as we begin…
Please read this entire post CAREFULLY! It contains blog instructions and requirements and also, this week’s reading assignment.
Welcome to the beyond the classroom blog. Here is where you’ll find the germs of discussion born of our reading that will propel us in the classroom.
It is very important that you stay current in your reading and blogging, as a major portion of your grade will be based on this. Because so much of our grade will be subjective (even the content of your posts will require subjectivity on my part) so I will be completely objective and unmerciful regarding the actual reading and blogging.
And I won’t feel guilty!
Your ability to contribute even in the classroom, will depend on having read and thought through the texts and having formulated a response. What we get out of the class depends on how we let the discussions affect us. We will need to think and pray and respect one another immensely.
Remember that your blog posts will be a formulated as a question based on your response to the reading. Your post should be substantial enough to explain your thinking and give us an idea of how your question formed. IOW, “what was he thinking?”, or, “doesn’t the author really torque your headbolt?” won’t be adequate. For that matter, “does the author believe all worship music should express solely our thankfulness for salvation?”
You should cite page number and paragraph if you refer to a specific passage and set up your “problem” or “delight” with what is said.
In addition to your post, you MUST respond in the comment section to at least 3 (three)(III) other posts. This is where the discussions occur.
Ok- so here is the first week’s material.
This week’s two articles serve two purposes. First we are interested in the content and ideas, and they are presented loosely in interactive format. The second responds to the first.
Here are the links:
reading 1 - An Open Letter to Worship Song Writers
reading 2 - An Unauthorized Postscript to An Open Letter…
Listening - Podcast: Slicecast
Your original post must be posted and timestamped by Saturday evening at 9:00 o’clock each week so that adequate time will remain for comments.
At first, I was put off when McClaren called me “Egypt of modernity” (Para 1) as though all that my world has to offer to real thinkers is enslavement and oppression. I realize that he is coming from a position of revolution, however, and is attempting to throw off what is useless, not throw off me (hopefully). I must admit, that I agreed with much of what both writers had to say about writing music. I think they have illuminated what makes praise and worship music trite, especially the “me, me, me” problem. As I look at what songs are accepted for new hymnals, they are pieces that are singable and playable by all kinds of church musicians. Many new pieces only sound good when played by a praise band, and feel contrived when played in a church with only a pianist. I especially liked his suggestions for new lyrics, about eschatology, missions, God’s character, and human pain. Can Christians handle music with themes about real issues and problems? Can we “worship” in brokenness and humbleness?
I understand that the author suggest that today christians have made worship about themselves, and less about God, but how is he suggesting we balance worship in an effective way?… if that makes sense
A few things popped out in my mind when I was reading this first article. The major thing that I want to address was when Capps said ‘Art can easily become decoration, and music can become mere entertainment’ (p.41 line 11). It’s true that one of the things that attract a person to a church is the worship music that is being played. I mean one of the questions that are usually asked is whether it is contemporary or a traditional style of worship at the church. And more recently I hear people leaning more towards a contemporary church because of the style of the music that is being played.
However, I understand what Capps’ is saying because honestly I a lot of times have difficulties picking out I guess you would call it ‘praise’ songs rather then ‘worship’ songs. One of the people I was interning under this summer separated the type of songs that you would pick in a set as ‘praise’ and then the ‘worship’. The praise was more of the beginning up beat set of the service where everyone is up and clapping their hands where as the worship is where people would be lifting there hands in worship. I am not saying that I agree with this separation but I am just using it to get to my point about the music becoming a form of entertainment. It seems that the upbeat beginning songs a lot of time reflect that entertainment side of things, because that is almost the first impression that a new person visiting a church get’s when they come in. But the reason why I have a hard time picking these songs is that it’s a lot harder to find up beat songs (that aren’t always being played) that actually have some sort of meaningful message in the song. It’s challenging for me personally to find up beat songs that will both please the standard order of service (where you start with a couple fast songs to get things rolling (entertainment almost) and then going on with the more worship set) and then also go along with the theme of what the whole service is about. How do we deal with that?
We are almost stuck in trying to accomplish the task of getting people to come to the church music-wise with I guess an entertainment type of music to start, but then having to totally change directions with the whole set to fit the actual message or theme of the service. Is this where we need to start bringing out some sort of a unity between secular and sacred songs? Like T.S Eliot was saying: ‘religion and culture are aspects of one unity, and also two different and contrasting things’ (p.40 line 2, 3). True this secular and sacred music have contrasting things dealt within the song but at the same time aren’t they also similar in the basic fact that it is music? ‘…beautiful music existed to remind us of the divine and perfect beauty’ (p.38 line 17). This doesn’t say that only beautiful sacred music reminded us of the divine and perfect beauty but just music in general. So with this said would it be the right idea to start incorporating secular music as well as sacred music within liturgy? Or would this be completely out of the question?
response to Jesusdork (cuz I still am not sure what I’m doing)
A balanced worship service is about more than just the music. I believe a worship service works along the line of the Lord’s Prayer:
a) Our Father – we recognize and acknowledge and praise the Lord for Who and What He is.
b)Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done – we pray for His plan, His work to be done in the world and in our church body and in ourselves.
c) Give us this day – we receive what He has for us today, in the Word and in Communion
d) Forgive us – we confess our sins to God and to each other and humbly receive His forgiveness
e) lead us not into temptation – we pray for strength for the week to come
f)for Thine is the Kingdom – acknowledge and praise Him for being our Lord.
g) Amen – Let it be.
Music, prayers, teaching all can be incorporated within a framework of corporate worship that honors God. Worship is not for us – it’s for Him.
In response to Jesusdork’s response (I love being able to call someone a dork without feeling mean : ) How can we more effectively balance our worship? When it comes to focusing our songs more on God and less on ourselves, I would say the answer is simply (maybe not easy, but simple). The words to our songs should focus more on describing and expounding on the goodness of God than on how God makes us feel. Part of the wonder of God is how He makes us feel so good, but even when we do not feel good, we should still be able to marvel at his unceasing goodness, and our songs should reflect that. A good example of such a song is, “God is good, all the time–through the darkest night His love will shine.”
jesus dork is adorkable.