The Monday Moan
Or should that be My Monday Moan, or My Morose Monday Moan, Or maybe it shouold happen on the first MOnday of each month, becoming My Monthly Morose Monday Moan. As I'm sure you've noticed at the minute we are big into alliteration.
Well today's moan is....
....Worship music.
Ah-ha! All the Salvationist readers are thinking - this is one I know every argument to - he's going to slate the songbook, or say we should only sing songs including the word 'Thy'.
Well..... No.
I'm annoyed at this phrase 'Worship' songs. Clearly denoting that SA songbook songs aren't worship. Or, now we're going to sing a song in an attitude of worship. We even have a 'worship' band - what are the other band doing????
Now personally I think there is an equal amount of dross to quality found in the SASB and in these young upstarts like the source, the songs of fellowship & whatnot else. the point I'm making is that it's an extremely offensive attitude to take, that new songs and modern music constitutes worship, whereas old styles do not.
Even if that's not the general attitude then things need to be named and labelled better. It's one of those things where people say 'oh you know what I mean'. But in reality many people have made up their minds in advance when you label things thus, and they know what they mean and not what you do.
I know it sounds like I'm being a bit PC, but I think this is a genuine issue, nad maybe more of us would be open to new worship styles if we less damning to the old ones.
posted by Dan Elson @ 7:56 AM
3 Comments:
Good start - a classic debate for us to get our teeth into :)
I agree it's primarily a labelling problem - worship songs, worship band even a worship time. But trying to fix it is hard. It's mostly I think an argument about words. When there is already a band known as "the band" what do you call the new, dare i say it, worship band? The new band? The guitarry band? Will's band - or maybe Andy's band - clearly not Al's band cos he's a drummer.
What's more important than what words we use is perhaps how we use them. I mean when we talk about the worship band or worship songs are we actually having a go at the old ones.
To what extent does that happen at Walton? Are people upset about this? What do people think?
Oh there are upset people, I guarantee it.
I don't think saying we can't think of anything else is a valid excuse, when it can cause offense.
It's not just the fact that we have a 'worship' band as well. I hate the phrase 'now we'll enter a time of worship' and all this gubbins. Everything we do should be worship, and I don't just mean in the meetings, or in the hall. People are still stuck on this notion that singing songs and saying the right things at the right time constitutes worship.
Could we turn this into Monday's Angry Rant please?
Rant away.
Comments anyone?
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