Church Services and Musicals

So today I found myself in a slightly irreverent mood as Kathy and I went to church. We are in that ackward position of being in between churches, and even more so being in between what we know the church of Jesus Christ to be and what is available in our immediate area. Let it suffice to say that I, at least, have grown disenchanted with entrenched denominationalism.

So back to my irreverence. We went to a local church today because it is the first Sunday of the month and in most Protestant churches that is Communion Sunday. Kathy and I seek out every opportunity to participate in communion, regardless of the church or denomination. But as I found myself sitting through what passes in New England for a traditional church order of service I found myself wondering why the church service was so much like the musicals I have seen. Whenever there was a pause in the action it was time for another song, whether it fit into the overall flow or not. Tradition is a terrible task master and we must obey without question!

Anyway the topic is irreverence. I read some articles in the recent Christianity Today about the trends in worship and the debate over whether traditional music or praise choruses are most suited for today's church. Of course people are split into the two camps resulting is ridiculous things such as "blended" worship consisting of both types and not entirely satisfactory to either camp. I believe in an unchanging gospel message and the need to bring it into the cultural setting in which it is to be proclaimed. And while I love traditional hymns there are some dogs in the hymnals. That makes me wonder how these if these really bad hymns made it into the collection, how many worse ones are out there that were not considered? I apply the same question to contemporary praise music which sometimes seems written only to fill out an album. And don't get me going on the "business" of publishing worship music. Isn't there a word like simony out there anymore? So here's the point. Irrereverently I started to make a test of cultural user-friendliness. I looked at the first 311 hymns in this nice collection published in 1985 (recent publication) and 235 of the hymns were published a minimum of 100 years ago, some 150 to 200 years or more. Can we expect such hymns written by Christians living in a different society and culture and somewhere between 3 and 5 generations ago to speak to the hearts of the unchurched visitors coming in for the first time? They sometimes barely speak to me. I mean, what kind of word is portals, and why is Jesus waiting on them?

So much for my Sunday church irreverence. Just making observations of what it must seem to others who have even less of an idea of what they are doing in church than me.