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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Yet more crappy choruses, wonky worship-songs and horrible hymns
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Why is it "weird"? I think it's a genuine attempt to cover the musical breadth of the Deanery churches.
I realise that it may not be what you like - but that's a different matter. And it's very likely that traditional hymns will be just as "weird" to some of the candidates as worship songs are to you.
By the way, "Only by grace" dates from (or, at least, was copyrighted in) 1989.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
But it doesn't: there is one deanery church which uses this kind of thing - the one where the service is being held - and they have only one candidate for confirmation out of c50. The other deanery churches are all fairly standard, using either New English Hymnal or A&M.
As for my taste, I think whoever chose the hymns could have been more imaginative but at least what they've chosen will be well known.
Only by Grace may have been written in 1989 but it still sounds like 70s 'Easy Listening'.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
But it doesn't: there is one deanery church which uses this kind of thing - the one where the service is being held - and they have only one candidate for confirmation out of c50.
Could I phrase this as "during communion, the host church is providing a selection of music in its usual style"?
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Well, you can't change it. So I'd advise an obvious non-participation, to encourage others who feel as you do about it: arms firmly folded (if sitting)or hanging down with hands clasped in front of you (if standing), mouth firmly shut, gaze fixed somewhere half-way to the ceiling. Works for me.
[ 20. May 2016, 21:39: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Really? I don't know how the living God would be served by that approach.
Unless you believe that such music is actually blasphemous I don't know how you could justify attending a church service and behaving in such a way. For a start, how would such obvious non-participation encourage the people being confirmed?
(Please forgive me if I've missed the joke here. An emoticon would help.)
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
I'd advise an obvious non-participation, to encourage others who feel as you do about it: arms firmly folded (if sitting)or hanging down with hands clasped in front of you (if standing), mouth firmly shut, gaze fixed somewhere half-way to the ceiling.
Really? I don't know how the living God would be served by that approach.
He is served by your silent prayer: "Forgive them, Father, for they don't know what they are doing."
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Quite so.
I was not joking at all. But perhaps on reflection, as it is a confirmation and as Svitlana reminds us the candidates are quite rightly the ones who should be centre stage (and as it is not your own church, so you are in the position of being to some extent a guest), such an obvious display of non-participation might be a little too much on this occasion. In that case, silent prayer would do it. But the point is that you don't have to join in.
[ 21. May 2016, 08:42: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
The Jeremy Corbyn approach to worship music ...
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
The Jeremy Corbyn approach to worship music ...
On the contrary, Corbyn displayed some manners. On the other hand, considerably better than the John Redwood approach.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I've never been in the midst of serious 'worship wars', at my own church or elsewhere, so the idea of attending a church but refusing to sing the songs is quite alien to me.
If a change in worship style is imposed wholesale on a congregation without consultation (which is a very strange thing to happen) I can understand the disgust, but this should be expressed in church meetings, not during the holy time of worship.
Moreover, is it right to be so utterly convinced that God shares our tastes and abhors someone else's? Kudos to those who are sure of that.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Does 'taste' come into it as far as the Almighty is concerned?
I can't imagine God the Father nudging God the Son and beckoning God the Holy Spirit over to say, 'Look lads, they're singing "In Christ Alone", my favourite ...'
Or rolling his eyes and saying, 'It's that wretched setting of the Gloria again! Never mind, there's still umpteen zillion years of eternity once it's been forgotten ...'
The point isn't what style of music God 'likes' but what's appropriate for the occasion, setting and context.
I'd argue that a medley of worship songs plonked in the middle of an otherwise traditional Anglican service would jar with most people - both traditionalists and those into what they think of as more 'contemporary' styles - which, as L'Organist has observed, are generally anything but 'up to date'.
Back in the day when the big Bible Weeks were on a roll, it always struck me how the worship songs and choruses seemed to make sense in those settings, irrespective of whether you 'liked' them or not, in a way that they didn't when removed from their context and sung in Anglican parishes or traditional Baptist churches or wherever else.
