Maybe I've seen it all now....

[Nullifier]

I was in a church near my house last night for a school function and guess what??? No piano in the sanctuary!! There was a organ console but I didn't see any spot where it looked like there might be pipes. I'll have to check it out some Sunday!

[Snowbandit]

The lack of a piano wouldn't bother me in the least. I don't like them anyway. It's when I see the drum sets on stage that I want to run out into the street screaming.

[Nullifier]

Yeah, or guitars. My church often uses drums and it has prevented me from joining the church even though I like the Pastor a lot. There is not many choices where I live....way of out Atlanta. All the churches I know of only have pianos or guitars.

[Clarion]

The lack of a piano wouldn't bother me in the least. I don't like them anyway. It's when I see the drum sets on stage that I want to run out into the street screaming.

Haaaaar!! A soul-mate!!! :->

I don't like piano's either! While I have a rather nice piano, I have often been tempted to give it away to someone that would enjoy it more than I would; but in some sort of undefinable way, I suspect it would leave a big hole in my life, although I may only sit at the keyboard about once a month. There are times while working out something in my head, a piano keyboard seems like the best approach. And if I didn't have that alternative available, I believe I would miss it enormously.

And like you, "when I see the drum sets on stage that I want to run out into the street screaming" !!!!!

[davidecasteel]

Me, too! Although I don't dislike the piano, I do object to it being the most common instrument at my church used for choir accompaniment. We have a wonderful Klais organ and a very competent organist (who is also the principal pianist) and I'd like for us to sing more anthems that use the organ. We've got a music library of more than 1000 anthems, but we seem to sing the same 20 or 30 over and over again--most of them using piano accompaniment! The Choir Director does throw in a Mozart or Mendelssohn piece (or something similar) once in a while just to keep me from jumping ship....

We do have a full-fledged "Contemporary" service every Sunday evening (with about 200 attending) with the full-blown Praise Band treatment--I don't understand why at least one of our 3 Sunday morning services cannot be truly traditional in the style of John Wesley.

David

[Nullifier]

At one church I played at (briefly) the MM almost always wanted to have piano with the choir pieces. I never understood that POV.

[davidecasteel]

Nullifier, it might have something to do with the choir not being able to stay on pitch or tempo when the organ is used. Pianos are percussion instruments and do often provide better cues to those singing. The choir at my church is quite capable of singing well with the organ, so that isn't the issue there.

David

[Nullifier]

The MM was brand new to the church but he seem educated. Maybe that IS the reason he perferred piano. His last chruch had been in a small town in south Georiga.

[RayE]

The church I left had an Allen organ and a piano, the choir most often was accompanied by piano because the organist / pianist was also the choir director. It was easier for them to direct the choir from the piano because the piano was placed in front of the choir while the organ console was off to the side and the view of the organist by the choir was obstructed. At my current church we have a choir loft with the organ console directly in front of the choir, we sing everything acapella or with Organ accompaniment, so I think if your organist is also the choir director console placement in regards to the choir may be an issue as to which instrument gets used most. The church I left also had a contemporary service with an entire praise band (that I played drums, bass or guitar for as well as singing in the traditional choir). The traditional service was my first choice for worship, but I also supported the idea that others might prefer a more contemporary worship setting. I left the church because our traditional service was becoming more and more like the contemporary service. The new minister wasn't a big supporter of traditional Lutheran Liturgical services, and seemed to want to continue to water down the liturgy leaving out important pieces of the service, and getting away from the older liturgies in favor of the service of the word and other more contemporary liturgical settings. I understand since I've left (and the organist we had at the time I left followed shortly after), they haven't had a choir. From what I've heard they have hired a new organist, but because the new organist wanted more money to do both a Traditional choir rehearsal and a praise band rehearsal, as well as he didn't have much experience with choir directing. The new pastor apparently chose the praise band rehearsal over the traditional choir since he was never a strong supporter of the traditional choir anyway. From what I understand the new minister is now taking guitar lessons and asking the church to pay for them so he can try to fill the void made in the praise band when I left. I was glad to find a congregation that still supported and appreciated traditional worship with predominantly classical church music repertior. Although I miss the friends I've made over my 35 years with my previous congregation, I wish them the best but just didn't find the services there to be worshipful for me anymore, this put me at odds with the new minister and I determined it was just time for me to move on. It seems to me that Churches either do one type of worship well or the other but I have yet to find a church that can pull off both with an equal degree of success.

