Why Bono and The Cure are My favorite Worship Leaders
Bono participating in a worship service in New York City, August 2004I'll never forget the first time I heard Bono sing '40' from the U2 album WAR. It was a techno remix of the 1983 release and I can remember literally feeling waves of goose bumps running up and down my body. Here was arguably the biggest rock n' roll star of my lifetime stripped down of all his image and position singing a Psalm written to God like David probably did thousands of years ago. Was this OK? He's not a Worship Leader, is he? Is this worship?
This experience made me curious about the potential for using other 'secular' songs for Worship. As I looked into it I discovered that this is not a new concept. Evidently many of our ancient hymns and spiritual songs found their melodic origins in secular sources. For example, John Wesley put some of his 6,000 hymns to classical music, a few opera tunes, and perhaps a folk song or two. I asked around to some of my Worship Leader friends and evidently borrowing from 'secular' sources didn't stop with Hymns.
Here are a couple of the 'secular' songs that people have used in Church recently:
(I really like the lyrics by The Cure)
Lyrics from "40" by U2
Lyrics from "You Raise Me Up" performed by Josh Groban
Lyrics for "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher" by Jackie Wilson
Lyrics for "Lovesong" by The Cure
Lyrics for "I'm a Believer" performed by Neil Diamond, made famous by the Monkees
