belting out a number at top volume, to the obvious delight of the 78,000 fans packing the stadium, almost all of whom were under the age of twenty-one. A high-tech light show flashed and pulsed from a sixty-foot-high truss overhead, part of nine trailerloads of equipment brought in especially for the production." Sounds like just a typical youth concert, right? Hardly. This was the opening of youth night at Billy Graham's Atlanta crusade! According to Graham, "admittedly, it wasn't really my kind of music...but times change. As long as the essential message of the Gospel is not obscured or compromised, we must use every legitimate method we can.... At the Invitation, more than 5,000 came forward to make their commitment to Christ." ? Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved

Fletcher on Music's Importance

"Give me the making of the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." (Andrew Fletcher, 1703)

Spurgeon Speaks in a "Worldly" Concert Hall

History shows that the church often confuses its traditions with godliness. Old hymns, although originally written in the popular "secular" styles of their times, later become viewed as "sacred" styles. Spurgeon has been called the "Prince of Preachers," for his incredible sermons. But during his time, he was railed against by nearly all the London newspapers for using the Surrey Gardens Music Hall for his meetings. The Saturday Review put it this way: "This hiring of places of amusement for Sunday preaching is a novelty, and a powerful one. It looks as if religion were at its last shift. It is a confession of weakness, rather than a sign of strength. It is not wrestling with Satan in the strongholds?but entering into a cowardly truce and alliance with the world." (W.Y. Fullerton, Charles H. Spurgeon, London's Most Popular Preacher (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966), p. 83)

Worldly Instrument Brings Controversy

This delightful nugget can be used to defend the use of contemporary styles of music: "Someone's got to take a stand!" the wealthy churchman must have thought. "The church should be a place of purity and holiness, separate from the world and its secular entertainment. How could good Christians conceive of welcoming this worldly instrument into the Lord's house?" The churchman did all that he could to thwart the efforts of the "misguided" group that had conceded to accept the sinister gift, beseeching them with tears and even offering to refund the entire price if someone would only dump the ill-fated cargo - a musical instrument - overboard during its transatlantic voyage. Just what was this instrument of such vile associations and shady history that it elicited such opposition? The electric guitar or drums? Hardly. The churchman's pleas were left unheeded; the instrument arrived safely in the New World, and the Brattle Street Church of Boston made room for the controversial instrument: the organ. (Quoted from "The Contemporary Christian Music Debate," by Steve Miller, OM Literature, Waynesville, GA, 1993, pp. 107, 108. Primary source = Edward S. Ninde, "The Story of the American Hymn," (Nashville, Tennessee, Abingdon, 1921), pp. 94-97. Used by permission.)

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