In honor of April 1, I post the following article found at the Wittenburg Door website.
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Your Guide to Contemporary Christian Music
By Skippy R
Created 06/19/2008 – 01:15
By Dale Peterson
Thank you for choosing to worship with us today. If you are from a church that uses traditional hymns, you may be confused. Please take a moment to read through this guide to contemporary Christian music.
In our church you will not hear “How Great Thou Art,” “Wonderful Grace of Jesus,” or “Like a River Glorious.” (Generally, hymns that have words like “Thou” are not used. They are too archaic and are normally replaced by words like “awesome” and “miry clay”). Yes, okay, we may do “Amazing Grace” or “Peace Like a River” at some point, but as a general rule we avoid songs with too many different verses or those that can’t be played easily on guitar and drums.
If you are new to worship here, you may wish to know the reasons for this. One is that deep theological concepts do not belong in contemporary Christian worship. We frown on songs that change more than one or two words for each verse. For example, our version of “Holy is the Lord” consists of repeating that phrase six times per verse and then changing “Holy” to “Worthy,” “Mighty,” “Jesus” and finally changing “the” to “my.” Isn’t that much simpler to sing and easier to remember? The twin goals here are a) repetition and b) chanting quality. We don’t focus on what we’re singing, but how we’re singing it. The main thing is to get that kind of tingly, “olive oily” feeling. Don’t worry if you don’t get this right away. It will come as you learn to disengage your intellect. Just free yourself. Immerse yourself. Relax. . . .
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Now, if you want to read the rest of the article you will simply have to follow the link at the beginning of this post. 😯
Happy April 1st! 😛
Regular blogging will resume tomorrow. Do not adjust your monitor, we are in control. . .
Fr. Ernesto,
The CCM article illustrates what is in my opinion one of the biggest problems in church music today. I am not anti-CCM nor am I a “hymns only” kind of person. I believe that CCM has it’s rightful place in entertainment. As I see it the derailment took place when we took CCM out of the concert hall/radio station, dropped it into the sanctuary, and pushed hymnody out the back door. Now, every Sunday is an attempt to duplicate the emotion, energy, and feel-good atmosphere of a CCM concert. I’m no prophet so I cannot say where this will all lead us, but I do not have a good sense that this shift will be good for the worship, belief, or practice of the Church.
Thoughts?
Blessings to you!
I love contemporary Christian music on the radio. But, I agree with you on bringing into worship. Some of the music is written for a “performer” and you catch that when the same music is done in a church worship setting. It directs the worshipper to the performer more than to the Lord. But, there is some of the music that can transfer to a western worship setting.
Nevertheless, too much of the current church worship scene is based on getting people to “feel” in ways that are inappropriate because they are self-directed rather than directed towards God. Feeling peaceful is not the same thing as having peace with God. Feeling hilariously happy is not the same thing as having the joy of the Lord.
But, even more dangerous, the music never confronts you with what happens when the suffering comes. Hymns like “Amazing Grace”, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, and “For All The Saints Who From Their Labor Rest” teach Christians how to handle suffering and hard times, which is more than contemporary music tends to do.
That is hilarious (at least the part you posted)!! And it’s really not a joke at all.
Fr. Ernesto,
Good thoughts. I also find that much of the popular music is difficult for congregational singing. Unless one listens to a good bit of CCM on the radio and therefore very familiar with the melody then it can be a very trying experience to figure it out in church. Our hymns, many of them written in some type of verse/stanza form, make for simpler, more melodious congregational singing. A good thing.
I don’t want to be a complainer, but I have to be honest about my concerns as mentioned in my first comment.
Grace and Peace.
Heh heh, you are right. We forget that it is performance music tailored for highly talented performers. Try that in a local church and one can sometimes hear some really awful renditions that, uhm, ehhh, well I cannot find a polite way to say it.