The old folks are the ones that contribute the most in our church. Not to mention, including the church in their will.
Better take care of us.
Most young people and most Fundamentalists like very loud services. They didn’t call themselves Holy Rollers for nothing.
If it wasn’t for RAP music, then Christian Rock would be the worst noise on the planet.
Yep, wife and I having a tough time finding a church that doesn’t bleed your ears before the preaching starts.
I dont know, I guess I have a lot of different thoughts on the subject.
Ive told stories here about a circus, er, I mean service that my aunt took me to already back in the 80s where all the music was loud Christian rock. Lights and lasers with words flashing on the walls.
I didnt feel it was right for a service. I dont have a problem with the style of music in a church just not as part of the service. It wasnt worshipful in that congregationally participatory way, it was just a musical experience.
But, if youre going to listen to rock then yes, it should be loud. Part of the experience is the way it feels, no, not in that soulful way that some people say it moves them but the actual physical feeling that some songs produce.
When I left for the military my church was using the hymnal they had used for a long time. I liked the music, the sound and the messages. I sang and I participated.
When I came back they had changed the hymnal. All the songs are crap musically and lyrically and the messages arent inspiring in the least. Somehow it sounds to me like the equivalent of what I imagine dipshit hippy music was in the late 1800 & early 1900 time frame. Im not sure how to explain it, it feels like nursery rhymes put to campfire songs. I dont participate and I dont even want to hear it.
This has brought me to the point that if I cant have my old hymns back and participate then Id just as soon listen to the new rock stuff which of course would have to be loud. All the present hymnal does is make me want to stay away.
Even gas stations have excruciating loud music blasting out at the pump. There is no escape.
Yes the young people want that rock and or roll music and the older, like us want that old time religious music with hymn books.
No, can’t relate. We’re Russian Orthodox. We sing the most gorgeous heavenly music anyone could comprehend. No instruments allowed. Been that way for 2000 years. We don’t change to accommodate the youth.
Our young inquirers are blown away by the beauty they witness. Sullying it with blindings lights and offensive electronic noises is anathema, and they know it.
For the record – no pun – I prefer the following masterpieces to the vast majority of so-called classic rock albums:
Larry Norman
Only Visiting This Planet
Daniel Amos
Shotgun Angel
The 2nd Chapter of Acts
In the Volume of the Book
Michael Omartian
White Horse
Oden Fong
Come for the Children
Randy Stonehill
Welcome to Paradise
While I have little use for the current “praise” pap – designed to offend no sensibilities – that gets played on such networks as KLOVE, I actually know and appreciate the history of genuine Christian Rock, which perforce came to be known as Contemporary Christian Music [CCM].
Larry Norman and other first-generation Christian artists began on regular record labels. Their lyrics were heavily censored by their record labels, and their songs were purged from radio playlists. Tower Records refused to put any of their albums in the Rock racks.
Transcendental Meditation? Cool. Ba’hai? Cool. Christianity? Not cool! Christian rockers were forced into a music ghetto; CCM was created by their Christophobic haters. Nota Bene: I am not here interested in subversive sophistry about what constitutes functional censorship.
(I once gave a speech on this very topic, and used musical excerpts from the above as part of my presentation. I got an ovation from the audience at that secular university, who wanted to hear more of such music!)
In fact, I prefer not to hear rock music during formal worship services, but outside of such an environment, I often listen to the best of CCM. Also for the record, there are plenty of modern non-rock “hymns” that are as egregiously mediocre as the loud rock that goes on in many modern churches. The 20th Century pieces that get used in many Arminian/Anabaptist congregations (think “Bible” churches), and certain non-Latin Catholic churches, are among the worst. They are not rock, but they are lyrically and musically insipid. I know: I have often been paid to sing them.
I grew up listening to the classic hymn chorales, and still relish them. I have sung many of them in both amateur and professional contexts. I have performed sacred and secular choral works by Bach, Mozart, Handel, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Palestrina, Vittorio, Britten, Bruckner, Verdi, Orff, Rachmaninoff, and many others. I have sung Orlando de Lassus in de Lassus’ church in Munich, and have sung Antonio Vivaldi in Vivaldi’s church in Venice.
I may not be a world-class chorister, but I am good enough to be chosen by audition to perform on stage with world-class instrumentalists, including those culled from the L.A. Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, and the Royal Philharmonic, in venues before crowds of 10,000-20,000 people. (See Star Wars in Concert.)
I own a copy of the out-of-print J.S. Bach’s 371 Four-Part Chorales: the SATB chorales he composed for the laity of the Lutheran church, and the foundation for the de facto “rules” for the Common Practice (Major-Minor) music period that still dominates Western Music – including rock music – especially in regard to the consistent use of the leading tone. I have actually studied that book, in and out of theory classes, and I compose SATB-divisi choral music myself.
And I still prefer the above albums to the majority of so-called classic rock. (There are secular rock critics who consider Norman’s above album to be one of the best rock albums ever recorded.)