Episcopal here. The only clapping we do is when somebody sinks a difficult putt on the 18th hole. Our service is very traditional. I could not imagine multimedia performance, Heh! Performance Christianity at St. Patrick’s. However, I would not oppose a contemporary service as long as there was also a traditional service. I think that’s one of the things that will happen when we build our new church building. As long as I can have my “smells and bells” service, others can have their multimedia presentations, I say.
I tried posting earlier but I guess it disappeared into the void.
I am not religious, though all of my friends are. And I have attended religious functions with them.
I don’t like the power point presentations. Makes me feel like I am at some sort of seminar, like a work-related seminar, and we know how much fun those are. Or maybe like I should be taking notes for the test later. heh
I do like the music. The Pentecostal services I have attended over the years all have had rock('ish) music–acoustic guitar and drums. Although it’s not something I’d listen to at home, it is energetic and I do get to see the passion these people have for their God.
I have been to two Christian sects that sing hymns. Maybe it’s those particular two sects, but the hymns are torture. There’s no feeling, no ups or downs, just this high-pitched monotonous plodding along. I couldn’t imagine attending those services regularly.
I’ve been to services that have no singing at all, just a talk and then prayer. And that’s cool, too, if you are deeply religious and consider that time a chance to connect with God and fellow worshipers in a quiet, contemplative way.
Personally if I were to become religious and attend a service regularly, I would want the happy singing and clapping. I would want the chance to share my enthusiasm and passion with others who felt the same way. Especially if the kids sit in for the main gathering, because I remember attending services as a young child and worrying more about being quiet and still rather than taking to heart the message being sent.
Seventh Day Adventist.
Our congregation is fairly conservative compared to many out West. We definitely have piano and organ. Before the service begins, we usually sing standard hymns, but occaisionally I bring in an acoustic guitar and we sing praise songs. Another fellow is a very serious recorder player and he often accompanies the music with his instrument.
On extremely rare occasions (three times in five years), I muster the courage to bring an electric guitar (!) to the service. Last Saturday was the most recent time. It is a tasteful semi-hollow-body Gibson playing clean jazz tones through a small Fender tube amp.
A fellow brought in a soprano sax and he played “A Quiet Place” in Kenny G. style while I played rich jazz chords in the background (a few minor 7 flat 5 chords among them :)) It was really neat and nobody fainted.
Hmmm. Perhaps I should have said " business seminar " instead of “rockshow” in my Title. Because, that’s what chafes. Music, that is lovely. Debate how hard rock, or how traditional, but interactive or live music? Lovely.
Slide shows and videos of clouds and stars? This, I find difficult…
I don’t know; maybe I’m just turning into a fogey, but it seems to me that there’s a tendency toward the vapid and superficial in some forms of ‘modern’ worship; instead of people being moved by some profound message, they are moved viscerally by a beat and a bit of jumping about.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I do rather suspect the presence of a baby somewhere in all that bathwater we threw away.
Oh, wow…choir. I went to a conservative synagogue for a few years and we never had a choir (there wasn’t always a cantor either, but then again it was an aging, dwindling congregation). Also checked out a small Reform temple and, similarly, no instruments or choir.
Once I accompanied a local church youth group band - they were playing one night at a creationist weekend thingy (:rolleyes: ). Loud pop/rock music, lyrics on a flashy, colourful PowerPoint presentation so everyone could sing along (note, this was mostly a youth audience). Fun, interactive, induces bonding in the hive-mind, but…spiritual? I dunno…
Wait a minute, this sounds like rock and/or roll!
I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration–the congregation could always follow the Latin mass in the missalette since it would contain the English (or other local vernacular) translation on the page facing the Latin. And the priest should be able to pronounce his words in traditional Church Latin, although if he’s a low-talker, he’d be difficult to understand no matter what language he spoke (particularly during the Eucharistic prayer, when his back would be turned to the congregation).
