After a day’s thought, I decided to retract this post.
You know, sometimes I just react, and this post was an example. After further review, I realize that my comments were knee-jerk, not considered, and not up to the standards I want maintained here at Internet Monk.
I will leave the original here, crossed-out, as a reminder to myself to be more careful.
Thanks for those of you who were kind but firm in pushing back.
Second down and twenty.
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Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?
A Colorado megachurch pastor criticizes other pastors for hyping their ministries and not focusing on down-to-earth pastoral work —
— while promoting his new book.
Sigh.
From the good folks at Christian Post, that paradigm of hype-free faith.
One of the earliest forms of American folk music speaks to the power of people singing together in community. As Steven Sabol says in his article, “Sacred Harp Singing: History & Tradition” — “At Sacred Harp singings and conventions, participants sing the powerful and harmonious American music from The Sacred Harp, the most enduring of the shape-note tunebooks popular in 19th-century rural America. This tunebook, in its several editions, has given its name to a tradition of unaccompanied community singing and fellowship surviving to the present day.”
The Sacred Harp was first published in 1844, a collection of true “folk” music influenced primarily by tunes from the British Isles. The hymn tunes, psalm tunes, anthems, and fuguing tunes it contained, written by such composers as William Billings, were used to sing mostly sacred texts by English hymn writers such as Watts, Wesley, and Newton. Later editions added tunes by southern composers. It was one of several early “frontier” songbooks that included: Kentucky Harmony (1816), Missouri Harmony (1820, used by Abraham Lincoln), and Southern Harmony (1835).
These songbooks grew out of the singing school tradition in early America and not from church worship settings. The pieces were known by their tune names and not their first lines, and texts might be set to several different tunes. The music is structured so that it gives the impression of simultaneous melodies, often sung in a stark and lively manner. The tunes are written using “shaped notes” — shapes that represent the interval of the note from the key or tonic pitch. This allowed untrained singers to sight read more easily, enabling many Americans to learn to sing written music.
After the Civil War, when other types of music began to gain more prominence, Sabol tells us that “singing from The Sacred Harp continued to be popular in the rural South, where there evolved a tradition of all-day singings and 2- or 3-day conventions of “Fasola” music in simple one-room churches, with dinner on the grounds, the honoring of deceased relatives and friends in Memorial Lessons, and traditional Southern hospitality and fellowship. These singings became social rituals in which the pristine elements of music, spirituality, fellowship, and food were distilled away from trappings and distractions.”
This practice is being maintained in many places throughout the U.S. to this day, and HERE is a list of Sacred Harp singings in 2012. Warren Steel describes what happens on one of these occasions:
An all-day Sacred Harp singing is a day devoted to music and fellowship. All-day singings are usually held in small rural churches, or in schoolhouses, courtrooms, or community centers. They usually take place on the same weekend every year, say, the Fourth Sunday in May, and often mark the annual homecoming for a local church or community, when local natives return from far and near to decorate the graves in the nearby cemetery, visit with friends, and enjoy the music that sustained their parents and grandparents. Some annual singings and conventions extend to two or even three days of singing, and may meet in various locations from year to year.
Typically, an all-day singing begins between 9:30 and 10:00 AM. When the singers have seated themselves by singing part (tenor, bass, treble and alto), the singing begins with an opening song, a prayer, and a brief organizational meeting. Each individual is invited to take a turn leading a lesson, that is, standing in the center of the “class,” choosing one or more songs by page number, sounding the opening pitch (or receiving the key from an experienced singer nearby), and leading the song by beating time with a simple vertical motion of the hand, first with the singing syllables (fa, sol, la, and mi), and then with the words. The officers may call a brief recess in the morning or afternoon, but the only extended break comes at noon, when everyone proceeds to outdoor tables or a fellowship hall for an abundant dinner on the grounds provided by local families.
After an hour, or when the dinner is cleared, the singers return to the main building to continue the rotation of leaders. There may be a brief “memorial lesson” in honor of singers or community members who have died in the past year; indeed some annual singings are themselves memorials to beloved singers and family members. Singings usually end between 2:30 and 4:00, depending on the number of leaders. After announcements of upcoming singings, there is a closing song and a prayer of dismissal.
The following is a trailer for Awake My Soul, by filmmakers Matt and Erica Hinton, a feature documentary that explores the history, music, and traditions of Sacred Harp singing. It will give you a taste of a few of the sights and sounds of this wonderful music that evokes a time when communities sang together in meaningful times of recreation and fellowship.
