Traditional Worship is NOT Traditional - [heck it's not even worship]

Traditional worship sucks about as bad as the contemporary service. In the contemporary service at First Baptist Church of Wimberley you get the hip young guy singing gospel radio hits with a sincere feeling and music that has a basic harmony and maybe a catchy phrase that gets repeated to the point where you almost feel like you know the song.

[I didn't know these were radio songs till I saw a cheesy TV commercial listing "all the popular Christian music" and heard the samplings by the original artists and realized these were all the same songs we sung in church. I didn't know they were radio songs, but at least gained the insight into why our music minister thought they at least "should" be popular - the original artists made them sound good (meaning: and deep meaningful heart-felt emotions.)]

Along with "contemporary music" (which yes, basically sucks too) you get the hip young pray person who prays something like - "God, we just wanna thank you, and... just wanna.... blah blah ... just ....just ... just ... God ... Jesus ... Spirit.... praise you .. just now... feel your spirit... just... and on and on with fairly meaningless dribble "spontaneous" prayers that God would roll his eyes at if he has eyes. (Forget about the annoying Jesus-God-Father-Spirit confusion that leaves the listener reeling in wonder - "just who the heck are we talking to?" (I know the technical "trinity" one-for-all and all-for-one concept... but c'mon... can't we just talk to one or the other at least in clearly separated sentences? I mean, where'd all this "God appreciates it when I just blather whatever vague thought is on the tip of my tongue right now" communication style come from? Hmmmm.... even daily office American greeting chit-chat isn't consistently THAT predictable.

But I reserve my larger complaints for what was called the "Traditional Service" celebrated Easter morning in my used-to-be homey beloved church. I went to a traditional service on Easter expecting to sing "Up from the grave he arose, With a mighty triumph over his foes..." and some of those ... how do you say... "traditional" songs... what'd we call them? Oh, yeah... hymns.

What ever happened to the hymns?

Aren't hymns what we mean by tradional church anymore?

Instead I heard songs that essentially all sounded like they were "written just for that particular service" (as my mom puts it).... with a whole blaring horn section and screaming old ladies trying to stretch their off key voices louder than the brass sitting out front ....

And while I am ranting.... I am sick to death of these Microsoft PowerPoint presentations with the words to these songs that nobody knows how to sing and their wavy little colorful backgrounds! Don't we all get to look at screens enough during the week?! TV? Computers? How about shutting down the visual electonics and open up one of those strange hardback books sitting on the backside of every pew? Maybe we could look at possibly the MUSIC with measures and pauses and notes that indicate how the song is actually supposed to sound!

Why does everything have to be dumbed down!?

It's insulting, boring, non-creative, passive and as non-interactive as going to a theatre in a suburb.

Either give me some tradition and continuity that at least stirs memories of past feelings of worship, family, love and community OR make the music sound creative, modern with the expressive quality that most people in our society take for granted

But please stop drowning me this bland mediocrity of the "in-between" nothingness! It's embarassing and boring.

[Larry Norman, modern church customs either owe you an apology or the blame for this mundanely evolved style of music. Can anybody save us? How is it the black church seems to still have quality music with heart and soul? Is white church singing really committed to just being awful?]