The same would be true of a Bach chorale or some Stainer or Orthodox chant.
Context is everything.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The point isn't what style of music God 'likes' but what's appropriate for the occasion, setting and context.
It almost sounds as if we fear that God will withhold his blessings if a worship song clashes with a bit of Charles Wesley or the choir's anthem!! Strange.
More seriously, if there's some kind of transitional moment between one part of the service and the other then perhaps the change in music won't feel like a dreadful and abrupt mash-up of styles but more like a calculated progression in tempo and atmosphere. That could work....
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
There is no buffering: the order is Only by Grace, then Mozart, then another worship song Broken for me.
Still, it will be better than the last event like this where, in a church with the narrowest chancel ever, people went to the altar rail while a 'worship group' bawled out Majesty, worship his majesty ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
All of this has been put together by clergy so one is bound to ask whether anyone is teaching these people about context, etc, in the course of ministry training, because I certainly can't see any sign of it.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
'Context' seems to be a cultural thing, though.
I mean, I too think 'Majesty' is an odd Communion song, but that's based on the kinds of churches I attend. We see Communion as a solemn, quiet, reflective event. But we also talk about Communion as a 'meal', and since many meals don't take place in such a low-key atmosphere it's hardly surprising that some faith traditions take a far more lively and communal approach to Communion.
The problem for the CofE seems to be that it has to grapple with priests and laity who come from a range of different worship traditions, so the likelihood of 'clashes' occurring in worship must be relatively high.
[ 21. May 2016, 13:34: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
If any restaurant played muzak at the level we had to endure 'Majesty' they'd be empty.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Landlubber
Shipmate
# 11055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Quite so.
I was not joking at all. But perhaps on reflection, as it is a confirmation and as Svitlana reminds us the candidates are quite rightly the ones who should be centre stage (and as it is not your own church, so you are in the position of being to some extent a guest), such an obvious display of non-participation might be a little too much on this occasion. In that case, silent prayer would do it. But the point is that you don't have to join in.
This seems to me the better option, if only on the 'do as you would be done by' principle (envisage, perhaps, my anxiety the first time I - brought up somewhere near the wax drips at the bottom of the candle - encountered Salve Regina at the close of a service).
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They that go down to the sea in ships … reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Yes. Ostentatious not joining in if someone succeeds in smuggling that sort of thing into your own church. Dignified not joining in if encountered elsewhere.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
If any restaurant played muzak at the level we had to endure 'Majesty' they'd be empty.
I assure you they do, having eaten at several, and no they are not empty. Needless to say I did not return but that does not seem to go for other people.
Jengie
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
If any restaurant played muzak at the level we had to endure 'Majesty' they'd be empty.
You obviously weren't at dinner with me last night. Luckily I was alone -- I could not have conversed with a dinner partner. I had to shout at my waiter and point to what I wanted on the menu.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
There is to be launched a joint campaign by Action on Hearing Loss and Pipedown to get muzak either banned or the volume adjusted ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
But music should be heard. Musicians do not spend a lot of time and a lot more money learning to play an instrument so that their music can be play at barely audible levels in lifts (elevators) and supermarkets. Turn it up or turn it off. (If its Coldplay just turn it off.)
Music in supermarkets is supposed to calm shoppers down? You know what, supermarket music providers, I WANT TO FUCKING KILL YOU.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Oh damn no, don't turn it up! Some of us did NOT lose our hearing during our teens and have to suffer the tortures of the damned while everyone else cranks it higher and higher.
If part of your congregation has to huddle in a downstairs hallway to tolerate the volume of the worship music, you're doing it wrong.
ETA: it's not about what the musicians want or what they sacrificed, anyway. If you applied the same standards to writing, we'd all be reading the most awful dreck in order to compensate the authors thereof.
[ 04. June 2016, 19:19: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
But music should be heard. Musicians do not spend a lot of time and a lot more money learning to play an instrument so that their music can be play at barely audible levels in lifts (elevators) and supermarkets.
