Worship music doesn’t connect with me anymore. Sometimes I think of what it would be like to rewind my spiritual journey back to the days when I had powerful worship experiences in church. However, any recent attempt has left me discontent. Just as I’m ready to abandon any form of worship containing lyrics, I remember The Bridge. I’ve visited The Bridge a handful of times the past 5 or 6 years and each time I’ve been surprised by how my soul responds to the music. The lyrics resonate with me. The unpolished arrangements invite me in, imperfections and all. The volume is cranked to 11 and I feel at home. Todd and Angie’s style of worship is certainly not for everyone, but that’s just the thing…their style of worship works for the community they pastor, not the other way around. Todd and Angie, you inspire me.
What has been your experience with worship in church? Does it connect with your soul?
Updating…
Todd and Angie’s band Agents of Future plays weekly at The Bridge. The song playing the first half of the video is “Sewn in my Skin”, which can be found on their most recent CD, Sneek Peaks. Purchase the CD here or download it here.
Like it! thanks for sharing this one. I’m currently on my own quest to begin singing again – if it’s not too late for this old voice of mine to recover.
My best experiences of worship have been when we are singing as ONE – this doesn’t happen when someone is performing – but when we each find our voice in the music and each sing our part. I love how Bernice from Sweet Honey and Rock talks about it…you don’t have to have a good voice to make your contribution AND we need everyone to sing their part to complete the song.
thanks, E
Craig–thank you. this one made me cry.
I like the real-ness, that it is ‘unfeigned’. I like the fact that lots of people are part of the whole sound, and everyone is actually involved.
I think there is still room for something to aspire to, something to give hope, but I agree that it is certainly appropriate to sing about the pain and angst of today.
I love The Bridge, and I love Todd and Angie and their family. We’re loud and rowdy only because that’s the preferred way in our particular community of Christ followers. The songs and lyrics are homegrown and often, very often, the worship time morphs easily into a free-falling time of spontaneous outpouring of song, dance and drumming. It is the only place in my more than three decades of following Jesus where I am allowed to sing as loud as I need to. And for me, that is often. The stuff inside the caves of my bones groans to get out to the surface and sometimes when it does, it makes a noisy entrance. At The Bridge, I am unashamed and in the company of others who are like me, who need to holler at the top of our grace-starved lungs as we bust through the gates to the Presence of Mercy.
Thanks so much Craig for capturing an accurate snapshot of our sound and our heart and of our friends, the Fadels!
the song of lament, the pilgrim songs are lost today and mostly replaced with familiar and unoffensive riffs.
disclaimer: i love the fadels, and if they sang taco bell jingles i would think it was the coolest thing ever
Thank Q Craig for shooting this! I hope all is well. Hope and things to “aspire to” are still a major part of our lyrics, too. We just thought long ago that the balance of humanity (joy AND suffering) was not being accurately reflected. So we set out to write about the “other times”.
Here’s a lyric sheet for all the songs we’ve written with The Bridge: http://tinyurl.com/aa44rd
And a few years ago, a writer from a Portland arts/music weekly observed our community, and showed us what is looks like from an outsiders point of view: http://tinyurl.com/MERCURYatTHEBRIDGE
It seems that if people know their doubting voice is represented, they trust the singers and the community a little bit more.
Thanks for all the comments everyone!
Look…I’m 56 years old, and I love to sing. My spiritual roots are in the early Jesus Movement, where “Christian” music was born. I have loved to worship in song, and singing was a huge part of my Young Life ministry for over 20 years. But something happened along the way. Somewhere the singing stopped and “worship” performance began. Instead of everyone making a “joyful noise to the Lord” we had a tightly rehearsed band with a cookie-cutter “worship leader” belting out the latest canned Christian emo music, complete with backup singers, laser lights and a smoke machine. In a darkened room. We became an audience, and it became nearly impossible to hear anyone but the person on the mic singing…including ourselves.
I first heard these guys at an Off The Map event up in Seattle. I couldn’t understand the lyrics at the time, and at first the music and unpolished angst put me off. But something about it grabbed my heart, and I found myself weeping. There was beauty in the ashes, and the sound dug deep into my soul and touched something long abandoned. I am a huge fan now, but my 20-something kids don’t get it. Maybe they haven’t suffered enough yet. I don’t know.
So I’m calling the church to let the people sing. I’m calling “worship leaders” to actually learn how to lead others in worship (and quit performing). I loved the fact that the Bridge uses a crappy overhead projector and hand writes the words on a transparency. It’s simple. It’s cheap. And it keeps the focus on the message instead of the medium. I love that everyone gets to play…drums, trash cans, or just singing at the top of their lungs. The songs allow all that…encourage all that. And THAT is truly beautiful worship.
