says dismissively of the pipe organ: “It endures not because anyone particularly
likes organ music (there’s none on iTunes top singles this week, and, I’m
betting, none on your iPod), but simply because it’s there. Usually ensconced
in the balcony of a church, an organ is too heavy to move and too expensive to
burn, so we might as well play the thing, no matter how many young people
we are scaring away.”
Among the responses to this critique:
• There are many reasons why attendance is down across the country. You
can no more say it’s the music than the taste of the communion wine.
• We just did a liturgy survey of our parishioners and the biggest response
we got was that the people wanted more contemporary music (less
organ).
• There are a lot of reasons for the decline in church membership. It’s silly
to say the organ is the reason. I think it’s more due to churches being
hypocritical, too judgmental, and irrelevant to the lives of people.
• In our culture, which is saturated with music, iPods and playlists, we
need worship services that are a mix of the old (our roots) and the new
(where we are as a people today).
• Whatever music style is chosen it needs to be done well and with
reverence.
• Imagery and vocabulary from the baroque era do not easily touch the
soul of most millennials who never knew a world without the internet.
• There is no magic bullet to fix things, but I rarely hear someone talk
about liturgical choices as reasons why people leave church. It is almost
always because of the failings of the institution, not its worship.
• The whole generational divide thing is really the Church of the Perpetual
Adolescence making another appearance.
The Bryn Athyn society is large enough that people have several choices
each Sunday, from traditional organ to contemporary guitars, mellow horns
and harmonic voices, and most of our churches and societies are experimenting
with variety. There’s nothing wrong with accommodating to different forms of
music and worship as long as it is all reverent and brings people to the Lord.
But whatever accompaniment we choose, let’s all be appreciative of the
musicians and music directors who are generally underpaid and often are
volunteers. And let us not use organs, guitars, “praise bands” or “soft rock” as
an excuse for not going to church. Good music that helps put us in the right
sphere surely helps, but we should be there first to worship the Lord. Then
thank the organist.
(BMH)
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