Instruments banned?

Was reading up on Max Lucado who is one of my favorite authors. He's pastoring a church called Oak Hills Church of Christ (now just called Oak Hills Church) and then I was reading about that denomination.

Apparently, they follow new testament conventions quite strictly, while old testament laws and practices are generally respected but not necessarily followed. One of the conventions that they follow is that instruments are not allowed in the worship service. According to them, there is no record of instruments being used in new testament worship, and therefore nothing is gained by the introduction of them in the worship service. Of course, for many of us musicians a worship service without any instruments would be unthinkable.

So! What do you think of this practice of banning instruments from the worship service? Would you agree with it? Do they actually have a point? Would instruments actually be distracting from the worship rather than adding to it?

I'm.... BACK!

will post something new later this week. Finally have phone and broadband services back up after a hiatus of a month.

quick break in transmission

I know I haven't been adding articles to this blog as often as I should, and the reason really is that I'm still dealing with my new house renovations and a busy period at work and that's taking up all my time, but when the house is finally dealt with and I get a holiday, I'll update this more often. See y'all soon!

Talent (or lackthereof)

One of the most distressing issues that face worship directors is people who want to volunteer for the choir, or worship team, but can't sing or play an instrument.

So, what to do with these people? Especially in smaller churches, finding people for the choir or to sing backup can be difficult. It's a bit more clear cut with instruments, either you can, or you can't, and so turning people away is a bit easier. But when you need a choir and there's only about 200 people in the church and you have 40 who want to join the choir and only 10 of them can sing in pitch, what can someone do?

Or another example, if someone wants to become a worship leader but can't sing in pitch and has an annoying voice that would become more of a distraction from worship, what happens then? If they claim to be appointed by God to lead in worship but whenever they open their mouths the congregation has to cover their ears?

the lines are open, folks, post your opinions and thoughts on this in the comment section!

The beginning of something new

So, this is the start of a new blog, one specifically geared towards something that's close to my heart, and that's worship. Through this blog, I'll be sharing about issues in worship and do feel welcome to comment, share, criticize (but not too much!) or even just stop by to chat. Keep watching this page for new stuff!

Enoch