This has taken me three weeks to write. Three weeks ago we were in Houston for the LCMS convention. I was so excited to have my daughter experience an opening service. I still have great memories of my first several back in the 70’s. Coming from a small town and a small church, that was quite an experience. Opening services were amazing—large crowd and everyone (especially the men) singing with great gusto. I wanted that experience for my daughter. Unfortunately she did not get it. Someone in their great lack of wisdom tried to design one worship service with a little bit of everything in it in an effort to please everyone. It didn’t work. Individually much of the music was great, collectively it was a disaster. And the service just didn’t flow. From where we were sitting the drum was painfully loud and distracting. Even the songs that should have been easy and familiar to sing became difficult. You didn’t know when to come in and it was very hard to follow the melody—especially when they did things like suddenly throw a jazz beat accompaniment in on one of the verses of “The Church’s One Foundation.” Many of the songs with the “praise band” made for great entertainment but I wasn’t attending a concert, I was attending WORSHIP. And the laser lights only added to the theatrics.
After the service my daughter and I were walking back to our room with my sister and 2 other women (I think they sincerely enjoyed the service). One of the ladies turned to my 13 year old daughter and said, “I want to hear what a young person thought about that worship service.” At this point my daughter shivered and said, “Oooohh, it was too ‘pop’py. They tried to make it like the ‘pop’ular music and that’s just not right.” SCORE! The poor lady had to pick her jaw up from the floor. I was so proud of my daughter. She nailed it! She has attended concerts and loved it—but she recognizes that it is not the same as worship. I do need to add that these were wonderful ladies and we did still talk and spend time together for the next several days!
Now, to prove that I am not totally against drums, I would like to share a youtube video from Rev. Jonathan Fisk. I would invite you to watch the whole thing but the part that fits this topic is at 2:25-5:25.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mb5YfX6Y4o&feature=related
BTW. The opening service is available to watch for a few more days(30 days following the service)at the following link. See for yourself.
http://www.lcms.org/ca/convention/vids/saturday/opening_worship.html
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