Monday, October 09, 2006

Nobody whined ... or at least I haven't heard them

If you read my previous post, you may be aware that I introduced a new song (hymn, actually) to both of our morning worship congregations yesterday. In the 8:30 service, it was in E and accompanied by acoustic guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums. In the 11:00 service it was in E-flat and accompanied 4-part hymn-style by piano and organ. The choir had learned it the previous Wednesday night.

As long as I have been in the music ministry (some 20 odd years ... some years odder than others), I have always encountered resistance when introducing "new" worship songs or practices to congregations. One of the many things I learned from Dr. Gene Black at Samford was this: when people say "I know what I like" they usually mean "I like what I know"; and everybody tends to view the new and unfamiliar with suspicion, which sometimes results in resistance.

As far as I could tell yesterday morning, the new hymn was at least tolerated well if not embraced by both worshiping groups. Kudos to Todd Fields and Michael Gleason for writing a fine hymn (worship song, actually).

1 Comments:

Blogger JATB said...

Introducing "new" music is hard but necessary. I put "new" in quotation marks because it's new to a congregation if they don't know it, whether it was written today or 500 years ago.

I've got a post kicking around right now about "new" hymns vs. "familiar" hymns. Maybe I'll get it finished one of these days . . .

2:01 PM  

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