Two-thousand Year Generation Gap? - Music

(This is an article focussing on a subject from my last article, 'Two-Thousand Year Generation Gap?'.  To read the full, original article, click here)


Music is a big issue for everyone, whether they love or hate tradition.  I have been to churches where they outright will not allow anything more than fifteen years old to be played.  A lot of churches do not consider hymns to be appealing to a certain demographic, and therefore dismiss them completely.  Worship services must have new and loud music, especially for youth groups, and if the older folks want to have some of the songs they grew up with, they can go to their own separate service. The younger generation doesn't "feel God's presence" if there is no dancing or jumping and such; if they cannot dance to it, they cannot worship to it.  But if you were to take a random, non-Christian person off the street and present them with both a worship service at any typical youth convention and then a secular concert, could they honestly tell the difference?  Remember that God tells us to "shout/dance/jump around and feel that I am God"...no, He says "be still and know that I am God."


So what is it that makes a worship service a worship service? God calls us to worship Him in "spirit and in Truth"; even if we have the spirit part down, what about truth?  Are we learning valuable truth from the songs we sing in Church?  A lot (definitely not all, but still many) of modern "worship" songs are really quite shallow and are little more than fluff; "cotton candy for the soul" songs, as I like to call some of them, lack the deep spiritual weight of the countless hymns which are full of meaning and valuable truth.  A lot of hymns, however, reallyare difficult for many to understand, thus completely ruining the whole point of the hymn in the first place.  During one of the best worship services with hymns I've ever been to, the worship leader would stop and explain what the hymn was saying and how it added to the service, giving everyone a thorough understanding of the meaning of the words they were singing while still being able to enjoy the beauty of the ancient words.  So we know that worship, from what God has told us, involves the ability to be still and to learn.  Is it really a matter of "this isn't relevant to me," or more of "this isn't my personal preference of style"?  There is a vast difference.