Randy – love what you have said here. becoming the music, every voice contributing, very powerful – much more than a performance…
i got to go to a bridge sunday morning thing and have been trying to get drums, things to hit, cut up pvc pipes to yell into for my fellowship in boulder ever since…i love that todd and angie have provided/built/lived into/whatever’d an environment where everything is real and basic. basic-ness in worship = inclusionary friendliness = priesthood of all believers = love for people = family. yummy.
i attend the bridge, here in portland and i have to say, when i first attended, i was extremely apprehensive about participating in the music/art portion of sunday. everyone else seemed so much more qualified and talented. everyone else seemed to be so comfortable picking up a drum and hitting the hell out of it. what if i screwed up? what if i was off beat? what if my voice cracked? what if they judged my art? what soon become evident to me was the fact that at the bridge, EVERYONE’S voice is qualified to sing out to God. EVERYONE’S style of art is qualified to be explored as an outpouring of their heart in response to where they are with God. adults, kids, women….EVERYONE’S voice is important and valued. if i were to write a song, it would be taken seriously. when i create art, it is respected….i am not afraid to try new things because the focus isn’t on me, it’s on God. an environment where true Jesus freedom is fostered.
and, not only is the pain of life (i think of those songs as similar to david wailing to God in the psalms)but there IS joy in a lot of the lyrics because it is a reflection of where we are at certain points in our life. sometimes the music is extremely loud and intense and other times it is mellow….you never know what style is going to happen, but you always know you are going to get something genuine and God will meet you, if you let Him.
After 5 years out of church, Agents of Future is the only worship music I will still listen to. The first time I visited The Bridge, I heard “Peace on its Feet” and I knew I was in a different kind of place. It made me cry and moved me in a way I didn’t know possible. I have a CD and listen to it often.
One of the many reasons I love The Bridge, and why I call it “my church if I went to church”.
Erin,
re: “My church if I went to church” is perfect–thank you for the phrase! I used to have one of those, though I didn’t call it that. Then I moved internationally. Ah well.
Todd and Angie…
You guys rock my world!
Worship… extravagant love and extreme submission… how many forms can this take on? I love what happens at The Bridge each week. You can’t find it like this any other place, baby!
this is great!!!! i’ve been searching for worship like this for years!!!! ever since i got back into church… wish i lived a little further north to check this place out… musically, it’s right up my alley, so that doesn’t hurt either. ‘without strings’ rox!!! as well, ‘you can change my mind’… so good… thank for posting this…
i love what aaron said – “basic-ness in worship = inclusionary friendliness = priesthood of all believers = love for people = family” – oh that all churches would catch hold of this…
Its the bottom up approach – the voice given to the voiceless. The invitation to be yourself is what the Jesus-gathering known as the Bridge provides. Thanks Todd and Angie for creating an environment where play and freedom can thrive. You peeps are my family!
soulful and honest. the heart of the psalmist. ironically, what hit me was less about my experience of the music and worship time (‘cuz let’s be gut-truthful, if we’re just sitting around talking about how this is more “honest” or “authentic” than the over-produced ummm…BS that’s coming out of the CCM worship scene, then it’s still just about us and that’s not GOD-worship. that’s still me-worship with tofu on the side) – what struck me was that this is more about who GOD is in the reality of this community…not who GOD needs to be, not sexy-GOD, not sugar-daddy GOD, not little god, but overwhelming, messy, wall-of-sound GOD who displaces us to replant us and give us real roots.
T&A (awesome…) :: i love it. i love what you’re doing. i love that GOD is peeling back the pretty in what you do and being GOD. blessings on your art, your voice, your bright color poured onto the life-canvas of your community. GOD be in your doing and being this week!!
Todd and Angie,
You saved my life years ago by letting my internal scream of anguish/rage/joy come out in worship. Thank you
I love you
i love the fadels!! when i first heard the fadels at off the map in 2006, it touched a place deep inside me (like you, randy). since then, our lives and ministries have become wonderfully tangled up and i can say that theirs is the only worship music i can really sing anymore. the words are so powerful & raw & real & express what is deep within so many of us but typically aren’t part of contemporary worship. the other part that i think is extra-extra beautiful is what angie said about “it includes everyone.” it is about everyone having a voice, everyone being part, creating together. that model is so undervalued in the church & i hope that the fadels’ message &^ heart continues to be part of shifting this… thanks, craig, for sharing this. the fadels rock.
Have to admit I rather like the sound of the Bridge, it’s rawness, and simplicity in dealing with the journey of relationship with the Divine Person, attempting deeper hues of intimacy… it sounds like that relations are knitted closer as a product.. it seems distinct from the JPUSA effects which tended towards the same issues churchianity has had with the heirarchy of ego’s there too.. and in it’s rather twisted history… I wonder though.. how this may be joined with my understanding of worship, which has become finding new ways to be grateful and express that.. i guess i’m way too functional.. and maybe miss the sentimental as i’ve gotten older and become more jaded.. maybe that’s another reason I resonate with the grunge oregonian feel of the Bridge’s style
thanks for your comments, Clint.
we totally join with your understanding of worship, as we try to write music and facilitate projects at the Bridge that encourage holistic growth and maturity, not just “grunge”-type what-haven’t-you-done-for-me cynicism.
Not that you were specifically asking for this, but we have plenty of songs where we sing things like: “You are good to me” and “I’m grateful that you fight for me, Your love for me is overwhelming” and “I listen to your voice and hear the sound it makes, I love it just because i remember how it was: the violence, a disease that was taking over me, i didn’t know who i could trust, i sat alone in the dark.”
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The way we figure it, if our approach *only* reflects and does nothing to catapult us past the plateaus that tend to overtake all of us, we’re not seeing that the Kingdom of God is actually *at hand*. We just find a deeper authenticity when we include the expressions that illustrate the struggle of life.