Music Can Morph
Music is a major component of Christianity that can morph to accommodate varying cultures. We never change our message; the Bible is our standard in every nation. The ultimate truths of our faith are unalterable and nonnegotiable. Music, though, is up for grabs. Scripture never prescribes how we are to sing. This is interesting, because we are a singing people. Wherever there is Christianity, there is worship in song.
This flexibility in music helps make Christianity palatable, whatever the culture. None of us would ever go to Japan, for instance, and try to convince the churches to sing Southern Gospel music. It obviously wouldn't work. We would instead listen to the sound of popular music there, and seek to reproduce a similar sound in the churches.
This applies to USA churches as well. Run your radio dial. Listen to the types of music the average USA American listens to. Often we will never find on our radios the kind of music we hear at church. This tells us something. If we are serious about reaching our culture, about wooing the lost, we have to use music in worship that sounds similar to what their ears are listening to every day.
I'm neither a Minister of Music nor the son of a Minister of Music. These are merely the musings of a servant trying to find his way.
This flexibility in music helps make Christianity palatable, whatever the culture. None of us would ever go to Japan, for instance, and try to convince the churches to sing Southern Gospel music. It obviously wouldn't work. We would instead listen to the sound of popular music there, and seek to reproduce a similar sound in the churches.
This applies to USA churches as well. Run your radio dial. Listen to the types of music the average USA American listens to. Often we will never find on our radios the kind of music we hear at church. This tells us something. If we are serious about reaching our culture, about wooing the lost, we have to use music in worship that sounds similar to what their ears are listening to every day.
I'm neither a Minister of Music nor the son of a Minister of Music. These are merely the musings of a servant trying to find his way.