Respected modern singer/songwriters and hymn composers Keith and Kristyn Getty have released another fine album of serious contemporary music in their characteristic Celtic style (along with some bluegrass tunes) for the church. It’s called “Hymns for the Christian Life,” and it deals with many different facets of life with Christ, including such themes as work, family, money, community and social action, in addition to songs covering traditional worship themes.
Best known for their modern hymn, “In Christ Alone,” which Keith penned with Stuart Townend, the Getty’s new album features a special 10th anniversary recording of this song, with Alison Krauss on vocals.
Here is the track list:
Christ Is Risen, He Is Risen Indeed
Oh, How Good It Is
A Mother’s Prayer (featuring Moya Brennan)
Simple Living (A Rich Young Man) (featuring Ricky Skaggs)
Before You I Kneel (A Worker’s Prayer)
The Village Reel
The Perfect Wisdom of Our God
Kyrie Eleison
My Heart Is Filled with Thankfulness
In Christ Alone (featuring Alison Krauss)
Nothing but the Blood
Holy Spirit (with Gabriel’s Oboe)
Back in 2010, when Keith Getty led a workshop at the National Worship Leader’s Conference, David Neff edited and distilled ten thought-provoking ideas from Getty’s workshop comments on the craft of writing and leading music for worship:
The primary form we use is the story form.
It is important to look at things that are harrowing and that don’t necessarily make us feel happy.
We need lament. But if you want to write lament, remember that a successful lament resolves into acknowledging that God is God.
To write strong melodies remember that folk melody has to be passed on orally (aurally).
Use pastors and theologians as resources for your writing, keeping company with them.
Trinitarian worship safeguards us from so many problems our worship can get into: either an overly stern view of God or a casual view of God.
Martin Luther is one of ten people from history I would want to have coffee with. I have looked at a lot of Luther’s hymns and emulated him. First, Luther had a high view of redemption. He also believed we live our lives in the midst of spiritual warfare. Thirdly, he had a high view of the church and a high vision of the church.
The congregation is the choir and it is merely the privilege of those of us who are musically gifted to help them sing.
Lyrics and great writing are the same thing. Lyricism is poetry.
Everything I write can be sung by a congregation.
These are solid observations that are reflected on “Hymns for the Christian Life,” and which show why the Gettys’ music has such depth and usefulness for the church.
I highly recommend this new effort.
Here’s a wonderful song from the album, “Before You I Kneel (A Worker’s Prayer),” which quotes Bach’s Wauchet Auf, and which speaks of a subject dear to my heart — the doctrine of vocation.
Classic iMonk Post by Michael Spencer from July, 2007
Note from CM: This piece from Michael Spencer is five years old. During that time, I have been worshiping mostly in a Lutheran church where these observations don’t apply. I’ve been a bit out of the loop on what has been happening on Sunday mornings in the non-liturgical evangelical world. So, I’ll need you, our readers, to help us all get up to speed. How do iMonk’s observations still apply, and what’s been happening since he wrote these words?
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Here in Kentucky, where the worship wars/generational church division is everywhere and spreading, many churches are attempting to navigate the rocks of a potential church split by using multiple services.
I’ve been associated with multiple services since 1984, when I joined the staff of a large church that had both an 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. service. Most of my ministry friends are involved in multiple service options and an increasing number of them are doing a “traditional” service early, and a “contemporary” or “blended” service mid-morning. I’m aware of churches doing contemporary first, or even on another day (or evening,) but the contemporary service is increasingly the “lead” service in the Baptist churches I am aware of that are trying to navigate the various divisions that are tearing many churches apart.
This Sunday I found myself at one of the larger churches in our state, a leading traditional SBC church in a downtown setting. This is a church that did well in the heyday of the SBC up into the 1980′s, but has found the waters more challenging since. A large group of younger members split from the congregation several years ago to start a Purpose Driven church plant. This only delayed the inevitable generational and stylistic stress that a church with large numbers of senior adults and an interest in reaching younger families will feel.
The most recent approach- and one that appears to be working- has been to put the “traditional” service early and to make the 11:00 a.m. service a contemporary service later.
So what do we have here? I attended the “traditional” service (an excellent time of worship where I was warmly welcomed) and here’s the scorecard, with “T” for traditional and “C” for contemporary.
Put on your reading glasses, my fellow iMonks. We are introducing a book club here at the iMonastery.