Maybe, maybe not. Some musicians get paid pretty good money to record music precisely for that purpose.
Musicians know that music serves different functions in different contexts. Some music is intended for performance and entertainment, or to enable or enhance worship. Some music is intended to support something else, such as dance or the storyline of a movie. And some music is intended to provide an unobtrusive background for other activities.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
(x post)
In worship, yes.
If it is too loud to hear yourself sing, then it is too loud, for bands and for organists, its all the same. The worst offenders I have come across of this ate organists who play the last verse of a hymn with all the stops out.
If it is too loud it is too loud, no matter what style.
But there is also a too quiet.
[ 04. June 2016, 21:57: Message edited by: balaam ]
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The worst offenders I have come across of this ate organists who play the last verse of a hymn with all the stops out.
Seems rather desperate, but if that's what it takes to get them to play more softly...
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Bugger: I missed that typo.
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Can we please, please have a moratorium on Hezekiah Walker's Every Praise? You can hardly move without hearing it 2 or 3 times a week.
It's rapidly becoming as ubiquitous and annoying as My Jesus, My Saviour did 10 years ago. Or even Shine Jesus Shine before that.
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I don't think I've ever heard 'Every Praise'.
But then, I don't attend the sort of services these days where I'm likely to run into that sort of thing ...
Hang on, I've just Googled it ...
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
I stuck it for about 2 minutes before turning it off. That's 2 minutes out of my life I'm never going to get back ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The worst offenders I have come across of this ate organists who play the last verse of a hymn with all the stops out.
Seems rather desperate, but if that's what it takes to get them to play more softly...
Shades of Muhammad Ali, when refused a table in a restaurant: "We don't serve Negroes in here" - "It's all right, I don't eat them".
[ 06. June 2016, 12:29: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
'Context' seems to be a cultural thing, though.
I mean, I too think 'Majesty' is an odd Communion song, but that's based on the kinds of churches I attend. We see Communion as a solemn, quiet, reflective event. But we also talk about Communion as a 'meal', and since many meals don't take place in such a low-key atmosphere it's hardly surprising that some faith traditions take a far more lively and communal approach to Communion.
The problem for the CofE seems to be that it has to grapple with priests and laity who come from a range of different worship traditions, so the likelihood of 'clashes' occurring in worship must be relatively high.
Of course context is a cultural thing ...
I didn't say it was otherwise. If I walked into certain pubs dressed in a shirt and tie I'd stand-out like a sore thumb. If I went into other places without a shirt and tie I'd equally stand out like a sore thumb.
It's all about context and culture.
Musically, if you are going to deviate from the 'norm' in whatever culture or setting it happens to be then there are going to have to be good reasons for it.
There's a current trend to have driving rock riffs or other forms of non-period sounding music on the soundtracks of period dramas. Someone will have had to have come up with that idea at some point and for some kind of specific reason.
If you're going to mix Bach or Handel with Bowie, the B52s or Boyzone then there has to be some good reason to do so.
I've been to cathedral services where rousing Wesleyan hymns have been mixed with traditional anthems and somewhat restrained bells and smells and whilst it didn't particularly 'offend' me the blend didn't seem to do justice to other tradition - it ended up as a flat, bland hybrid.
So, no, I'm not saying that God is going to withdraw, add or do anything else untoward with his manifold mercies if people mix and match musical styles inappropriately. Nor am I saying it makes the Baby Jesus cry.
It doesn't do me a lot a good, though.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I can't say I've been majorly aware of music that seemed out of place in church (but a perky music hall-type tune at the end of Evensong was rather a surprise!). The organist at my old church had issues over what was suitable music and what wasn't. But then again, she just had issues....
It's certainly beyond my experience to head for worship fearing that the music I'm going to hear won't be appropriate. The main distraction for me is when the congregation doesn't know the songs very well and sings them hesitantly, or if I go to an unfamiliar church and find I don't know any of the songs!
