I will be the first to admit that I am a church music snob. I can't help it. I like what I like. When I actually make it to church service (which hasn't unfortunately happened in awhile, but that's an entirely different blog for another time) I will go the 11 a.m. service. It is the traditional service, reminiscent of what I grew up with. The early service is contemporary and not to my taste. That's fine. Those who go to the early service love it. I am just not a fan of contemporary Christian music. That's fine, too.
Anyway, if you knew me growing up, you will already know that our music program at church was a very vital part of my life. I sang in the choir, played in 2 handbell choirs, performed piano duets and handbell solos in service. I was pretty active and loved it all. I felt, at the time, that it was the only way I could contribute to my church. Again, that is also another blog for another day. Music gave me an outlet to fit in to my church and that's what I needed at that time. I still need that, even though I don't always admit it.
The church I attend now, College Park Baptist, has pretty good music. We have a lot of musicians in our congregation and routinely contribute to the worship services. The choirs are small, including the handbell choir, but they are consistent and put their all into the worship services. Every now and then they will slip in something contemporary into the traditional service and I find myself biting my tongue. Most of the time, it makes me giggle so I find myself stifling laughs. Oh well.
This past Wednesday, a 3 part program about music in worship was started during the normal Bible Study hour. I decided to attend because it seemed like obviously something I would enjoy and benefit from. I could tell by looking over the material handed out before hand that there would be definite different styles of music than what I normally hear. I am open to new and different styles of music being incorporated into worship. But, for me, it has to be what I consider good music. I don't think many contemporary songs are well written and, therefore, I tune them out when I can. (I also feel this way about most contemporary pop music...it just sucks. And don't even get me started on contemporary country music...grrrrrrrrrr)
Well, within the first 5 minutes of the program, I was pretty much done LOL The speaker was very knowledgeable about music as she has served in music ministry for many, many years in several different denominations. But one of the points she started with, at least what I took from her words, was "Baptist Hymnal" BAD.....tradition BAD. People even started commenting on how they or others prefer going to the early service simply because the traditional music does nothing for them. I thought, well, I'm alienated. I realize that our hymnal is almost 30 years old. So? It's not like the congregation can buy new ones every other year. That stuff's expensive. Anyway, that set the whole tone of the evening for me and I didn't enjoy it like I'd hoped.
Music is an extremely important part of my spirituality. And I won't back down from what I want in a music ministry. It's what gets me through the doors and into the church.
Cheers.