Chaplain Mike will be taking a very well-earned sabbatical during the month of November as he completes coursework toward his ordination in the Lutheran church. I considered spending the month pondering the question, “When will Cincinnati ever get a professional football team?” Then I thought, Hey! Why not start a book club? And I found that to be the better question to ponder, so I did. And the answer that came to me was, “Why not indeed?”
We often review books here, but this will be different. Book reviews are one of us saying, “I read this book, here is what it says in a nutshell, now I recommend you read it on your own as well.” A book club is different. We will ask some questions and throw out some ideas as starters for discussion, but then the floor will be opened for you to share your thoughts.
For this to really work, you will need to read the book. And we are going to read four (Four? Four.) books in November. Yes, not all of you will be able to read all four. But how about if you try to read at least one? You are welcome to participate in the discussion even if you haven’t read the book, but it won’t be as much fun for you or the others. None of the books are overly-long or difficult to read. So there goes that excuse!
Trust in the alien Word determined the way Luther experienced, interpreted, and defended the sacraments of baptism and holy communion. The Devil, that master of subjectivity, lurks in the heart and the conscience, but he is powerless in the face of the alien Word. Baptism and communion are the pledge that God is present in the turmoil of the fight for survival against the Devil. These two sacraments constitute the visible, tangible prop that makes it possible to resist the Devil in God’s name. Thus baptism and holy communion are the solid ground on which the certainty of a Christian’s faith rests. It is therefore clear that there can be no greater danger than the undermining of these two sacraments. Making baptism and communion into the work of man destroys the foundation of Christian life because it makes God’s truth and reality dependent on the powers of persuasion of the individual, subjective conscience.
“…we heard UCC pastor Lillian Daniel say that she doesn’t go to church to have her needs met. She goes to church to have her needs changed. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will never meet your needs, but brothers and sisters watch out. Because it WILL change your needs. And that is about the most beautiful thing I can tell you.”
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CM’s random thoughts…
Ordered my first “clergy shirts” the other night. Not quite as sacred as “Mormon underwear,” but a definite step toward holiness.
I’m doing a funeral this weekend for a man who was a veteran of WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. No matter what your positions may be on matters of war and peace, there’s a survivor one must admire.
Goodnight, Yankees. And goodbye A-Rod (if they’re lucky and someone wants him).
Seriously, if I weren’t genetically incapable because of my Chicago roots, I would root for the Cardinals. Great baseball city, and dang but that team just knows how to win.
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From the Al Smith Dinner, at which Gov. Romney and President Obama traded jokes instead of jabs:
President Obama: “Everyone please take your seats, or else Clint Eastwood will yell at them.”
Gov. Romney: “As President Obama surveys the Waldorf banquet room, with everyone in white tie and finery, you have to wonder what he’s thinking: so little time, so much to redistribute.”
President Obama: “Early today, I went shopping at some stores in midtown. I understand Gov. Romney went shopping for some stores in midtown.”
Gov. Romney: “Usually when I get invited to gatherings like this, it’s just to be the designated driver.”
Why can’t campaigns be like this more often?
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CM’s random thoughts…
In all the talk about the early chapters of Genesis, why do I so rarely (if ever) hear anyone talk about how these chapters fit in with and prepare the reader for the message of the Torah, which is the book they introduce?
Biblical inerrancy is not a necessary doctrine. The Bible is authoritative. The Bible is a reliable witness. The Bible tells the truth. This is enough.
Now that I’m working with a church regularly, I think it may be time to pick up my guitar again. Wrote my first Scripture chorus in ages last night, on Galatians 2:20.
Some days, I feel so overwhelmed, all I can think of is taking a nap. Especially on days like the one Steve Martin (the actor/comedian/musican) tweeted about recently: “On my drive home today the stop signs weren’t working. It was chaos!”
Greetings from the infirmary here at the iMonastery. Your Rambler has the crud once again. Allergies? Raging cold? Cooties? Who knows? I just know my nose is running more than a Kenyan preparing for the Olympics. My head feels like a brick smashed into it. Or at least like a brick itself. John Michael Talbot, who is singing to me right now courtesy of iTunes, sounds as if he is singing from inside a tunnel. And other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? Still, your needs and interests must come ahead of my own, so I will shoulder on. Or, at least, elbow on. Shall we (cough, hack!) ramble?
Tomorrow afternoon I will be sharing with you a new feature for November—the iMonk book club. We’re going to read and discuss four different books next month. I think you may be a bit surprised by the selections.
