A Defense for Vocal Assemblies: Beyond the “Amen” Bass

I grew up in a pretty big church (500ish).  Two or three times per sermon, someone (always male, usually over 50) would give a powerful, bass tone “A-men!”  I used to think you had to be a bass to get away with it.  I still think it helps.

The church experiences I’ve had are sit-and-listen services.  If you’re not singing with the congregation, or standing in front of a microphone, you keep quiet.

I think that’s pretty stupid.

I think we can do better in creating opportunities for more people to share in the assembly.  I don’t think we need to be nearly as quiet as our moms’ pinchers taught us.  I’m not advocating interrupting the preacher (though I’ve sat through sermons that should have been interrupted).  Asking for personal insights, reflections, verses, or songs is a possibility.  Have you seen similar opportunities that function well?

The question, perhaps, is doing it well with clear intent, communication and order.  I’ve seen roving mics passed around with fairly decent results.  I’ve seen mics set up in aisles that people then queue up behind.  But I bet in a lot of places, you don’t need mics.  Probably wouldn’t where I go to church.

But without getting too fancy, can we start by letting the tenors say “A-men,” too?  Not to mention the altos and sopranos.

Tiny Churches

 Our Wednesday night class has been small for quite a while.  On a big night, we hit 12.  Last week, we had 6, then that became 5 at the halfway mark.  To give you some context, our Sunday morning attendance is usally 80-90.

 I grew up in churches that ran 500-700 on Sunday mornings.  But I’m finding that even 80-90 can be too many for a lot of things. 

 Back to our Wednesday night class.  We’d gotten to the point where we didn’t really sing on Wednesday nights anymore.  It just didn’t sound very good, and the requests were always for the “older” songs.  Two of our Wednesday night stalwarts are senior dames, lovers of the pre-War tunes.

 Last Wednesday night, I decided we would sing, just the six of us.  We did, and it made our dames quite happy.  Me, too.  We went on to have a great class discussion led by our fearless youth minister.  As I’ve thought more about it, those ladies are the core of my church experience.  Most of the folks who “go to church” there are Sunday mornings only.  And that just isn’t church for me.  The six of us got to connect, laugh, pray, sing and share last week.

 Part of me hopes no one new shows up this week.  Not really.  Actually, I hope some other folks get the chance to experience tiny church with us.  I’ve described myself, and been described by my wife, for several years now as being task-oriented, not people-oriented.  I’m just not wired that way, I’ve thought.

 With every small interaction, maybe I’m learning that the secret to being people-oriented is not a dramatic paradigm shift in my lifestyle or personality, but just relishing the moments spent with people and getting to know them better.  I think it’s more about values.  For me accomplishments are still high on the list, but maybe I’m rethinking the worth of just knowing other people. 

 Tiny church has helped.

Bad Hymns

“Mansion Over the Hilltop”

Really? We come together to worship and the best we can do is tell God that we’re okay with the shack we’ve got here, but when we die we expect an upgrade? And all that talk of gold and silver seems a bit preoccupied with earthly (and American) views of value. Could we be singing metaphorically about how God will redeem all the imperfections in our lives? I suppose. But is that what you’re thinking during that song? Cause I’m thinking of a giant house.

“Farther Along”

I cannot think of a hymn that rivals this one for leveling judgment on people who aren’t Christians and then goes on to complain about our sad lot on this planet. Life is so unfair! This is the whiniest song ever. What a pathetic, depressing point of view.

Can you think of any other songs that are just plain bad?

Another one?

This is my third blog.  I guess that makes me a serial blogger.  I make meager attempts to give them all some attention, but I’ve been drawn more and more to topics that seem to center around the gathering of Christians for worship and what we tend to call “church” these days.  And my other two blogs don’t really care to have posts like that hanging around.  So, we’ll give them some space and see what happens.

 If you don’t care much for posts like the ones described above either, maybe you’d like to check out my other blogs on the right. 

 You can read the About Page for a little bit more info on the name of the blog.

Now that all that’s out of the way, here we go.