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
It's a funny thing, but I've gone from being relatively indifferent to particular contemporary worship styles to actively avoiding them at all costs ...
These days, I'd avoid any service where they were singing worship songs and choruses charismatic style like the plague.
I suspect it's done to a surfeit of them in the past - overdosing on the stuff back in the day.
I daresay some people have a similar visceral reaction against choral music or traditional hymns ... I don't know.
A female Anglican priest of my acquaintance says that she would be physically sick if she had to attend a full-on happy-clappy charismatic service these days - as it represents her original church background and brings back unhappy memories.
That's not to say that all worship songs and choruses are sung in settings prone to manipulation and hype - but I can understand her reaction.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
One can get an overdose of anything that goes on in church, really. Church life is highly routinised. Even sermons that urge us to 'look afresh' at particular rituals or Bible stories are par for the course.
I suppose the advantage of leaving a traditional style of church is that you don't have to be haunted by the music. It might inspire memories, even nostalgic ones, of youthful boredom but I imagine that most people just move on with their lives and don't think about it too much. The contemporary worship style, along with its theological conservatism, clearly leaves a more vivid negative mark.
But since we're supposed to have a choice, it doesn't really matter, does it?
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I thought I'd deleted that last question about choice, but perhaps it's relevant after all.
It surprises me how many Anglicans here complain about the music in their churches. It hints at a culture that discourages me from feeling at home in the CofE; there's a sense that the average person in the pew has very little influence in these matters.
As much as I criticise the Methodist Church, there's a much greater sense of lay ownership of what happens there. If the members mostly want 'traditional' music, that's jolly well what they'll have! Of course, that can be a problem for the younger people in church leadership, but they're normally reluctant to push what the majority don't want. From what I read here, though, CofE vicars don't care very much if they make changes that offend the people in the pews....
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It's a funny thing, but I've gone from being relatively indifferent to particular contemporary worship styles to actively avoiding them at all costs ...
Same here. Baggage. I'll give you a case in point. You know that song that was big a couple of decades ago? Be still for the presence of the Lord?
It has this verse in it which goes roughly "the presence of the Lord is moving in this place/he comes to cleanse and heal/to minister his grace". In my charismatic days this was used in connection with those times when people come out with various words and prophecies and people get prayed for, often in tongues, with much quivering of hands and emotional intensity. Something I look back on with shuddering. The most charitable I can be is to say it wasn't for me.
More mainstream churches often use it during communion. I can see why, just from the words, but for me the Charismatic use is etched on my brain, and the first two notes are enough to have me wanting to run screaming from the building.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I thought I'd deleted that last question about choice, but perhaps it's relevant after all.
It surprises me how many Anglicans here complain about the music in their churches. It hints at a culture that discourages me from feeling at home in the CofE; there's a sense that the average person in the pew has very little influence in these matters.
As much as I criticise the Methodist Church, there's a much greater sense of lay ownership of what happens there. If the members mostly want 'traditional' music, that's jolly well what they'll have! Of course, that can be a problem for the younger people in church leadership, but they're normally reluctant to push what the majority don't want. From what I read here, though, CofE vicars don't care very much if they make changes that offend the people in the pews....
As few things to bear in mind, SvitlanaV2.
1. This is Ship of Fools. It's the Magazine of Christian Unrest. The clue is in the title. Most posters here will be 'unrestful' in one way or another and so, proportionately speaking I would imagine, Shipmates are more likely to take umbrage at music styles - whatever music style - than non-Shippies ...
2. Most people in my parish church are more than happy with the music. The 9am crowd like the hymns. The 11am crowd like the worship songs. I'm an awkward so-and-so and whilst I can go with the 9am choices for the most part, I'd run screaming for the door at the 11am services - which is why I don't attend them.
3. Not all Anglican vicars are insensitive to the musical or liturgical wants and whims of their congregations. Some are. That applies equally at each end of the candle - but less so around the middle.
