To try and expand on this: I think you have hit a key word here-the word ‘awesome.’ It is my belief that if the word pops up in any of the songs, it is a signature of a cheesy contemporary experience. I’m out the door.
I am hardcore Pentecostal, and the cheese is almost unbearable-even the more conservative than myself have gone over to this kind of tripe. I’ll give it a pass.
Anyway, I can usually tolerate but don’t love the music.
And, I also hate the jack-in-the-box standing up for singing. EVERY. SONG.
I don’t really like the traditional hymns, perhaps OK if sung by those who really know how to sing, but many of them are not easy to sing well, and just anyone singing sounds very harsh to me.
That said I do like the contemporary christian music, though that is usually danced to or at least clapped along with.
I can’t stand contemporary worship music. A guest speaker at my college once complimented the string quartet that had played a difficult variation on a traditional hymn before she spoke, and said it was “so refreshing to hear something other than ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ worship music”. I’ve used that phrase ever since to describe the kind of music that drives me batty. This may be due to my experience as a teenage girl who totally did not understand how people ‘just got so INTO it’ and ‘LOVED JESUS so much’ but instead related to the Bible more on an intellectual level, and was therefore a second class Christian. The guys, though, were not looked down on if they didn’t get emotional while the local rock-star-equivalent performed for big applause ‘all in Jesus’ name.’
No, not bitter at all, why do you ask?
I have heard some traditional liturgy that’s brought me to tears, though. I had the privilege of attending services at St. Paul’s and Westminster Cathedrals for a few months, and would happily have stayed there the rest of my life. The officiants (priests?) there were running a tourist attraction, and they knew it, but I didn’t care. For me, when the service is very formal and ritual it lets me see it as being for the glory of God instead of being entertainment or a cult of personality the way that many Protestant services try to be.
I rarely go to church nowadays, but when I do, it it mostly because of the chance to sing.
I sang in a church choir for years, and I still remember many of the great old hymns. Heck, I auditioned for a local amateur musical theatre company’s annual musical by singing one of my favourite hymns–and I got the part. As a result of my performance in that company, a local church choirmaster is trying to get me to join his church choir, and I just might. I’m not very religious, but singing is fun!
I’m an organist and a chorister, so I’d have to say “yes,” with the qualification that it depends on the music. I don’t like much contemporary worship music, and the early morning Mass before my group likes to do an off-key homage to the Carter Family. It does nothing for me.
I attend a church which worship features contemporary songs, and I can’t say I really enjoy those. I prefer older hymns. Though to be fair, back in those olden days, people singing Latin masses may consider “Amazing Grace” and “There is a Fountain” to be ‘contemporary crap’ too.
What I hate, hate, hate, hate with the fury of a million burning songs is when they insist on singing the bridge, chorus or the ending of the song, over and over again. Seven or eight times. I guess I just don’t have their emotional fervor, and and I think it borders on cult-like behaviour.
I love the singing at church. There’s something wonderful about the whole congregation singing together, most of the hymns are beautiful, and I just love singing in general.
The only thing worse than not singing in church is singing. The Catholic church I went to has an okay enough choir, but when everybody in the church sings it gives off this utterly creepy vibe.
The entire notion of hundreds of people doing the same thing in unison is bad enough, but combine that with the weird drone of non-musicians all singing slightly out of tune, and it sounds to me like something intended to summon the Great Cthulu.
The Pledge of Allegiance in school was also pretty bad, but singing in church is orders of magnitude worse. It’s the sound of tribalism and the destruction of identity, and actually makes me a tad queasy when I hear it.
I never enjoyed the hymns at church. In my denomination, everyone is expected to sing, which I found quite uncomfortable. I’d often just mouth the words instead of actually singing.
Hearing the hymns now gives me nightmarish flashbacks of sleep-deprived cold Sunday mornings. There’s actually just one hymn I actually do like, but no one ever sings it anymore because it is too weird. Just my luck.
Catholic. I enjoy singing in church, but a lot of the intended “show of unity” doesn’t work because a lot of people don’t sing. On those occasions when the Gloria/Responsorial Psalm/close of Eurcharistic prayer isn’t sung but spoken, it always seems like something is missing.
What about the actual music? I’ll agree with those who say contemporary Catholic hymns are pretty bland musically. Then again remember they’ve only had a vernacular mass for 40 years. Compared to 2000 years of Catholic Latin hymns and 500 years of borrowed Protestant hymns, the new stuff is always going to seem weak. My favorite type of backing was when (as a kid) my church had a Hammond organ and a full choir. These days my hometown church just has a guitarist or keyboardist and a vocal quartet. They try their best but it’s just not the same.
This is me. I was raised Catholic and renounced the religion itself 25-some years ago but MAN I’ve considered going back dozens of times because I miss the singing so much.