[davidecasteel]

RayE, your story has a lot in common with mine. I've been with my present church 31 years as a choir member, and when I joined our worship services were only 50 minutes long but retained most of the liturgical elements I'd learned to love as a Northern Methodist in Detroit, Michigan. Down here in Dallas, the UMC is very much "Southern Methodist" and leans to long sermons (25 minutes by our current Senior Pastor), few hymns (truncated), and very sparse liturgy. Even though the services are ostensibly 1 hour long (usually a little more), with more than half taken up with sermon and announcements, there is precious little time for everything else. As a self-designated "Liturgical Methodist" I find that as the services morph more and more into "Blended" and toward "Contemporary" I am more and more aggravated. It won't take much to cause me to jump ship to an Anglican or light Episcopal church (there are essentially no "high" Methodist churches in the area any more--oddly enough, ours is considered to be "high church"--Bah!). I have resisted doing that because I've developed many friends and attachments to my present church and it would be wrenching to leave it. Nevertheless, the day draws nearer....

David

[jbird604]

It seems to me that far too many preachers believe that the sermon is the most important part of any service, and exert constant pressure to shorten all other parts of the service to make more time for the sermon. I understand the importance of teaching and evangelizing and that in many churches the sermon is the primary driver of both. But this is a mistaken concept and can start the church down a road toward pastoral domination and dictatorship, a cult of personality. The preacher becomes the "star of the show" and comes to believe that everybody is coming out on Sunday morning just to hear his fine sermons and enjoy his stage antics.

A teacher in seminary once made the statement that the reading of scripture is the central act of worship. If that is true, how much time is devoted in the typical service to scripture reading? Very little in most non-liturgical services, where the scripture is often nothing more than a verse or two read as a proof-text or starting point for the sermon, which often wanders into completely unrelated territory by the time the pastor gets through with it.

During the year that my wife and I were between churches and attended several different types of services, we were surprised to find churches (very much unlike the awful situation we'd left behind) where scripture was read at various points in the service. (Don't laugh at me, guys, because I had never attended anything but Baptist churches up to that point.) Sermons in many such churches were incredibly brief, almost always less than 15 minutes -- quite a contrast to the 45 minute rants we'd been exposed to in that last tragic situation!

We eventually settled into a Baptist church of the CBF type (if you don't know about SBC politics, the CBF is a subgroup of moderate or liberal churches that are mostly traditional in worship and eschew the right-wing political nonsense that has come to dominate many SBC churches). The church we joined was very liturgical, at least for a Baptist church. Each service contained at least two readings from the lectionary, the Lord's Prayer was always recited, hymns and other music were coordinated with the lectionary readings, and the sermon was usually 15 minutes and was developed with great skill and tact from one of the lectionary texts of the day. There was no ranting, no prancing about or theatrics by the preacher, no emotion-charged appeal, but I often found myself moved to tears. It was the most authentic worship I had ever experienced and I still look back on it with dear memories.

We accepted a position as music team for a Disciples church 8 months ago, where we plan music, rehearse and direct the choir, and play the instruments for the traditional worship service each Sunday morning at 9. It is great to be in music leadership again, but our new church does not use the lectionary and so is less liturgical than the Baptist church we enjoyed so much for that few months prior. We are between ministers at this time, but I'm finding that the guest ministers we're having are more inclined to preach too long and to make the sermon a bit too central to the service for my taste.

I hope to be able to have some influence in the future, perhaps encourage a more lectionary-driven liturgical service once we get a permanent pastor. It's just sad that more and more free churches such as Baptist and Methodist are becoming pastor-dominated and sermon-driven as they leave behind more and more traditional worship elements.

OT, I know, but seeing an organ in the church without a piano, guitar, drum set, or other stuff is a pretty good indicator that a church practices meaningful worship with a better type of music.

[mashaffer]

John you make some very good points. I have grown up in the Anabaptist tradition where there was a strong focus on the preaching, not necessarily to the exclusion of worship but it is definitely a difference in focus. I recently have begun attending and playing at a Presbyterian (EPC) church where there is a more liturgical approach and have found the God centered worship focus very refreshing. There is still very strong expository preaching (the Pastor's sermons were one of the things that drew me to the church) but the focus is different than what I grew up with. It can be a subtle distinction that one might not catch if you were not already thinking that direction but once you understand what it is you are seeing it is a clearly different approach.

As to the Piano issue I can't really say I object to the Piano as my wife and I really enjoy playing Piano and Organ duets. :) As they say it ain't the kinda shootin' iron ya got that puts meat on the table its how ya use it. ;)

Having a nice organ is also a good sign but I have seen a lot of situations where a fine instrument was installed and even used but where man was the focus of worship and not God.

mike

[jbird604]

Well said, Mike. Actually, my wife and I play piano and organ together at our current church, and I enjoy having the piano playing along with organ on hymns. It just seems that whenever you see a church in which the organ is dominant it's a fair sign that the worship is solid and not preacher-centered. Maybe not always, but often in my experience.

Keep up the good work.

[Nullifier]

The minutes from the last Church Business Conference placed on the vestibule table today stated the request has been made for more funds for more "contemporary music" for the choir. Looks like I'll need some traveling shoes soon.

Yeah, I'll just check out the church with no piano.