4. Generally speaking these days, certainly in larger towns or cities, most Anglicans can probably find something musically conducive.
5. This is Ship of Fools, the Magazine of Christian Unrest ... oh, I've said that already ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Glad to hear that someone's happy at your church, Gamaliel!
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
You make it sound as if I'm spreading a wave of unwarranted Christian restfulness(!), but I think the issue is rather than my 'Christian Unrest' doesn't fit neatly into the contexts often discussed here. I do need to accept the nature of the beast.
So, one issue I have with some worship songs is their intensely personal nature. 'My Jesus, My Saviour' demands to be sung with the passion of a modern love song, but what if I'm not feeling that way? Trad hymns as sung in trad churches don't require so much personal investment in the lyrics (although you can add it if you want to).
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Well yes, which is exactly the same issue I have with that song and others like it.
More broadly, I think a simple answer to your question would be that, by and large, as far as Anglican parishes here go, I'd suggest that most regular attenders are reasonably happy with the style on offer at the parish church they attend. A nearby village parish church - 3 miles out of town - attracts a number of people from the town itself who find it more conducive stylistically and so on than what's on offer in either of the town's parish churches.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
So, one issue I have with some worship songs is their intensely personal nature. ... Trad hymns as sung in trad churches don't require so much personal investment in the lyrics (although you can add it if you want to).
Oh, I don't know: some of the Victorian hymns (or earlier - think of Wesley) are just as personal. Perhaps their older literary style distances them from us slightly.
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
A nearby village parish church - 3 miles out of town - attracts a number of people from the town itself who find it more conducive stylistically and so on than what's on offer in either of the town's parish churches.
True of a village URC chapel I know, which has a good organist and has attracted a number of folk discontented with the more modern musical idioms on offer nearer at hand.
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Gamaliel
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Posted
Sure - I think we may have discussed these 'rural Zoars' before, Baptist Trainfan.
On the 'personal' thing - yes, I think it's true what you say about the idiom making the 'personal' aspects in Wesleyan and Victorian hymns easier to stomach, perhaps ... but I don't think that's the whole story.
There's a sense of complete cognitive-dissonance that comes in if everyone else is fervently singing how much they love the Lord and how committed/on-fire they are in fulfilling his purpose and will ... if you're feeling less than fired up yourself or are like a bear with a sore head for whatever reason.
Sure, that can happen too in more 'objective' forms of liturgy or the recitation of creeds and formularies - hence the oft-quoted comments aboard Ship about people repeating these things with their fingers crossed behind their backs ...
But whilst some Victorian and older hymns can be somewhat cloying and sentimental and some translations of medieval Latin hymns/poems can be very personal too, I submit that very few of these go quite as far in gooey-ness as some of the modern worship songs and choruses.
That said, some of the Moravian hymns were almost embarrassingly 'erotic' and there are lots of unpleasant imagery in some of the older stuff about Christ's wounds and luxuriating in the grisliness of all of that.
So, no, it's not just a modern thing but as you say, there's something in the idiom and style of the contemporary worship song or chorus that somehow brings these aspects into the foreground in a way that many people - including myself - increasingly find hard to take.
It gets worse when the worship leader or whoever is presiding at the service tries to milk the thing or ensure that everyone is thinking/feeling the same thing by ratcheting up the emotion a notch or two until there's a collective sense of 'release', whoosh or whooziness.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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SvitlanaV2
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
So, one issue I have with some worship songs is their intensely personal nature. ... Trad hymns as sung in trad churches don't require so much personal investment in the lyrics (although you can add it if you want to).
Oh, I don't know: some of the Victorian hymns (or earlier - think of Wesley) are just as personal. Perhaps their older literary style distances them from us slightly.
I suspect that part of the appeal in singing an old hymn is simply that it's old; you're enjoying participating in a high status tradition. You're enjoying the poetry and the vivid imagery. But you're not necessarily putting yourself in the place of all the 'me, myself and I's'.
