Donald Miller doesn’t like singing, and he doesn’t like church.
Except he doesn’t really wrestle with either.
Since I got a little push back from saying “I Miss Mark Driscoll” it seems only fair that I share my thoughts on the direction that Miller is going.
It’s hard to overstate how much Miller’s work has affected my life. I read Blue Like Jazz as a senior in college. It was probably the most dangerous thing I ever did.
Once a week, I made a two hour drive through abandoned rice patties to Memphis, where I was test driving the idea of going to seminary. I was so enthralled with Blue Like Jazz that I propped it up on my steering wheel and read it while driving. (Don’t worry, I haven’t acted like this since Audible came around.)
Blue Like Jazz was unlike anything I’d encountered before. It was full of raw reflections on a life that seemed driven by a desire to know God. It expressed a sense of alienation from the politically driven, southern manners version of “church.” At the time, I was starting to wonder if I should plant a church, and I was becoming increasingly aware that the tribe of my youth wasn’t interested.
Blue Like Jazz was the permission I needed to seek out a place I could serve God while being honest to who I am. For Don, that meant relocating to Portland. A year and a half later, perhaps inspired by Don, I moved to the Portlandia of the south, Austin, Texas.
When Mumford and Son’s Babel hit the shelves about a year ago, the reviewers all seemed to agree that it should be great, but there was something “off.” The entire album was an improvement: better musicianship, better writing, better mastering. But it just wasn’t the same. It was so clean it had lost something vital.
That’s how I feel when I get one read one of Donald’s posts these days.
To be fair, readers should recognize that Donald’s books have always dealt with the fact that he doesn’t like “church.” That’s not surprising and that’s not why I miss Donald.
Donald Miller has built a publishing fiefdom. He’s launched a self-help brand. He’s mastered writing pithy, sharable web material with stock images and embedded tweet codes. I would love my blog to have such quality and impact!
A lot of these are good. But not in the “risk my life” kind of way that Blue Like Jazz was.
The problem with posting “I don’t go to church” is that it’s engaging and gets a lot of clicks, but it doesn’t tell the story.
Donald’s books are, more than anything, about the people he loves. They take care of each other. They worship God together.
What do you call that, except a church?
Unlike Miller, I like singing. A lot. Growing up I participated in dozens of choirs and hundreds of performances. I founded a short-lived a cappella quartet. My undergraduate degree is in vocal performance. So you can take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt.
The problem with posting “I don’t like singing” is that it’s a clickable headline that doesn’t wrestle with what it means to worship corporately.
From reading his books and learning about his church in Portland, I would assume that when Miller says “I don’t like singing” he’s talking about megachurches and wannabes with slick bands that repeat choruses loudly. The role of the congregation is only to raise your hands and sing along. At it’s worst, it becomes a spiritualization of stadium rock concerts.
Singing was the center activity of the churches I was raised in. We were taught that “sing and make music in our hearts” meant that we had to actually sing. There were classes that taught sight reading. There were practice sessions to master four-part harmony.
We lost something in our zeal to sing well, but there was something very “body of Christ” about what we were doing. We declared together who God is and who he was making us.
Bonhoeffer addresses the question “Why do Christians sing when they are together?”
The reason is, quite simply, because in singing together it is possible to speak and pray the same Word at the same time…our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say. The burden of our song goes far beyond all human words.
It is the voice of the Church that is heard in singing together…[singing] make us see our little company as a member of the great Christian Church on earth.
I miss Donald Miller because his books take the time to wrestle with his need for God and community. His books skillfully use narrative and relationship to display his process of sorting it all out.
It would be great to see Miller wrestle with questions like “What is the Church?” and “Why should we worship?” My hope is that what Miller is doing in posts like this is shopping out material for his next book. Perhaps it will be along the lines of “I don’t like church, but I think it’s important.”
Take your time Donald, because we need to hear what you have to say.
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