Worship Wars

A Farmer was in the city on business one weekend. While he was there, he attended one of the city's churches. Upon returning home, his wife asked him what it was like at the city church.

"Oh, it was a lot like our country church, except they sang these things called 'praise choruses' instead of hymns."

"Praise choruses? What are those?" asked the wife.

"Well, they're sort of like hymns, just different."

"Different how?"

"Well… it's sort of like this. If I said, Martha, the cows are in the corn, it would be a hymn.

"Now if I said, Martha, Martha, Martha, the cows, the white cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the cows, the cows, the cows, are in the corn, in the corn, the corn. Oh, Martha, the cows are in the corn, that would be a praise chorus!"

It just so happened that the same weekend, a businessman was in the country and went to a country church. Upon returning home, his wife asked him how the service was.

"Pretty much the same as ours, except we sang hymns instead of praise choruses."

"Hymns?" his wife replied, "I think my mother told me about those! What were they like?"

"Oh, sort of like a praise chorus except different."

"And that difference would be?"

"All right, if I were to say, Mary, the cows are in the corn, that would be a praise chorus. 

"On the other hand, if I said: 'O Mary, wife of my youth with whom I shall all of my days abide, incline thine ear and hearken unto my cry! For the cows of varying shades and hues - who can explain their ways? Have left the fields in which they graze and have traversed yonder into the fields of golden corn that gleams in the sun.' THAT would be a hymn!"

‘Worship Wars’ have existed in the church for a long time. That tension between those who love the old and those who love the new. Unfortunately, sometimes, ‘never the twain shall meet’ My generation, for the most part, grew up with the classic hymns. No question about it, they are great. They have endured for generations. However, there are some great modern worship songs also. Each generation has a different style of music and taste. Not all of it has been good and not all of it has been bad. But there is the problem. When we decide that one style is the only kind with which to worship God, and flatly refuse any other kind, thinking God Himself wouldn’t like it either, we have become judge and jury of all that is sung today in worship. Sometimes we argue about principle, when in reality its preference.  When the great American evangelist D.L.Moody came to Britain he brought with him his ‘worship leader’ Ira Sankey. Not all the Brits loved the Sankey songs. In fact, some hated them. They much preferred hymns. So, they called the duo, Moody and Sanctimonious. Interestingly, some of those ‘Sankey songs’ have found their way into some of our hymnals!

- Pastor David Goudy