I have a particularly strong fondess for the old Tridentine style of Latin mass, with the lengthy beginning prayers at the foot of the altar, priest facing toward the altar (with a beautiful and elaborate altarpiece and tabernacle), altar rails, and all that.
But while I miss those elements, the Novus Ordo (the modern style of mass, usually conducted in the vernacular) is a beautiful and usually solemn ceremony (and let me hasten to say that it is the normative mass nowadays, and as fully legitimate as the traditional Tridentine mass–I don’t share Mel Gibson’s dad’s views).
Anyway, a rock-style slideshow/video presentation would be badly out of place in any Catholic mass that I’ve attended. I even think it would be too much for the more charismatic Catholics, although it may have a place within Protestant charismatic churches.
Speaking from both a personal and a Catholic perspective, I would find a rock-show style service to be trite and tasteless. That’s my HO, anyway.
I belong to a Unitarian Universalist church, and am pretty active in the young adult movement within the church.
There’s been a strong movement to have ‘Soulful Sundowns’ in lieu of/addition to services on occasion, as a way to appeal to younger folks. These basically involve any sort of music/poetry/art presentation that is supposed to be ‘inspiring’ in some way. The few that I’ve been to have been fun, but not really what ‘church’ is about to me. I’m in the minority though, in not being a huge fan of this format for service.
My particular congregation has a fairly sedate Christmas Eve service, with readings, sometimes a dramatic presentation from the kids, music w/ guitar and piano from the choir, and candle lighting.
Of course, I also belong to a very small congregation, and we wouldn’t have the resources to put on a large multi-media show even if we wanted to.
I generally go to a church where the priests offer the traditional Latin mass. All of the music (a mixture of Gregorian chant and 15th & 16th century polyphony) is a capella. There’s occasionally organ accompaniment for the final hymn, but that’s about it.
Of course, during the Eucharistic prayer that would be a moot point, as the prayer has been said silently since at least the 500s in both the Latin and Byzantine rites. Only since the 1960s has it been said aloud again in either rite, and is still said silently in the Tridentine mass and most Byzantine liturgies.
I grew up attending a Presbyterian church in Texas. Very traditional congregation, lots of older folks. We didn’t have as much pomp and circumstance as some of all y’all folks, but we gave what we had a good go. Our congregation is, IIRC, over a hundred years old, so we had a lot of great tradition to draw on.
I loved singing the traditional hymns and experiencing the organ (that was one big organ we had, lemmetellya) music. Simple service, but very moving to me.
I always loved our Christmas Eve services, with the special hymns and the candlelight part of the service. Always gave me goosebumps to hear us singing hymns like ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’. (In English, not Latin) As one of the other posters said here, the knowledge that people generations ago were going through the same actions is comforting to me.
Drums? Guitars? I know not what ye speak of thereof. Rock music? Flashy-light-shows… in church? :eek:
That was probably a part of the reason I quit organized religion. However, it was a small part – the largest part was the fact that my family jumped ship to join a Southern Baptist congregation. Those folks were a newfangled congregation with contemporary music and such, which struck me, even at 12, as somewhat heretical.
(my opinion of Southern Baptist theology is a whole 'nother story, though 
)
And I’m under thirty. Maybe I grew up old to start with. 
Absolutely not. Evangelical Lutheran so we have a litgurgical service and we’re fairly conservative. Well aside from about half our congregation being gay and lesbian :rolleyes: The topic came up at the evangalism team meeting Monday and consensus was that we had no intention of going to a “rock service” and besides we can’t afford the jumbotron.
We have an outstanding music director who has been supervising the installation of a 57 rank pipe organ. He’s in his early '40s but very old school when it comes to music in church. Services usually have the director on organ plus one or two others on keyboards, usually drums and a few other musicians and a modest size choir. Lately our attendance has been around 110 so that’s pretty darn good given our size. By contrast my folk’s church, also ELCA, has a huge congregation plus two services, traditional and modern. Two projection screens with powerpoint running during service and easily three times as many musicians but far less talented so they don’t sound as good as our small group.
