So yesterday was the first Sunday of our transitional period.  Here at Holy Trinity Adelaide, we’re currently undergoing major changes to our AM gatherings.  And one of the areas that attracted the most comment and opinion was… music.  Our big date for change is October 21st 2012.  But I don’t want to wait until then to turn people’s church music worlds upside down…

We’re going to start straight away!  Not because of a mean streak on my part.  And this isn’t spontaneous either… there’s been lots of planning.  But we have a bunch of changes that will all happen simultaneously on the 21st of October, including the service venue, the number of gatherings, the time of gatherings, the number of people in gatherings, the regularity of communion, the people we’ll be sitting next to on a Sunday, the amount of available car parking… there’s going to be a lot of adjusting to do.

So I want people to do their adjusting to music changes now, in September.  The main reason I want to do this is that I actually think the changes will be for the better for the group of 600 people that we have in our morning gatherings, and I want them to see music positively, not let it be a part of a big build-up of anxious waiting, thinking that the extent of changes is too much to handle, and that the music might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

It is really important for any church to care deeply about how it’s congregations sing.  Vibrant singing is a sign of the health, unity, and gospel-centredness of a church.  When people open their mouths and participate, they are saying “We are one”, and they are also saying, “Christ is glorious!”  If people are more interested in whether it’s a drumkit or a pipe organ driving the music, they have completely missed the point.  I do wonder what our approach will be to the music in heaven!?  Will we be complaining about the genre?  Giving stern looks to organists, drummers and sound operators?

So, yes, I’ve mentioned what I think have been the 3 most contentious issues: drums, organ and sound.

In the lead-up to this transition, some older folk have expressed a genuine dislike of the drum kit, saying that it simply cannot be used for worship.  Apart from this being a misunderstanding of both worship and music, it is an example of where individual preferences creep into our approach to church music, often trumping the more important element of serving and bearing with one another in love.

In the lead-up to this transition, some younger folk have expressed disdain for the pipe organ, thinking it stodgy, uninspiring, and capable of producing nothing more than dreary tunes and tones.  Again, people’s preferences, perhaps mixed with some bad experiences, are driving their approach to the gathering together of God’s people in response to the extraordinary gospel.

In the lead up to this transition, it has also been evident that the sound operators have a big job ahead of them.  After all, they need to take responsibility for the volume levels, even though the organist or drummer tend to dictate the baseline volume with which they must work.  That is, if you have a loud drummer, the sound person will basically be forced to mix everything else to balance with that, giving an overall loud sound.  The same can be true of the organ and any accompanying vocals, but usually the organ is built to fit the church building, and so perhaps there is less issue here.  But spare a thought for the sound people who often cop people’s passionate calls for peace and quiet!

So, what did we do yesterday, on the first Sunday of the transition?  Look out for part 2… I’ll outline the way in which we blended traditional and contemporary, and just what people thought.  Needless to say, there were some surprises…

Mark