Well, in one word, the answer to that question is an emphatic NO! Tradition worship has its place even in today’s world. Is it for everyone? I don’t think so. For some reason, people look at was is older than them and think it’s bad. You may not like it, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. I was having a conversation about this very thing with my dad and he was telling me that when he was young, they used to hear the stuff that his parents listened to and thought it was weird. Some of us have looked back at the music of the 70′s and thought “really???” We always look to the things before us with sort of a mindset that that’s old and everything we do now is so much better.
So how should we approach traditional worship today? Well, we MUST have a healthy appreciation for it in order to express our love for the whole body of Christ. Our older body members are still important to the body. Sometimes we tend to push them to the side after a while, and they still have great validity. How do we handle this situation, well, that may be different from a church to church basis. However, I will tell you this. If you don’t respect them, you are automatically bringing tension within the body that can never be beneficial. Plus, if you listen long enough, you might learn something from those who have been around awhile. Church doesn’t have to be about reinventing the wheel. But we can do things to make it continue to roll. Whether you want to believe it or not, traditional music was contemporary at one point. It knows a little bit about rolling…
Great topic… especially for those young ones out there who say “traditional worship” is boring. Or those that think every worship song deserves a guitar solo. I find great peace in hymns and old worship songs. In the OLD (like Testemant) days they just sang scripture to God. What psalms and hymns were written outside of that I am sure to some was contemporary.
So when do we see the blog post titled “What’s Wrong With Contemporary Worship”? Geared at those “traditionalists” that say electric guitar is bad altogether and that no worship song needs a solo.
The problem is that traditional worship is for everyone. In 1650, it was for everyone. In 1800, it was for everyone. In 1950, it was for everyone.
But then, at some point, we decided that it was for old people and that younger people wouldn’t like it. That was the first time in history that we decided we had to do church music in a vernacular style so that it would appeal to the most unrefined and uneducated of artistic tastes. This was a huge mistake.
For instance, when my grandparents were growing up, they were listening to Ernest Tubb on the radio and singing hymns with organ accompaniment and a choir in church. When my dad was growing up, he was listening to the Beach Boys, Beatles and Lovin’ Spoonful on the radio. In church, he was singing hymns in a service with organ and choir. All of the sudden, when I’m growing up, it’s all of the sudden necessary for me to have the same vernacular style of music in church that I listen to outside of church. The profane has been cleaned up so that Jesus will like it or something.
Traditional worship is not for old people. It is for all ages.
Oh, and traditional church music was never “contemporary” in the sense that “modern” church music is contemporary. Hymns were written in a timeless style of art music. Even the folk tunes that were adapted for use in the church weren’t the same as the vernacular pop music we hear today. At some point, it was all new, but it wasn’t vernacular or “pop” music.
Jonathan, first off, welcome to the blog! Glad you found us. Secondly, thanks for your input. I appreciate it. I would agree with you and your words on church music never being contemporary in the modern sense. I would tend to say that as music changes, people’s musical styles change. I grew up in a Black Baptist church and that is a different style of music altogether. I’ve seen that music change and take different shapes over the years. I wouldn’t say that it followed the flow of the pop culture, but as techniques change so does what you get out of the music that is made.
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