I’m finding it really interesting to read everyone’s different points of view and experience.
I went to a Catholic girls high school and didn’t like all the formality of the service. That and the fact that I wasn’t brought up Catholic made it uncomfortable because I didn’t know the proper responses or the songs.
I’ve been going to Pentecostal churches for about 15 years and I (mostly) really enjoy the music. Our congregation is large for the area (about 800 people) and includes people of all ages - retirement village next door, creche, kids ministry, youth and adults - so they generally try to use music that will be appreciated (?) by everyone. We have a choir once a month, a band and 4 or 5 singers on stage for every service. We have been upgrading slowly for the last 4 years and then a major redecoration when the new pastors took over in October. So now we have the video projectors, powerpoint and video presentations, enthusiastic praise songs and some hymns as well. I really like that everyone can feel a part of the service, and not just a spectator sitting in their seat. For me, it’s all about a personal connection with God and not just a repetition of phrases at the right times.
But it’s all personal opinion, isn’t it. Some people are more at home with the more modern service and others are happy to stick with the soft, traditional service. And it’s the mix of those that makes it interesting.
Yeah, I’ve never seen a shul with a choir, but I understand that in the Classical Reform movement, they were common, along with organs and having services on Sunday (!). That’s pretty unusual nowadays, although I did recently talk to a girl who told me her shul met on Sunday. Maybe I should check them out, just to see if they have a choir, too. (She told me it’s a very nice shul, but I just could not get into something like that.)
I’ve been to one Reform shul where the rabbi played the guitar, and one Conservative shul where a couple people played acoustic instruments. That totally rubbed me the wrong way, and I elected not to return.
One of the nice things about being Generic Protestant[sup]tm[/sup] is that you get to church shop.
So, the church I ended up at has two different “flavors” of services one traditional, full choir, pipe organ, etc. One with a praise team and the band. But we do sing hymns at the more modern service and they do have praise songs at the traditional services. Having the range of styles was a plus for me when I was choosing a church. I love the organ. I love some traditional hymns. But I also really really like some of the newer music as well. As for the full show - something like you’re describing would have been a huge negative…for me. But that’s me. And I am not the sum total of the Christian experience.
I don’t think the rock concert thing is absolutely antithetical to worship. For some people, it really works. And for some it’s a huge distraction. The hope is that people make their way to services that worship in a way that lead them closer to God.
WRT the ideas of active v. passive, I agree that worship should be more than just sitting there while a service is going on around you. But I don’t see that that necessarily happens more in a multimedia extravaganza than it does in a quiet, contemplative service (after all, while some people are praying and concentrating, some are counting the tiles on the floor). ((Neh 12:27-43 does not read low key, or contemplative to me, but it does read interactive))
I should try a meeting someday. I’ve always wanted to go.
Beautifully said.
As for the choirs in shul thing, I’ve seen/heard choirs in only a few shuls. I have to say, they were some of the freakin’ largest congregations I’d ever seen. Temple Emanu-El is referred to as the largest Reform congregation in the world. ( who knows? -shrug- ). They have a substantial choir. Also, my wife sang for quite a few years at the Forest Hills Jewish Center in their choir. The loft room was up above the Ark, behind the Eternal Light. ( And let me tell you how weird that was, for a boy who used to sleep in shul during youth group weekends and watch his compadres make out up on the carpeted bima under aforementioned Eternal Light :eek: but, I digress… ).
Classical Reform huh? That’s a new term to me. I belonged to the oldest Ashkenazik temple in the United States, founded in the late 1600’s in Philadelphia. Our Temple building on North Broad St. is simliar inside to a Byzantine Temple, it’s incredible. I do not remember a choir or loft, but then again, I attende services usually at the suburban shul that was the sister to the Center City shul. Hmmm. Wonder if they had one…
Catholic, I mostly go to Jesuits or Franciscans. Being a fetishist Hispanic, can’t stand the Augustins, who are iconoclasts: their churches often don’t have a single image so to me they look more like empty barns with pegs - I knew an Agustinian parish in Miami where the priests would often rant against medals and other “barbarian symbols” during the sermon and then wondered why they couldn’t get more Hispanics to participate in church activities, even though the parish was 80% Hispanic and the single Spanish mass always spilled out onto the street :smack:
Jesuits, if the church is attached to a school, may have singing. With or without songs, the sermon is interesting but some have a nasty tendence to give quotations in the original language. Their idea of a Nativity is about half a… uh… two square feet (no, not a square two feet to each side, one foot by two), but they’ll definitely have one.
