Vanessa and I have been leading worship for about nine months now. We've presided over the high-density holiday months - thankfully the holiday-free summer months are upon us - and have encountered an interesting situation. Some of the people at our church want songs commemorating secular holidays, like Memorial Day or Independence Day.
Something inside of me cringes at the idea of "America the Beautiful" being sung within the church service. I'm not a big "separation of church and state" type - quite the opposite, I think the phrase is often abused or misunderstood to lend credit to those crusaders that hate all things Christian. But singing songs to America (or displaying the American flag up on the stage - ugh!) in a worship service, especially one that takes place in a largely-Hispanic neighborhood, seems inappropriate. Not like "sinful", just "unnecessary" or "silly".
We ran into a somewhat-similar situation during Christmas - neither of us is particularly fond of most carols. We settled on singing one carol per week (and almost ended up singing our favorite a few times!), but it was tough finding really good Christmas music that didn't sound trite after a good butchering by umpteen off-key carolers.
They are ultimately two slightly different issues: what do you think about the presence of secular ceremonies in the church service, and what do you do with those common, oft-repeated holidays (when you KNOW what's coming)?
UPDATE: following the link above, then the link to the original page you can see the exact bulletin our church used in all of its "glory". Second row, third column. Yay flag worship!
Posted by pcg at July 1, 2006 12:23 AMInteresting questions. My thoughts:
1) totally agreed on the flags/patriotic hymns thing. I realize that no harm is meant by it, and that some of those patriotic songs double as worship hymns, but it still makes me uncomfortable.
2) I'm a sucker for Christmas carols and other holiday-themed songs/hymns, so I can't agree with you there. I'll grant that Christmas carols have been pretty much stripped of much meaning these days by their endless reptition, but I just love Easter and Thanksgiving songs, even though we've been singing them every year since the dawn of time. Especially Easter--many of those hymns have both great music and amazing lyrics. Our church tries to "vary" holiday songs to feature a mix of "old favorites" and newer songs, but while I appreciate the effort, I usually find myself wishing they'd just stick to the old classics.
My $.02.
Posted by: andy on July 2, 2006 10:36 AMChristmas carols in particular have become pretty trite to me. I don't know any Thansgiving songs that I know of, so I can't comment there. But Easter songs - I will NEVER get tired of singing those, especially the old hymns. Part of that is likely because the world hasn't latched onto Easter songs like they have Christmas carols. Guess singing about a living Lord isn't as attractive as singing about a baby Jesus. :-)
I'll have to blog sometime about old versus new music. It's worth an entire post. :-)
Posted by: pcg on July 2, 2006 5:27 PMHey, didn't know you were a worship leader - cool. I play guitar and the occasional bass on our worship team and my wife sings.
I'm pretty much in agreement with you. The worst was after the 9/11 atrocity we were led in the pledge of allegiance for a few weeks. I stood silently praying about whether I should participate - I did not. It felt like love of country was being elevated above love of God - like we were pledging allegiance to the secular organization that is our government AHEAD of our worhsip to God. It seemed downright sinful to me!
In the grand scheme of things, though, if some folks get comfort singing a patriotic 'God Bless America' once or twice a year because it helps them through the pain of losing someone in service to their country, who am I to deny that? I think as long as we keep the priorities straight and keep the number one, number one - then it's all good. Especially considering Romans 13:1-5, if you think about submitting to authority of the government there as an act of worship, it's much easier to see that those kind of songs do have a place - as long as it's the right place. That said, I don't really like playing, singing, or hearing any of 'em - same goes for carols.
Love to hear your comments on old v new music. I have lots to share there, too :)
A resource you might be interested in:
http://christianmusicianforum.com - lots of church-players there discussing gear, leading worship, singing, etc. Good buncha folk.
http://www.christianmusiciansummit.com - this was recommended to me by a friend in Oregon who went last year. I'm trying to get to it this year with the worship leader from my church.
God Bless your service - being a lead worshipper is difficult.
Posted by: Steve Lowe on July 10, 2006 12:33 AMMy favorite is when I get stuck in a service and the Battle Hymn of the Republic gets rolled out. I've left quietly once or twice over that one.
I've put in over 10 years of military service and one of my greatest frustrations is the co-mingling of religion and patriotism.
When Michele and I visited Mount Rushmore we got the vibe in reverse. It's so much a symbol of patriotism that it has neo-relgious even overtones. It's the kind of place where non-conforming political views might get you labeled heretic instead of triggering a good debate.
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Posted by: David on July 19, 2006 12:24 PM