Consider 'Amazing Grace'. How many modern, moderate, respectable Christians see themselves as ever having been a 'wretches' who were ever 'lost'? The sermons we hear no longer use that kind of language. But it's a feel-good hymn with an upbeat ending, so...
Now, gospel music almost fits neatly into either category. It can be personally and lyrically very meaningful on its home turf, but it can also be sung quite happily by nominal believers and non-believers in community choirs. Moderate indigenous churchgoers are ambivalent about it, I feel. For them, I suppose it carries some of the same negatives as 'worship music', with the added awkwardness of racial and cultural difference.
Myself, I'd just like a bit of everything. Monotony is my 'Christian unrest'.
[ 09. June 2016, 23:04: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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L'organist
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Posted
originally posted by Gamaliel quote:
A nearby village parish church - 3 miles out of town - attracts a number of people from the town itself who find it more conducive stylistically and so on than what's on offer in either of the town's parish churches.
We have people who come every Sunday from 9 miles north of us: to reach our church they have to drive past numerous places of worship, including the cathedral. And our monthly choral Matins attracts people from the same sort of distance.
As you say, it is that they like the way that the liturgy is done and the music.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I think Amazing Grace and Gospel Music are good examples, SvitlanaV2. I suspect there are some contemporary worship songs which have made or are making a similar transition.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Has anyone apart from me ever glanced at the full corpus of Wesley's or Watt's hymns? These both number hundreds if not thousands. The profligate inflicting of latest worship creation is hardly a new crime against Christian Worship.
We sing perhaps 10% (I suspect closer to 1% if you include the shortening by dropping verses). It is not hard to think of the reason why.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
I suppose there's always been religious music that's failed to make the grade.
If it's longevity that matters then there's no need to worry about 'crappy worship songs', just as no one worries about Charles Wesley's rejects. They'll all disappear sooner or later.
OTOH, if emotional, ephemeral music is deemed by many non-evangelical Christians to be too dominant perhaps the CofE (and other wealthy mainstream churches in the Anglophone world) needs to spend more of its resources on getting brilliant musicians and songwriters to produce attractive modern hymns and worship songs of high quality.
No institution can flourish if all does is guard its artistic heritage and discourage the creation of anything new. And by 'new' I mean new congregational music that can inspire traditional churches, rather than wonderful anthems (etc.) for choirs that most congregations don't have.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
There's sonething in that? SvitlanaV2 but it's easier said than done. As far as I understand it, the Christian music publishing market is dominated by a very small number of players.
Eealthy as the CofE is, it doesn't necesssrily control the means of priduction in music publishing terms. As far as commissioning new works goes, I'm not sure it's geared up for that other than for state and crown occasions and so on.
As far as the Baptists go, congregational autonomy might equally militate against the production of anything adopted across the BU as a whole.
The Salvation Army seems capable of producing new music in line with its core tradition and values that is somewhat different to the worship songs we've come to know and love/loathe according to taste.
It remains unknown outside its own circles though.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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St Deird
Shipmate
# 7631
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Posted
I have two songs to complain about. Not the worst of their genre by a long way, but they've been bugging me for a while.
First, we have this exerable first verse:
quote:
Everyone needs compassion
A love that's never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
The kindness of a saviour
The hope of nations
Sure, the music might be okay - but LOOK at the lyrics! They simply do not work, on any level. And yet congregations sing them passionately, eyes closed, hands held high... I don't get it.
My other complaint is about the "modern" resetting of Amazing Grace, chorus included. I have no problem with this as a concept (although I prefer my hymns a bit more hymn-like) - and in this case, it mostly works fine. But I would like to register a strong objection to one line in the chorus:
quote:
And like a flood, his mercy reigns
How, precisely, do floods reign?
Really, what seems to have happened here is that the writer has taken the phrase "like a flood" and thought "yep, that sounds Christian-chorusy" and the phrase "his mercy reigns" and thought "yep - definite Christian chorus vibe there" - and then jammed the two together without noticing the appalling final product.
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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.
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