ETA: (and this is weird) I miss the way at the end of (I want to say the Apostloe’s Creed? Our Father?) when they say “for the good and good of all of his church” the “CH-CH-CH-CH-CH” echoes. LOL, how odd.
This reminds me of the Simpsons episode (as things often do) where Flanders fell in love with the lead singer of a contemporary Christian band who decided to go mainstream. He said “How?” and she said “You just change all the ‘Jesuses’ to ‘Baby.’”
Not only do I say yes, but I am very often a part of the worship team. It’s what led me to be a musician.
BTW, I personally am not the biggest fan of most hymns. They may have interesting lyrics, but they are musically uninteresting, and those lyrics don’t feel authentic because I would never speak that way. That stuff about telling Jesus how great he is **is what worship means to me. You don’t worship someone by talking about yourself. Too many hymns tell stories, which are great for performances and possibly even sing-alongs, but not worship.
This thread reminds me about the only church service I ever walked out of in the last 15 years (except to carry out a crying baby).
Every year during Advent my church does a “Lessons and Carols” service, in which much of the regular liturgy is replaced by a series of Christmas-related scripture readings and carols/hymns and maybe a shorter than usual homily. It’s one of my favorite services of the year for two reasons: first, we get to sing some beautiful old carols that we don’t ever sing the rest of the year. Not the ones you hear in the mall every December like O Come All Ye Faithful or Joy to the World, but classics like Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming and In the Bleak Midwinter. The second reason I love the service is because our choir sings classical Christmas/Advent music, often in Latin, and they can be transcendant.
Anyway a few years ago I was eager to sit down in the pew and read the bulletin to see what we’d be singing. I saw lots of my favorites there… but no congregational singing. It was all done by the choir. The congregation sang the processional and recessional, and nothing in between. I was so disappointed I almost wanted to cry. I ended up walking out and volunteering in the nursery instead.
I mentioned this to the rector a few weeks later, and he said that a lot of people complained about that. The last couple of years have been much more balanced and lovely again.
Hah! I love it. I don’t watch the Simpsons as a rule, but I might have to look that one up.
I know there are people who find that kind of music to be very moving and a real aid to their worship. More power to them. I’ll just be in the Bible study with the old people learning about Hezekiah, thanks.
I grew up going to a traditional Catholic church that I loved in Chillicothe, Ohio. I loved the singing there, it had a very sacred feel to it.
Now, the only church near me is horrible. I still go, but it drives me nuts sometimes because they sing everything in modern day music. They use a guitar and sing the Jesus music that I hear on the radio. Yuck. There’s no traditional songs played, only on Christmas. They do a lot of stuff that I don’t like, they never kneel, they hold hands and sing the chants. It’s just really weird for me since I grew up going to a strict, traditional Catholic Church. I know my mom misses it a lot too, she went there for 20+ years.
The church that my parents attended back in the 60s and 70s had an organist who had a son that was one of the rehersal keyboardists for the Met in NY, and he would come home for Christmas and take over the playing, and also do a special concert Christmas eve that was amazing. Now, we go to the midnight mass at one of the episcopal churches here in CT basically only for the music. They play the old music, and encourage people to sing along. They will also throw in some of them in latin I love singing hymns in latin - back in HS I was in the competition chorus for my school. Our entire chorus was the size of most schools sections. We did well, though I absolutely detested the year we did Frostiana/all seven fucking pieces. I was 1 of 2 sopranos. This sucked ass when you are tired from 6 previous songs, a 5 hour road trip starting at 4 in the morning with your school performing after 34 others and a venue full of other choruses who would do anything to sabotage your day.
Ah, fond memories of my childhood. Sister can’t-figure-out-how-to-spell-her-name with her broken hearing aid warbling out noise that was supposedly music, while our lead singer futilely tried to drown her out.
The singing was only during Communion, so meh, it was okay.
I’m the bass player on my church’s worship team, so … yeah.
I grew up in a Calvary Chapel church where we sang what I’ve since heard jokingly referred to as “7-11 songs”, that is, 7 lines repeated 11 times. I didn’t really care for that; I was always thinking, “Geez, we’ve repeated this ditty six times now. Can we move on to the next song? Please?” So when I was old enough to choose my own church, I went and found a little Nazarene church that did mostly traditional hymns. Loved that.
The church I’ve attended for the last 16 years does what’s called “blended worship”, which, as the term suggests, blends together traditional hymns, contemporary “praise & worship” songs, as well as modern hymns and songs in many different styles pulled from different cultures, modern and ancient. Love it.
I love singing hymns in latin - back in HS I was in the competition chorus for my school. Our entire chorus was the size of most schools sections. We did well, though I absolutely detested the year we did Frostiana/all seven fucking pieces. I was 1 of 2 sopranos.