When I was first beginning college in 1997, the modern praise and worship movement in the church was really beginning to first take off.
\nAs a part of my church staff and a leader for the college group, I was part of a team that organized the Sunday evening worship services for the college and youth.
\nOne of the key components we focused on each week was the message of the songs.
\nWe weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t concerned about they style or age of the song but rather the message.
\nI personally feel and I believe a large majority of my generation does as well, that if a song does lift up the name of Christ, then it is not we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lost the meaning of worship.
\nI don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t prefer a hymn or praise song because of its style or melody or the instruments used to play them (or lack there of), I prefer it because of its message.
\nYou can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deny the power of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How Great Though Art,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or its modern counterpart, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shout to the Lord.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nIf I come to church and sing about how hungry or thirsty I am I simply leave feeling hungry and thirsty. But if I come to church and sing about how wonderful, amazing and awe-inspiring our creator is, then I walk out of church ready to take on the world because I know He is there with me and I want more of Him.
\nI believe that many in my generation are seeing this more and more and I think our churches are missing the point.
\nChurch services are geared and designed to attract the twentysomething crowd, yet they are putting the show before the substance.
\nWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re tired of the church as a whole offering up lyrically-empty songs and sermons that have no scriptural-meat to them, simply to cater to our generation and make people feel good about themselves.
\nA quick search through www.relevantmagazine.com, which caters to the twentysomething crowd shows that we want \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that old-time religion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that has meat and substance behind it and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need the fancy show that many churches put on.
\nWe want to know how to live our faith out in real and relevant ways.
\nWe love the hymns and we love the praise songs and we love the church as long as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real and not simply going through the motions.
\nSeveral people in my Sunday school class have come to me expressing their frustration with people in the church, including themselves, simply being fake.
\nThe following is excerpts from a Relevant article, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What makes the church relevant?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Karen Huber.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153As I sat in the pew Sunday, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe my eyes. Well, maybe that was because there was so much going on visually. A power-point board scrolled the lyrics of the chorus. On the stage stood (well, actually swayed) a worship band which consisted of approximately 10 middle-aged men and women: one with a tambourine, another who whipped out a jazzy guitar solo, and the minister who sat at his piano with a boy-band microphone head-set urging us to get funky with the Spirit. Without ever opening a Bible, the service culminated in a sermon that pinpointed three simple rhyming biblical principles. On the most revered day of the week, I experienced the phenomenon commonly known as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153contemporary worship service\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I was embarrassed. The worst part was this was all done for my benefit \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the typical twentysomething. Apparently, this was what my generation wanted.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even about Generation X. Rather, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the need to make Jesus Christ, the Gospel and the Church relevant in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s postmodern culture. But relevant for who?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAs we look at the future of the church, I pray that no matter what the style, whether its a hymn or contemporary — praise band or acapella — the message must always be put before the melody.
\nI pray that we will always put the substance before the delivery.
\nI pray that it will all bring us closer to Christ as we draw closer to each other and bring new people in. May we seek His face and may our face shine with His glory.
\nMay people see us each Sunday and throughout the week and say as they did with Peter and John, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153These men have been with Jesus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was first beginning college in 1997, the modern praise and worship movement in the church was really beginning to first take off. As a part of my church staff and a leader for the college group, I was part of a team that organized the Sunday evening worship services for the college and … Continue reading A Hymn or Praise<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2090],"tags":[2088,2089,2092],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns-reflections","tag-belton-journal","tag-columns","tag-newspaper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}