Franciscans are highly kumbaya. If they don’t have music of some sort it ain’t a Mass, so if there isn’t a live chorus or an organ there will be canned music. They will often have a projector for the lyrics, so people don’t have the excuse of “I don’t know the lyrics and my eyes aren’t so good, so I can’t read the songbook”. The sermon tends to be more on the soft, Jesus-loves-you side (although Father Francisco at Mom’s parish shoots live bullets). Since it was them who invented Nativities, their Nativity never takes less than a whole side chapel, and sometimes the whole area behind the altar, with the priest’s chair moved to one side. I’ve been to Easter Masses with them that were over 3 hours long and so much fun it felt like half an hour, but you had to “sign up” for it, it wasn’t the usual Mass. My bro and his wife met during one of those week-long “youth Easter celebrations”.
Southern Baptist here. The most typical thing about our Sunday morning service is that it’s never typical. Oh, the overall order of the service stays pretty much the same - singing, preaching, invitation (with more singing) - but the style of music is a mix. One week we may have a praise team leading the congregation in song, the next week we may have a full choir, the next a soloist. Instruments range from an acoustic guitar alone to a full band - any combination of electric and acoustic guitars, piano, drums, brass, electric keyboard, bass. Congregational songs include a fairly equal number of praise choruses and traditional hymns. We do put the lyrics on a projection screen, it eliminates the need for paper hymnals and allows the music minister greater freedom in song choice. The choir sings everything from traditional to folk to southern gospel to Brooklyn Tabernacle material.
Our youth services (youth meet separately on Sunday and Wednesday nights) are much more relaxed and always include a rock band. Why on earth anyone would expect a teen to be content with organ music at church (when they rarely, if ever, listen to it when away from church) baffles me. You minister to people where they are, not necessarily where you’re most comfortable. Which leads me to a story (an “illustration” in preacher-speak):
At a church I used to attend, also Southern Baptist, the services were decidely more traditional. In spite of that, we held a youth run service one evening. The youth planned and performed every aspect of the service (with some adult oversite - we weren’t stupid!). They, of course, brought in a band that played “contemporary Christian” music. Not exactly rock, but way more upbeat than normally heard in that sanctuary. After the service I asked my 90+ year old grandfather (a founding member of that church) what he thought of the music. His response surprised me somewhat, but really nailed down my worship philosophy. He said “Well, it wasn’t my cup of tea, but I could see how they (the youth) could worship through it”. You see, worship isn’t about me. It’s about God.
You’re absolutely right. Thanks for correcting me on this. I’ve betrayed my age here–I’m too young to remember the pre-Vatican II Tridentine mass, and I’ve only attended a few (albeit very beautiful) Latin masses as an adult. I’d mistakenly assumed that the spoken Eucharistic prayers in the modern, Novus Ordo mass was a continuation of a practice in the Tridentine mass, only translated into the vernacular and spoken while facing the congregation.
I’m pretty sure that at least one of the Latin masses I’ve witnessed was a Tridentine mass, which I attended at the Brompton Oratory in London a few years ago. I don’t recall if the Canon was recited aloud, but it was in a huge church, and I was far in the back, and dummy that I am, I probably just thought I was too far away to hear the priest. Now that I think about it, the celebrant was almost certainly silent, as he should have been.
On that occasion, I also automatically responded with “Amen” when I received communion at the altar rail–I later learned that I wasn’t supposed to say anything. :smack: