Words from WW Blog

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                     August 12, 2015

              

What is a hymn?

How you answer that question may actually say something more about your age…or lack of…than anything else.

If you answered that question with responses such as “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, “In the Garden”, or “Blessed Assurance”, chances are you are over fifty years old.

“If you answered that question with such songs/hymns “Blessed Assurance” (again), “Majesty”, and “Pass It On”, you are probably under fifty by a few years or a couple of decades.

Why would I say such a thing? I hear quite often from the senior folk of my congregation the desire to sing more hymns. We try to balance our worship between hymns and praise songs. Recently, however, a revelation occurred to one of our musical members when she was talking about what hymns are. The younger folk she was in conversation with thought that a hymn was any song in our current hymnal…which includes each of the songs I listed in both sets of responses above.

That makes sense, in that they are in the…hymnal! But those who have been around for a few years would tell you that “Majesty” is not a hymn because…it just isn’t!

It speaks to the fact that any church that is a mixture of ages will have situations occur where people assume they are speaking about the same thing, but they really aren’t. It’s a cultural disconnect in the church.

When I was growing up and someone was asked whether they went to church the answer would be “yes” if they were there every Sunday. Some might even have said yes because in their thinking being a part of a church meant you were there every Sunday morning and evening, and every Wednesday night.

If that same question is asked today the answer could be yes, but the determining criteria for the one who answers is completely different. If a person attends Sunday worship once a month he characterizes that sa being intimately involved in his church. The typical church member now attends Sunday worship 1 to 2 times a month, whereas in my young days it was 3 to 4 times a month.

It is the same topic…are you very involved in your church’s ministry…but the definition of “very involved” is seen different.

What happens too often is that people, fallen in nature, misread other people they never  discover are speaking the same language in different ways. Instead of grace entering into the conversations sometimes suspicion and presumptions become the gap fillers.

The challenge for any church is creating that environment where people can hear those who are different than they are, while also feeling like they are also being understood.

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This entry was posted on August 12, 2015 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Grace, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: church attendance, hymnal, hymns, language, Pass It On, praise songs, speaking the same language

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