Letting the baby grow up
For those who have a church history and it was generally a good experience, we have a hard time letting go of the past. We remember how good it was and singing those old songs bring back nostalgic memories that bring about a certain amount of security that only they can bring. Maybe it's a song that sparks the memory of when we first committed our lives to Jesus or when we got baptized. For a lot of us, church is church and world is the world. There is no cross section, especially when it comes to Sundays and the music.
Christian heritage is not a bad thing by no means. We can't throw out the baby with the bathwater and yet, it seems like maybe the baby is growing up but we want it to stay a baby (I'm starting to confuse myself now!) We want to hold on to things that maybe shouldn't be held onto cause it holds us back from moving forward.
We are a new church and because of that, we have made some choices when it comes to music. We have made the choice that we will embrace our "newness" and use songs that are new! What this means is that I have to let go some of my preferences in order to embrace the new. It doesn't mean that I have to let them go in my personal life but in order for our faith community to move forward, I need to let go of those preferences when we meet collectively for the greater good of the community.
We've made the choice to leave some of the songs that we have traditionally sung over the years in the past. Our reasoning for this is that we are specifically trying to reach people who are disconnected from Jesus and because of this, we don't see the need to sing songs that were sung 30 years ago or 300 years ago for that matter. They have no relevance to them. Sure there are some great hymns with rich theology, but why can't we write new songs with rich theology?
We have been in the process of writing our own songs and will continue to do so. Our goal is to be as authentic as we know how and part of that is having a unique flare that stays true to who we are as a faith community. That doesn't mean that we will never sing the pop worship songs but we don't feel that being cookie cutter and copying someone else's creativity is that glorifying to God.
Our intention is not to pursue the disconnected at the expense of the connected by any means! But it should be the goal of every person that is connected to Jesus to see everyone that they know in their sphere of influence connected to Jesus in some way, shape or form. I guess we also have a high standard for those who call themselves followers of Jesus. We all need to be encouraged in some way or another but at some point we have to start feeding ourselves, stop expecting to just get fed on Sundays solely by "the pastor" and look outside of ourselves to all the people that are disconnected and put their eternity (which is being lived out right now) before our personal preferences.
Christian heritage is not a bad thing by no means. We can't throw out the baby with the bathwater and yet, it seems like maybe the baby is growing up but we want it to stay a baby (I'm starting to confuse myself now!) We want to hold on to things that maybe shouldn't be held onto cause it holds us back from moving forward.
We are a new church and because of that, we have made some choices when it comes to music. We have made the choice that we will embrace our "newness" and use songs that are new! What this means is that I have to let go some of my preferences in order to embrace the new. It doesn't mean that I have to let them go in my personal life but in order for our faith community to move forward, I need to let go of those preferences when we meet collectively for the greater good of the community.
We've made the choice to leave some of the songs that we have traditionally sung over the years in the past. Our reasoning for this is that we are specifically trying to reach people who are disconnected from Jesus and because of this, we don't see the need to sing songs that were sung 30 years ago or 300 years ago for that matter. They have no relevance to them. Sure there are some great hymns with rich theology, but why can't we write new songs with rich theology?
We have been in the process of writing our own songs and will continue to do so. Our goal is to be as authentic as we know how and part of that is having a unique flare that stays true to who we are as a faith community. That doesn't mean that we will never sing the pop worship songs but we don't feel that being cookie cutter and copying someone else's creativity is that glorifying to God.
Our intention is not to pursue the disconnected at the expense of the connected by any means! But it should be the goal of every person that is connected to Jesus to see everyone that they know in their sphere of influence connected to Jesus in some way, shape or form. I guess we also have a high standard for those who call themselves followers of Jesus. We all need to be encouraged in some way or another but at some point we have to start feeding ourselves, stop expecting to just get fed on Sundays solely by "the pastor" and look outside of ourselves to all the people that are disconnected and put their eternity (which is being lived out right now) before our personal preferences.
Right now it's a challenge to know what songs to do. For us, I'd say 1/2 to 3/4 of the songs we sing are "old". But to a lot of others they are new. If we were to sing songs that were "old" to others, we probably wouldn't even know them.
We are trying to repeat each "new" song (even though there are probably others that are new to a lot of people) at least 2, if not 3, weeks in a row and then a week or two break in between singing it again.
It won't be long before everything is old and we are having to figure out new ways to move forward again.
Posted by
Dan Richardson |
4:06 PM