Part 4-What may happen...becoming trendy

 

Part 4-What may happen when we become trendy with our musicing.

       First, it would be a good idea if we would define the term “Trendy”.  Something is considered to be trendy when it has the predilection to follow a current dominant movement.  I suppose the near opposite of trendy would be the inordinate passion to only revere what is seriously antique.  All of us have seen both extremes in church music.  It should be pointed out that there is nothing inherently wrong with new music and likewise there is a large repertoire of time honored church music that still is valid, useful, and meaningful today.

       If new and old music are both proper for public worship, then is this post much ado about nothing? There are problems with dropping everything in music that is traditional for that which is in vogue at the moment.  Churches have made sudden musical decisions like one church that I know of in central Ohio that made some very rash decisions in an effort to become trendy.   A friend of mine visited their sanctuary and was informed by the pastor that one of the church members had cut all the wires to their $80,000 dollar pipe organ.  When asked if they had a piano, the pastor pointed to a large object covered up at the side of the church platform.  Sure enough it was their nine foot grand piano.  Both of these fine musical instruments had been replaced with a $4,000 dollar keyboard and a drum trap set in one desperate effort to become seeker sensitive. The musical instruments went first but I understand that the church’s fine sanctuary choir was the next thing to disappear from the sanctuary.

        Although it is possible to be seeker sensitive without a church choir, piano or organ, they do not keep a fellowship of believers from caring about folks who are not Christians.  So what happens to the church next after the ministering music organizations and the quality music instruments get the axe?  What happens if a church desires to have a ministering concert pianist come for an instrumental worship service?  Do you ask this artist to humble himself or herself and play your tiny electronic keyboard? I contend that once a fellowship of believers heads down the path of following music trends, there is no stopping place.  The church becomes a hostage of the latest musical notion. 

       My suggestion is to not allow the church to get squeezed into the world’s latest trendy notion of what the church can or cannot do musically in public worship. Although there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with doing something new musically in worship, doing something new will not necessarily fix all the church's worship problems.  Do not drop everything time honored in a desperate effort to make musicing unto God a trendy experience.  If you do you will probably be left out in the musical cold when the trendy winds began to blow another direction.