OS continues to maintain that our woes are cultural, and that the cure has to address the culture.
Pastor Peters hits the ball out of the cultural park when he reminds us of the obvious: Every home should have a good hymnal, in use, not on the back shelf.
And, the best 'accessory' for your hymnal is a piano. Lots of them on the market now, at bargain prices.
He is heartened to hear the news that this particular Lutheran hymnal has sold over a million copies since 2006.
Enjoy Pastor Peter's thoughts in the meantime, ya'll.
Showing posts with label hymns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hymns. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
End Of April, A Thought For The Culture
It's one of those weeks--out of the house at 8:00 am, back in at 10:00 pm. No time to think, much less write.
In the meantime, these wonderful words from the Sunday Times on the subject of music and worship.
It's not a subject the general public spends a lot of time thinking about, but trust OS on this, it really matters. How we say what we say at what should be our most serious and unguarded moments really matters.
Away we go....
In the meantime, these wonderful words from the Sunday Times on the subject of music and worship.
It's not a subject the general public spends a lot of time thinking about, but trust OS on this, it really matters. How we say what we say at what should be our most serious and unguarded moments really matters.
Away we go....
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Listening to the Baptists Sing
Last night I visited a buddy engineering a live recording session at First Baptist Nashville, the venerable grand dame of the once-mighty Southern Baptist Convention.
I arrived to find he was recording a live concert, featuring some 150 men assembled in a choir, all of them church music directors from across the South, all of them with music degrees of some variety, and thrilled to be there with one another for the occasion. They are the remnant of a fabulous tradition of church music, forged in both revival meeting tents of the 1800's and conservatories and seminaries of the 1900's. An audience showed up as well, to sing along on the hymns.
What started out as a visit to check out mic placement and pre-amplifiers became a poignant revisit of the world I grew up in. The sound of that choir and that congregation singing those stolid tent-meeting hymns like 'Come Christians, Join to Sing', and 'The Solid Rock' is indescribable. It was a warm evening, and the folks in the balcony were occupied fanning themselves, singing, and daubing tears from their eyes.
Somewhere along the way, most of the Baptists decided that it wasn't that important to sing hymns anymore, and they settled for listening to inane 'praise choruses' sung to them with the words projected to them on a screen. They decided to abandon the glowing theology and inspiring poetry of the hymnal, and settle for bad prose and angry theology from the pulpit.
Now they wonder why things seem to be falling apart.
It was a wonderful evening, an occasion to be grateful for what I was given growing up.
I wish the remnant well, and hope we all find a way to recover and transmit last night's spirit to the next generations.
We are running out of time, as most everyone in the room was over fifty years of age.
I arrived to find he was recording a live concert, featuring some 150 men assembled in a choir, all of them church music directors from across the South, all of them with music degrees of some variety, and thrilled to be there with one another for the occasion. They are the remnant of a fabulous tradition of church music, forged in both revival meeting tents of the 1800's and conservatories and seminaries of the 1900's. An audience showed up as well, to sing along on the hymns.
What started out as a visit to check out mic placement and pre-amplifiers became a poignant revisit of the world I grew up in. The sound of that choir and that congregation singing those stolid tent-meeting hymns like 'Come Christians, Join to Sing', and 'The Solid Rock' is indescribable. It was a warm evening, and the folks in the balcony were occupied fanning themselves, singing, and daubing tears from their eyes.
Somewhere along the way, most of the Baptists decided that it wasn't that important to sing hymns anymore, and they settled for listening to inane 'praise choruses' sung to them with the words projected to them on a screen. They decided to abandon the glowing theology and inspiring poetry of the hymnal, and settle for bad prose and angry theology from the pulpit.
Now they wonder why things seem to be falling apart.
It was a wonderful evening, an occasion to be grateful for what I was given growing up.
I wish the remnant well, and hope we all find a way to recover and transmit last night's spirit to the next generations.
We are running out of time, as most everyone in the room was over fifty years of age.
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