Thinking about: worship music

Last week I had the order of service all planned out for our Sunday gathering, and then completely changed it all. We sang all hymns, and used the hymnal instead of slides projected on the screen like usual. There were a couple of reasons, but mostly I decided on all hymnal hymns because I wanted a marked contrast to what we did the previous week. I wanted to stress that the reason we sing songs at our gatherings is to worship God - not the style or mode of worship we use. I mean, what better way to tell someone you love and adore them than to sing to them? Sometimes I think people can tend to worship the mode more than God, and I just wanted to try to make a point that HE should be the focus of it, not what type of music we play, or how we play it, or what instruments we use.

I've also been thinking a lot lately about how many new songs we should do, or how many *different* songs to use. I mean... we haven't done a new song in quite a while. In fact, we've kind of been picking from the same, maybe, 20-30 songs. We usually do between 3 and 5 songs per week, and we have closed with "Amazing Grace" every Sunday for almost 2 years now. I guess what I don't know is: would people rather sing basically the same songs every week, or do they like learning new ones? Our group of people aren't real big singers. We actually have a lot of people that really just stand there and don't even mouth the words or anything. So I don't know if they're bored, or if maybe we just need to sing the same basic songs over and over so people begin to think of them as second nature. I don't know.

I remember when we did used to learn new songs on a regular basis. I would try to introduce a new one about every month or so. When we did a new song, first I would play it on cd a few Sundays in a row in the music that plays before the gathering starts. Then we would sing it for 3 or 4 Sundays in a row so people could get the hang of it. Then we would sing it with less and less regularity, until it got old.

We never really had "worship wars" here. When I came here - almost 9 years ago - they used an organ and piano (when they would show up). I kinda had a rough plan to switch over to something more "contemporary" (I hate that word) within like a 3 year period. But I don't think it was a year before we had a drum set, guitar and bass added. And just like *that* we had a band. I don't really even remember any grumbling or questioning or anything. Maybe I was just naive. The only time people ever seemed to complain was when the band wasn't there. But I've also tried to be very careful to not do away with some of the really good old songs. There have been few Sundays where we haven't sung at least one song that's in the old hymnal. But we don't use the organ (actually we don't have an organ anymore anyway). I never understood places that use a band for some songs, then they drag out the old organ for some... I mean... just play the music!

I dunno... I've heard about some people that have planted new churches and they just get some old hymnals that someone has discarded, and they have a good ole' time. Sometimes that sounds really appealing to me. But sometimes I really like to rock out too. So... whatever. I'm just thinking out loud.