Rock Opera in Heaven

I'm not normally much of a concert person.  As an INTJ I usually see concerts like this: You want me to pay what to stand next to a bunch of crazy people all up in my personal space and to hear songs I can listen to for much cheaper (and with more personal space) on a CD?  No thanks.  But, occasionally I break my concert rule when there is an artist whose music has been very meaningful to me...Jeremy Camp, Addison Road, David Crowder.  I can't really think of many others I've paid money to see in the last 10 years.

Recently, because of an unfortunate situation for some of our close friends, we inherited their tickets to the David Crowder Band concert.  I love their music and was looking forward to it, but probably not in the way the original purchasers of the tickets were.  We headed to the concert, anticipating a fun evening out.  The evening did include an awkward and uncomfortably close conversation with an odd lady sitting next to me.  How do you really make those conversations end when the person is sitting almost in your lap?  However, this was not the band's fault so I won't hold it against them.

David Crowder was just as good as I remembered.  Something I love about their music (both in concert and otherwise) is that it exudes a level of joyful praise not often found in other music.  When listening to DCB songs I feel like I'm interjected into a praise session that is contagious.  The concert was no different.

Crowder has an unassuming air, wearing jeans, a baseball cap, and his trademark beard, he led the band in a truly amazing display of God-given musical talent.  Coupling this with the lyrics on screen it made for one awesome worship service.

Halfway through the night, after beginning his song "You are my Joy", Crowder paused and told the audience, "I hope you don't mind, but we have officially entered the rock opera portion of the evening."  He explained, for those of us not really in tune with the music scene, that rock opera is full of dramatic theatrics, with big crescendos and long pauses, shredding guitar solos and songs of epic length.  I'm not really a "rocker" but how can you say no to that?

About five minutes later, with a crowd of people singing "You are my joy!" to guitar solos and an impressively crazed drummer I thought, "There will so be rock opera in heaven."  I have no idea what the extent of heaven will be but sometimes I think we bore ourselves (and others) thinking that in heaven we will stand around singing hymns (I like hymns, but for eternity?) and then maybe take a little walk through the garden...you know, a serene heaven, if not a little blah.  But, in that moment, singing that song, I felt a perfect crescendo of praise to our Father and I thought, surely this is what heaven will be like.  The glory of God is not a staid pursuit I think.  It will take more than any one genre, musical or otherwise, to fully express our praise to God.  And it is only through God that we are given the inspiration of these avenues of praise.

Does it blow anyone else's mind that God, who is the object of our praise, is also the source of our ability to praise?  No good thing that brings God glory is created apart from the breath of God.  That's a humbling thought for those of us who like to "create." 

I think worship in heaven will be one big, rock/rap/dance/folk/country/poetry/jazz/prose... extravaganza, maybe complete with a light show (God is the Father of Light after all).  Our God is a big God, with many ways of expressing His glory...I look forward to experiencing them all in heaven and am grateful when I get little tastes of them here on earth.