A little bit of Church; Proverbs 4:23-27
My Mom has been getting back into church recently. I’ve probably said it enough, but I come from an unchurched home, so I’m deifnitely not used to anything related to church. I’m still VERY freaked out about the whole thing, and I’m not sure why, since it can only be positive and rewarding for my spiritual life.
Today my Mom decided to go to the Saturday church service, which is at 5:00pm and is pretty cool. There’s a mix of contemporary songs and older songs, and the age group looks pretty diverse, which is a good sign. This thing about the older song and contemporary songs is a debate with every church - the older folk like the old hymns and the younger crowd like the newer stuff (complete with electric guitar, drums, bass, etc.). In another church I’ve been to, instead of having a mix of songs, the congregation is actually split into two different services: one with pure traditional music and the other with pure contemporary music. Basically this ends up splitting the Church into two different groups: the old and the young. This is one of my biggest problems with churches today, and one of the reasons I’ve avoided them. This was good that a mix of songs was used for the Saturday service, I can just hope that there are more churches that do that.
For me, I’m not there for the music. I don’t know any of the songs and I can’t sing, and if I did and could, I wouldn’t anyway! Still, the music has an effect on me, there’s no doubt about that. Being so unfamiliar with both types (traditional hymns and contemporary music), I take them in equally - except when it comes to hymns which have a VERY strong melody. Sometimes the words don’t matter as much as that nagging GREAT melody that plays behind them. When these types of hymns play, my eyes get all watery and I get all emotional and thankful for Christ. That happened tonight and I was kind of embarassed, but I didn’t tear up too bad. I feel so embarassed just typing it up here, haha. Whoever wrote those tunes were musical genuises, they really know how to write a good melody and good music. There are a couple contemporary worship tunes with the same effect, but most of that is just repetitive and not nearly as impressive as the hymns.
Then there’s the Beatles. Today was “Service Day”, which means that all the volunteer services were being showcased after the sermon. So after the sermon, the all-pastor band played “Help!” by the Beatles. I’m not sure if they got scolded for that or what, but it was fun :). But there was one problem - no lead guitar! So I just filled in the lead guitar part in my head.
Oh yes! Almost forgot Proverbs.
“Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
Put away from you crooked speech,
and put devious talk far from you.
Let your eyes look directly forward,
and you gaze be straight
before you.
Keep straight the path of your feet,
and all your ways will be sure.
Do not swerve to the right or to
the left;
turn your foot away from evil.”
Proverbs 4:23-27