Sing, Sing A Song

[This came from Christianity Today’s ChurchLaughs.com]

I almost hate to say what I am about to say, but that, of course, never stops me.

Back when I was a teenager, when Christianity was new to me, and when church was new to me, it was the era of pop music that now plays on the ‘Oldies’ stations.

But church music was, well, just that.  It was uniquely connected to church.

It was nothing like the Beetles, the Dave Clark Five, the Mommas and the Pappas, or the Beach Boys.  Understand that I very much enjoyed the aforementioned groups, and many others like them.  (I still do.)

But I also enjoyed ‘church music.’  It didn’t take much musical ability or reflection to see what ‘church music’ was about – it was easily sing-able, harmonize-able, and thus often somewhat simple music that had often been custom-designed, or at least adapted, to words that said something significant about matters theological.

Our congregation was a small church in a small town, but it was filled with enthusiastic singers.  One of my good friends who also attended this church would often sit near me, or I near him, and we would try different kinds of harmony as we would sing.  Nearby would be my Dad, and other family members, often adding some harmony of their own.  Around us, in addition to those singing the melody, were altos, tenors, baritones, basses, all joining in – it was (among other things) FUN.

We had no desire to ‘just listen’ as is so often the case at churches today.  We did not want to be drowned out by the accompaniment.  Most of all, we would never have thought the situation humorously presented in this comic was funny.  To us, it would have been a tragedy.

At church we all – young and old – expected to sing ‘church music.’  We all wanted to sing the same songs together.  We didn’t expect these songs to sound like the Beetles, or any other pop group.  We wanted songs we could all sing together.

Somewhere at many churches since then, a good idea got lost . . .