Djembe. Pronounce it the way you would if you were introducing your friend Jim Bey to a pretty girl. It’s an African drum that you play with your bare hands. I’ve tried learning to play it but I lack the one thing necessary; rhythm. But perhaps I hope that I can play a gospel djembe.
Since I’ve already confessed my failure at playing a djembe, allow my friend Nate Claiborne to explain how to play a djembe:
To play the djembe you differentiate between deep, bassy center hits and mid-range more percussive rim shots. To play a beat you alternate between the two (simulating a drum beat that alternates between bass drum and snare). If you just hit one or the other, you’re not playing the instrument correctly, though you are technically producing a rhythm. If you just beat the center of the drum, you’ll produce a bass heavy “four on the floor” dance beat that is only useful in certain upbeat contexts. If you just hit the rim, you’re producing something akin to a slow drum roll, or bongo sound—again, only giving you limited usefulness. If you combine the two, you can play an variety of rhythmic variations that are useful in almost every context.
That’s how you play djembe. Now, how do you play a gospel djembe? Much the same way. You beat the center and slap the rim. The center is the indicative—that which Christ has done on our behalf. The rim is the imperative—that which we do in response to what Christ has already done.
Focusing on one at the expense of the other not only isn’t producing good music, it’s going to have consequences in the life of the church. If we hit the center over and over again then there will be very good things said. Vital emphases will be recovered. People will be helped. Lives will be saved from the wreckage of legalism. But we’ll also be missing something. Imperatives.
In the same way to only slap the edges (imperatives) will provide helpful in a season. Many good and true things will be said. Some will be helped. But eventually we’ll fall flat because something vital is missing. Indicatives.
Playing the Gospel Djembe
The way to play the gospel djembe is to hit that center really hard. Keep banging away at it and never losing that bassy middle. Preach Christ and Him crucified. Over and over and over again. Never move away from the foundation of what Jesus Christ has done our behalf. Ground every single tap of the rim in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
But tap the rim.
Please.
Don’t be afraid to tell people that they must be holy. And they need to be taught how to be holy—and that doesn’t happen just by banging the drum middle. I agree with Mark Jones:
Not infrequently will one hear that we should just ‘preach the gospel’ and then let the Spirit do his work in believers. Of course this statement can be taken in a number of ways that even the staunchest opponent of antinomianism could agree to. But often there is such an overreaction to ‘moralizing sermons’ that preachers fail to give appropriate, soul-searching application in the form of commands. Direct and specific application is something that Paul does not omit in his letters. For example, he reminds the Thessalonians to love one another and then urges them ‘to do this more and more’ (1 Thess. 4:10). Try harder? Yes. Do more? Yes. For Paul the law functioned as a means of sanctification. (Jones, Antinomianism, 38)
To effectively play the gospel djembe means that we will play with balance. And I can’t speak to this balance any better than Nate did when we were discussing this analogy:
The balance comes by combining the two in an appropriate way that changes to fit the contours and rhythms of daily life. The easy thing to do is just hit the center or bang the edge. But the call in Scripture is to make music*.
Let’s make music.
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*For this article and illustration I am very much indebted to an email conversation with Nate Claiborne. You should follow Nate on Twitter or check out his blog.