Rachel did make Christianity Today’s list of 50 Christian women you should get to know. Who on this list surprises you most? Who was left off you think should have been included?
And while Lifeway bookstores refuse to sell Rachel’s book because she used the “V” word, Lifeway Christian Resources is no longer considering selling their Glorieta camp in New Mexico to Olivet University because of concerns over the school’s ties to David Jang. Jang, you may remember, has been accused of allowing himself to be seen as the “second coming of Christ” by his followers. Jang and his followers also have deep ties to the Christian Post and the World Evangelical Alliance. Am I the only one who is really concerned about this?
Yesterday, Pete Enns ran a great post about why he (and blogs like IM) should remain engaged in loving conversation with those in more fundamentalist traditions of the faith who disagree with us.
Here are the nine reasons he listed:
1. Fundamentalists are human beings and therefore are of infinite worth.
2. Fundamentalists are my brothers and sisters in the faith.
3. In the practice of my own faith, what I do to others does not hinge on what others do to me.
4. Not all fundamentalists are in hyper-battle mode, and not all have painted a target on my back.
5. Some fundamentalists are on a journey out of fundamentalism, even if they do not yet know it, and they need a place to land.
6. Vocal fundamentalist gatekeepers do not speak for all those they claim to speak for, and so all fundamentalists should not be grouped together.
7. Fundamentalists can be kind and open-minded in theological disagreement, and just plain old kind in general. Some of the nicest, godliest, people I know are fundamentalists.
8. No more or less than any other Christian subgroup, fundamentalists genuinely and sincerely seek after God in ways that make most sense to them.
9. Fundamentalists may tend toward equating virtually all aspects of Scripture as literally reflecting space and time reality, but they are also taking seriously the call to “access” the biblical story.
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As a former fundamentalist myself, I would add one more, to make it an even ten:
10. I’m sure there are many things I can continue to learn from them as well.
Note from CM: Long-time friend of IM and fellow at Michael’s Boar’s Head Tavern, Wenatchee the Hatchet is a classical guitarist and composer who blogs HERE. He is always thoughtful and thorough in what he writes, so I am delighted that he could contribute a post to our “Church Music Month.”
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There Is neither Art nor Pop, neither Indie or Mainstream… by Wenatchee the Hatchet
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus
Colossians 1:19-20 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His Cross; through Him, I say, whether things on heaven or things on earth.
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In his song “Sir Duke,” from Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder opened with the joyous lines, “Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand.” For musicians expressing optimism about how music can cross cultural, racial or religious boundaries this optimism can be persistent and, as a way to reveal what people have in common and what experiences are shared, music is a powerful art form.
But we all know that music has the power to alienate either because we don’t understand or recognize what another person may call music or we do not want to understand or recognize it as music. As a signifier of linguistic, cultural, economic, racial, sexual, political and religious boundary markers you or I can instantly decide that a person is not worth even speaking to depending on how he or she is dressed, what he or she looks like, or on what kind of music we imagine (or hear) a person listening to. Now while in the United States there remains a history of defining American music in white or black terms, this is a nomenclature of convenience rather than a prescription of separation.
The more musicological work gets done the more it can seem that the distinctions between “white” and “black” music were developed by the commercial recording industry more steadily than by the actual performing musicians who defined and refined a variety of musical styles. We seem to be largely past the point where it would be assumed that a rapper must be black, that a jazz pianist would be black, or that a cellist or composer of classical music would be white or from a Western culture (the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu expressed optimism about the possibility of the musical styles of the East and West finding a friendly fusion). While traditional regional, ethnic and racial associations in musical styles do still tend to hold on account of the weight of history and cultural identity it is no longer a given that you or I have to be of that cultural group to enjoy that culture’s music.
Nevertheless there are musical styles to alienate everyone. Some find country objectionable as a whole. Some refuse to consider rap and contemporary R&B to be real music. The disdain with which classical guitarists have often looked down on popular music can be astonishing both in its display of musical ignorance and its snobbery, while fans of popular music can find a later Beethoven piano sonata bloated, overlong and possibly incomprehensible. As the German composer Paul Hindemith wrote more than half a century ago, the first reaction a person will have to a piece of music he doesn’t understand is often going to be the laughter of disbelief. The person can’t quite believe that whatever this is could really be music and may find it funny that someone else WOULD consider it music and even like it. Let’s face it, you and I have all been that laugher.
“Whistle!” There’s a penalty flag on the field.
Classic iMonk Post
, by Heiko Oberman
. It is amazing how many people are 
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