The music battle continues

Last night I watched a few minutes of the CMA awards. I seldom watch award shows, and I would not have watched any of this one except for the fact that I couldn't find anything else I wanted to watch. After a couple of performances I told my wife if they weren't going to feature country music I was going to turn it over. I couldn't even wait until the next group was done. I turned the channel to watch a baseball game I wasn't interested in.

I grew up on country music. Real country music. Although I enjoy a wide variety of music styles today, if I want to hear country I want to hear real country, not this stuff today's singers sing pretending to be country. I heard three acts on the CMA, none of which I considered to be country.

However, I noticed something before turning the channel. As the cameras scanned the audience the young people were singing along with the singers. They knew the words of the songs, and they were connecting to the music. As I thought about that after turning the channel I realized this is the same thing many of our churches are dealing with today.

Like many church members today I grew up singing hymns out of the old hymnals. These were songs that often had theological depth and were very meaningful. The stories behind many of these songs also touch our hearts. As we sing these great hymns of the faith we are often flooded with thoughts that remind us of past blessings. For many of us, this is music by which one can worship God.

But, a large number of young people, those we claim we want to reach with the Gospel, do not share our memories and our connections to these hymns. These songs do not have the same meaning to them as they do to us Senior Saints. If they've been in church chances are they sing to words on a screen, not looking down at a book. A couple of years ago I took one of my grandsons to church with me. He had never seen a hymnbook and didn't know how to use one. He knew none of the songs we sang because the church he attends doesn't sing those songs.

After all these years, some churches are still fighting the "worship wars." I'm not sure our music styles don't divide us more today than theological differences. Larger churches can offer more than one worship service offering different music styles in each service. Smaller churches would struggle doing that. Many of them would not have the talent needed to have two quality services with different styles of music. More than that, many of them would not want contemporary music in their church because it "isn't real worship music."

Rick Warren wrote years ago that once a church determined it's music style it had determined it's audience. I don't think we should abandon the old hymns of the faith, but I also think it is wrong to ignore the reality that for many people newer styles of music will  enable them to worship far more effectively than the hymns. Are you willing to exclude these people from your church because they prefer a different style of music.

Let's end the worship wars. Decide what music style your church will offer and accept the results of that choice. If you choose to only sing hymns and refuse to allow other forms of worship music into your church, that's fine. Just don't complain that your church is getting greyer and smaller each year. That will be the natural consequence of that choice.

I may not like the new forms of country music, but a lot of people do. I wouldn't buy a CD from the few acts I saw singing at the CMA, but millions of people do. And...it's not about me. The country music industry is reaching out to a new audience with different tastes in country music. I wonder what that says about the church and our ongoing worship wars.