We attend a church that has a 'blended' worship service. The preaching is inspiring, convicting, straight from God's Word and preached by someone I honor and respect. The order of service is pretty traditional and our monthly communion service includes excellent instruction and is very dear to me (I only wish it were more often!). Our Sunday School class is a source of learning, sharing, thinking and even struggling over some of the areas of Christianity where the rubber actually meets the road. I am learning much from it.
The music during the worship service is mostly contemporary with one traditional hymn. Now I have to say that most of the contemporary (7-11 choruses*) choruses that we sing are Scripturally correct. Occassionally we have one that doesn't exactly jive with Scripture. I even appreciate many of these contemporary songs, but I regret never having any music to read from (pretty hard to sing parts without it!) and I am a bit flustered by the fact that we are frequently singing choruses that are unfamiliar. There isn't one that we have sung in the past year that I could actually sing, or even hum, while I go about my domestic duties. And sometimes they are just plain hard to sing congregationally.
That brings me to the traditional hymns. I admit some of them didn't get right what I understand to be correct theology either. But there are many, many that do.
One that recently has been a source of comfort to me (and I can sing it without the music in front of me because I have been singing it for decades!) is What a Friend We Have in Jesus.
Meditate on these words:
What a Friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry, Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer!
It was the third line in this first verse that I've been thinking on. I am actually forfeiting my peace when I fail to go to my dear Lord Jesus for comfort, strength, peace and courage. I'm still thinking on this and hope to be more faithful in leaning on the everlasting arms when I'm in the garden or elsewhere.
So bottom line: I love the old hymns on which I was raised; I can appreciate the contemporary songs, but consider their form of delivery deficient (no music, no parts etc.) and sometimes their Scriptural accuracy is lacking.
Perhaps it really is a matter of preference, but even if it is, whether we sing traditional hymns or contemporary songs they MUST BE SCRIPTURALLY CORRECT. Maybe that's really the bottom line.
Humming about my friend Jesus as I go about the day. Now you're probably humming it, too.
* 7-11 choruses; seven words sung eleven times
