TAN 34 - We'll behave this time. (Page 44)

I went through the majority of our choir season last year telling the director I'd show for practice.  But the music was so easy I could go in on Sunday, practice for 30mins, sing, be fine, and be able to keep that hour and a half of my Weds. nights.  So I made it to Weds. practices when I could, which was probably about 40% of the time. 

That's every church choir I've ever been in. 

This one is weird tons of guys, including 3-6 tenors, depending on who shows on Sunday.  A bunch or really quiet alto's, and a few soprano's who are all older, have extreme vibrato's, and can't quite hit those high notes anymore, but they'll try their hardest anyway. 

We are always open... the congregation knows that things are bad.  Right now I am sitting in a meeting with my congregation's council... they are charged with this sort of task.  

We are looking to reduce our expenses.  If we were to throw this out to the congregation right now... NOTHING would happen... Imagine if 250 people were to try to discuss how to reduce expenses... First crack goes to council, since the congregation elected them in the first place.

-B 

That's every choir that I've been in, though I've met a rouge alto or two. 

That's how it is for me, but in reverse.  Our director has asked me to play bass for the "praise team" for our 1130 service.  There are a few problems with this concept.

1130 is a crap time for me on Sunday because it screws up my day.  900 is much better.

I never really learned to read music to play bass.

When I played bass I was playing in a metal band.  A really bad metal band, but a metal band none the less.

I've never played bass in front of people in a condition bordering on sobriety (the one time I played in church we were behind the congregation, and I was, unfortunately, still hammered drunk from the night before).

I don't like contemporary Christian music.  Just not my thing.

Put these things together, and I don't know how many more times I can politely decline playing that service. 

You could always just suddenly stop worshiping there. But leave churches over lesser things all the time.

Seriously though that sounds like an awkward situation, I'm not sure how I would handle it. I not sure how I feel about the whole music debate: on the one hand I like to distinguish between going to church and going to a rock concert, but on the other hand I'm not really a fan of the 'A Musical Tribute to John Wesley' feel my current church has. My personal preference is for a mixed of older and new done without instruments, but I only know of one place in town that does that, and they don't do it (as well as a number of other important things) to my satisfaction.

I wouldn't stop going there, the only real friends I have in town, that aren't business contacts, or mildly crazy girls I'm helping train for a triathlon, go there.  I find the debate easily solved, I say no and continue to sing at the earlier traditional service.  No harm done.  If I left that church I don't really know where I'd go anyway.  I'm really more agnostic than anything else, so what's the point in changing churches and having to explain that to people all over again? 

Did you notice the red font?  I wasn't actually serious.  And the 'but' should have been 'people'.

Have you flat out told the guy that you're not interested in the contemporary service.  It's nice to know that I'm not the only young person who's not into the contemporary thang.

I think we might have scared everyone else away from TAN, even that preacher dude  

 The Meeps is a beagle...isn't it already completely nuts?  I thought that's just how beagles were.

I noticed the red font, I'd considered it, not because of the music or anything.  Yeah, I did tell him that, and he's not asked as often since.  So it's all good.  

And as far as everyone else getting scared off of TAN...they'll come back, they always come back. 

lots of "butts" leave churches all the time...

and actually the contemporary service is a boomer phenomenon.  Many young people are moving toward more of the ancient music actually.  The reality is that there is a pendulum swing between worship that is transcendent and worship that is more immanent... Is God in the everyday (praise/rock music) or something OTHER than everyday (Chant, etc... sometimes characterized as the "holy"...

We will always see a move back and forth between these two poles...

-B 

*ahem* I AM in a meeting. 

-B 

Yeah, I have a friend who HATES the contemporary service. And some of the younger folk even go to the really traditional "high church" service at 11 am in the historic building. There is a somewhat-mega-church here whose young adult service is very "seeker friendly" and they are basically a rock-concert followed by a talk.

I go to a formerly-Episopal now-Anglican church and we have several services to meet the needs and wants of the community. All services have a sermon, but there's way more prayer involved in the other two services than with the contemporary service. And of course, different music in all of them. And our young adults service is basically worship and a talk and some hymn-y type songs (with guitar and piano, etc) and a teensy bit of prayer (we always end with a compline hymn, etc).

But the good little Italian Catholic girl in me LOVES singing some Latin - which we almost never do.

That's awesome.  I'd thought from the pictures that the body looked a little long to be complete beagle, but I'm sure even 5% beagle is enough to make a dog crazy. 

Who TAN's from a church budget meeting?  That's awesome. 

Never was Catholic, but singing in Latin, as well as in other languages is a whole lot of fun...as long as people are willing to work on pronunciation.  Our choir tried that and you could hear 10 different words being sung at the same time.   

Yeah, I'm not super-keen on the real difference except that the Episcopal church has done some things to p*ss a bunch of folks off, so they're splitting away and joining up with the Anglicans.