Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #24 |
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JESUS calls US to be |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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Made In the Image of GOD, We Want to
Give to Him Our Best Gifts
Exchanges between Ray and Dan,
and comments by Roger Jay
Discussing "Contemporary" Church Music
Surely we all want to give God our best. This discussion assumes that those who want dignified church musicians and music styles are no more eager to honor God than are those whose preferences are for "keyboards" rather than organs and pianos. We ALL want to honor and please Jehovah God. We differ in methods.
On 7/11/97, a brother responded to my expressed opinion that much of the music now being heard in our church meetings is vastly inferior to what was generally preferred and performed in former days. He writes,
May I disagree with your OPINION about the disagreeableness of repeating choruses? If you are a singer of the psalms you will note that repetition is a hallmark of many of those verses!
I recently ran across this statement in an article by someone from outside the restoration "brotherhood" that I thought was really good -- "Anyone who loves his opinions more than he does his brethren will defend his opinions and destroy his brethren."
God's blessings on you, brother -- Dan:)
[Note that Brother Dan is friendly and smiling!]I'm glad someone was listening!! I'm glad a friend recently met was interested to respond and remind of the importance of loving brothers more than opinions. He's right, of course. I wrote back:Dan,
Thanks for sharing, for responding. That won't seem repetitious to me! (He had expressed an opinion also about an essay earlier received).
Of course you're right that I mustn't let any opinion cause me to reject a differing brother. I don't want to love my opinions more than my brothers. Neither do I want my brothers to invest time foolishly just because some of our religious neighbors do.
Copying what charismatics do in their services (the emphasis on worship, etc.) is not yet proven to be a good thing, yet many of our congregations have jumped on the bandwagon full force. Most larger congregations now have a "worship leader" and a "worship team," with a "worship band" by whatever name, and no longer sing "psalms, hymns, and odes" of the vintage I was teethed on.
Instead of hymns which call for thought and depth of emotional response, most of the little things being repeated and repeated and repeated are poor music and lack any possibility of comparing well with hymns based on good poetry and good musical taste. They're aiming at adult children, and are insulting folks who have learned to appreciate beauty of words and music. But I'm NOT much prejudiced.
It's because brothers do matter that I decry what I see happening all over the nation. We're getting away from worthwhile musical sharing and substituting very poor things in the place of much better things. Psalms written in languages other than English and in cultures other than American are not necessarily the best guides for our American English singers of the 20th century. But repetition itself is not so bad. It's repeating inferior things to which I'm objecting.
To sing, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below..." gives to many a satisfaction and completeness with no felt need to do it again and again and again in hopes of the singing causing us to feel transported to heavenly realms.
We're choosing to spend time needed for worthwhile things on things worth much less. That's not a good choice! Many hymns have wonderful words and music. Most of these "worship choruses" which are displacing the hymns are vastly inferior ...
Yes, that's opinion. Most musicians will agree with the opinion. There's good music and less-good music. Why should we switch to the less-good???
9/7/97 -- Dan keeps thinking. I'm glad he stays in touch when our thinking is very dissimilar on the matter of church music appropriate for today. He writes,After reading several of your commentaries on the "new" forms and styles of worship, it seems to me that you may be missing the point of those promoting more "lively" forms of corporate worship.
So many of our churches seem to feature musical styles (and preaching?) of bygone eras that no longer speak to the hearts and minds of people today that folks are "turned off" emotionally and intellectually. When twentysomethings come in among us, do they see and hear the joy of the Lord -- or do they see and hear meaningless (to them) jargon sung to unfamiliar tunes that sound foreign to them?
I believe that is the point of these "worship seminars" of which you are critical.
Remember -- the church that will be here tomorrow is the one reaching the young people of today.
Still thinking -- Dan:)
Date sent: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 19:17:38 -0500
From: "ROGER L. JAY" <rljay@infohwy.com>
To: outreach@sofnet.com
Subject: Church musicI read with interest the exchange about current church music. I attend a fairly large church of Christ in a suburb of Houston, and we would probably be classified as a church that has 'abandoned' (at least we don't sing them as much) some of the old hymns that I grew up on. I have been leading singing ever since my dad would put me up on the communion table because I was so small. I am 56 now and love to sing.
We do have a 'praise team' where I worship, and I sing on that team. I view myself as one of the song leaders. We don't sing the repetitious choruses that you seem to be 'putting down'. I tend to agree with you that they can be rather meaningless after awhile. However, note the words to this song that we sang just this past Sunday:
1) We believe in God the Father, we believe in Christ the Son.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, We are the Church and we stand as one.Holy, Holy, Holy is our God.
Holy, Holy, holy is our King.
All glory and honor are His to receive,
To Jesus we sing, because we believe.2) We believe in the Holy Bible, we believe in the virgin birth.
We believe in the resurrection, that Christ one day will return to earthHoly, Holy, Holy is our God.
Holy, Holy, holy is our King.
All glory and honor are His to receive,
To Jesus we sing, because we believe.3) We believe in the blood of Jesus, we believe in eternal life.
We believe in His blood that frees us, to become the bride of Christ.Holy, Holy, Holy is our God.
Holy, Holy, holy is our King.
All glory and honor are His to receive,
To Jesus we sing, because we believe.Does this sound like meaningless repetition? I certainly think not!
There are some really wonderful new songs being written, as well as some that are not very good, I realize. Our music director is trying very hard to introduce the congregation to music that will enable them to worship God in spirit and in truth. I think he accomplishes that more often than not.
Ray, I appreciate your wanting to be correct in everything, but I certainly hope you realize that your salvation is NOT based on YOUR rightness, but on the blood of Jesus. If you try to come before God at judgment and claim that you DESERVE entry into heaven because you were always right, may He have mercy on your soul. All that we do is as filthy rags and not worthy of putting us in His presence. That does not mean we don't try and do good things and do them correctly, but we must never base our acceptance before Him on our own merit.
I've gone on long enough. Thanks for listening and God bless you. Come visit us at Spring Woodlands Church of Christ someday. You are always welcome. Look for the tall, bald-headed guy who sings tenor.
Yours in Christ, Roger Jay
Brief Bible Study #24 from Ray Downen. To go back to
Viewpoint's first page, click < here. Or here to go on to Viewpoint Study 25. For Ray's concluding remarks, click HERE.