The Christian Thread

Epignosis wrote: progismylife wrote: It was a real encouragement to the church, to see young people become members. I think I'm the 6th person under 30 to be brought into membership in the past year.  Our church is very small, and has few people under 30. I am 25, and I play electric guitar with the pianist there- yep, just the two of us. But hey, you "non-going-to-church-types" - how would you like to hear prog in church? I have performed work from Neal Morse, Proto-Kaw, and myself in my church.  It's cool!

Nice thread.
For me the best discovery of 2008. was the Tindentine Rite masses in Budapest.
The traditional lyturgy of our Catholic churc h has all the mystery, sacredness and beauty what I need
(I really like the Greek lyturgy, too.), Gregorian chants and sacred polyphony wondefully serves the lyturgy.
Good that,you dont need the "lefebrists" for a traditional mass anymore.
Thanks to a wise decision of the Holy Father(Summorum Pontificium).
From the Bible I am mainly a Gospel reader, I value St. John's Gospel the highest.

progismylife wrote: My church is rather good about music. We have a youth music group that plays for the evening service occasionally and are introducing more modern songs to the congregation. We don't have a drum kit (yet) tho. Mostly because we need someone who can play it properly and the need to buy an electronic drum kit. The acoustics of the building won't agree with the acoustic drum kit I'm afraid. But we do have someone playing drums on a keyboard

I personally find preachy christian vocal music to be annoying.  Anything going on interesting that is just instrumental or is vocal christian music pretty much a prerequisite these days?

I don't know to be honest. My church does corporate worship, meaning we  try to pick songs that have good lyrics (not just repeat the same thing over and over and over and over) that are relevant to the sermon, but also have a good tune, meaning we can all worship together and not just those with good musical skill, and also that the music accents the words correctly (stressing important words).

I'm sure if you had a desire to make a Christian instrumental song it would be good, but I don't think it would have a good spot in a church service.

Due to the desire to stress the lyrics and the meaning of the song a lot of the time we have old hymns because newer songs seem to be more about the sound of the music alone as opposed to the music helping convey the meaning of the lyrics.

^Agreed. 

My dad said you would not believe how many people he had to have a talk to in our old church about what worship actually was, so much so that he did sermon series on it. Not many people listened though.

progismylife wrote: Speaking of rappers, have you heard of Shai Linne? He has AWESOME lyrics. Seriously the best ones I have ever heard.

I have not, and I do happen to like some rap music, so that will be something to check out.

I'm a pastor myself, and the Bible is a great inspiration for me. Currently I'm leading a Bible study on the book of Revelation, which is pretty heavy stuff, but very interesting and appealing anyway. Our church is small but many people are really serious about their faith, which is really cool. Currently I'm in a national working group which wants to investigate how to let our churches really go along with the times which are a-changin'. Also I'm leading international christian youth camps where youth from Africa and Europe meet and study the Bible together and do social projects for people who live in the margin of society. We want to include the US as well, by the way.

As for the musical wars: there's no war in our church, but we have the people who prefer traditional songs and people who like the modern stuff. With some church members we have a band now, also performing in church from time to time. I'm playing keys. Alas, no prog in this band (I do have an other group where I can play prog), but from time to time I'll play some intricaye chords on my keys, and one of my guitar players can play Shine On You Crazy Diamond perfectly. not during church service, obviously, although my oldest brother in his young days, playing in church, often put some Beatle melodies alongside the hymns



Edited by Moogtron III - March 19 2009 at 16:49

Moogtron III wrote: I'm a pastor myself, and the Bible is a great inspiration for me. Currently I'm leading a Bible study on the book of Revelation, which is pretty heavy stuff, but very interesting and appealing anyway. Our church is small but many people are really serious about their faith, which is really cool. Currently I'm in a national working group which wants to investigate how to let our churches really go along with the times which are a-changin'. Also I'm leading international christian youth camps where youth from Africa and Europe meet and study the Bible together and do social projects for people who live in the margin of society. We want to include the US as well, by the way. As for the musical wars: there's no war in our church, but we have the people who prefer traditional songs and people who like the modern stuff. With some church members we have a band now, also performing in church from time to time. I'm playing keys. Alas, no prog in this band (I do have an other group where I can play prog), but from time to time I'll play some intricaye chords on my keys, and one of my guitar players can play Shine On You Crazy Diamond perfectly. not during church service, obviously, although my oldest brother in his young days, playing in church, often put some Beatle melodies alongside the hymns

Welcome!

I remember the time my friends and I played "Comfortably Numb" at a church talent show once.

Epignosis wrote: I know many churches, particularly those with a wide generational span, have experienced "worship wars," those difficult times when people can't agree on what music is appropriate for church.  Hymns?  Too boring and traditional.  Contemporary music?  Too loud and irreverent.  Many churches even resort to holding two services- one with one kind of music, and one with the other.

From a theological standpoint, yes. But you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the discomfort of those who find contemporary music asinine--their ability to focus on God is important too.

 

Although at the moment I'm a pretty terrible Catholic so I guess I don't have much room to talk. ;-)

Henry Plainview wrote: Epignosis wrote: I know many churches, particularly those with a wide generational span, have experienced "worship wars," those difficult times when people can't agree on what music is appropriate for church.  Hymns?  Too boring and traditional.  Contemporary music?  Too loud and irreverent.  Many churches even resort to holding two services- one with one kind of music, and one with the other. Not just generationally, acoustic guitars and tambourines set my teeth on edge. But contemporary praise music is part of a larger problem in my view of watering down Catholicism with Protestantism, and since I'm sure most of the people in this thread are Protestant... That said, the type of music is irrelevant:  From a theological standpoint, yes. But you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the discomfort of those who find contemporary music asinine--their ability to focus on God is important too.   Although at the moment I'm a pretty terrible Catholic so I guess I don't have much room to talk. ;-)

I actually don't dismiss people's discomfort regarding certain forms of music, but I do acknowledge it as a secondary matter compared to a worshipful heart.

I mean, if we had traditional praise songs in the strictest sense, we would be singing in ancient Hebrew, and playing ancient Near Eastern instruments, which I suspect would make most of us today cringe (unless you are a Samla Mammas Manna fan ).