The Controversies of Music in Lord's Day Worship

The Controversy Over Music in Lord’s Day Worship

Well, tonight we are continuing our study, entitled, Decently and in Order, Understanding Proper Lord's Day Worship, and we have come to what can only be described as the most controversial subject in the church today.

I was writing a reminder for people on our Facebook page, just to kind of encourage people to come today, and what I put on the page was, come and study the subject which has divided more churches in the last 20 years than any other subject that I know of.

More than any doctrine, more than any statement of faith, or theology, or social platform, or political view, this subject has caused more division, it's caused more church splits, it's caused more people to leave churches and go to other churches.

It is the controversy of the day, and if you don't believe that it is, I can tell you from experience that it is. And the subject is music. Music is so, so controversial. In fact, in your introduction on your notes, I wrote this, music is the leading cause of congregational infighting, and has caused no small amount of division within the church.

Growing up, I saw two types of music in the church. As many of you know, growing up, I kind of went back and forth. I was at Forrest when it was a very high church service. And by high church, I mean it was a full choir with robes, and an organ, and the choir practiced.

Pat, do you remember that? There was choir practice during the week, and when you came in on Sunday morning, the organist was playing a prelude, and when she got to the time for service, she would count off the bells to let you know that it was time, and she would play the bells.

And that was letting you know the countdown to the time of worship service, almost like church bells ringing, but they did it with the organ. I guess you remember that? She would just play ding, ding.

And the pastor would come up, and he'd wear a robe, and he would stand, and he would read. And it was very high church. And then, on some weekends, I would go to my mother's church in Stark. Now, my mother's church was Congregational Methodist, or sometimes called Holiness Church.

And the Holiness Church was open to just about any type of instrumental music, as far as guitars, banjos, tambourines, harmonicas, drums. If you could roll it in and plug it up, you could play it. And so, I really did.

I got an opportunity to see two extremes. The extreme high church, and the extreme, what we might call, I would say, choir style and country style. Maybe even country is a little, maybe more bluegrass is what you could identify it, because it had so many different types of country style musical instruments.

And, as I said, throughout my life, which is not super long yet, 34 years old, throughout my life, I have seen a radical evolution. In many places, hymns are no more. They have either been replaced or restructured to fit the contemporary style.

We've gone from following along in a book, to following along on a screen. None of that is necessarily good or bad. It just is. That is the evolution which has occurred in my short lifetime. I remember when I was a kid, nobody ever saw those screens.

You didn't know what that was. But sometime, from the time I was a child to the time I was an adult, that became the norm. And the transition occurred relatively quickly. Tonight, we're going to look at the subject of music.

We're going to look at this very divisive subject. And we're going to seek to answer a few foundational questions. I'm going to go ahead and tell you. In the preparation of this lesson, I have been somewhat conflicted myself.

Because I don't have all the answers. I never have all the answers, ever. But on this subject, it is so divisive. It is so widespread. There is so much that has to be taken into account. That it's really hard.

So, all of this is simply to say, as we're going along, I wrote questions to seek to give us the answers as best I could. That was the whole way that I wrote the lesson out. So, I've put on your sheet tonight four questions.

Number one, does the Bible teach that we should sing as part of Lord's Day worship? Number two, does the Bible teach that we should use instruments as part of Lord's Day worship? Number three, why is congregational singing an important part of Lord's Day worship?

And number four, what would make a song appropriate or inappropriate for Lord's Day worship? So, those are the four questions I think that we should try to ask and answer. Because when we're talking about Lord's Day worship and we're talking about what I would identify as the most divisive part of Lord's Day worship, I think we ought to be honest about what the questions are and seek to answer them.

So, let's begin with the first question. Does the Bible teach that we should sing as part of Lord's Day worship? The answer, of course, is yes. Let's look at a few of the examples. We have letter A. We have examples in the Old Testament, right?

What is the first example that you all can think of from the Old Testament about singing? OK, David. OK, but the psalms. Who said the psalms? Psalms, right? The psalms are 150 specific songs. There are 150 outlined songs to God.

So, the psalms that we hold in our Bible are the songbook of Israel. It's the only inspired, or we might say God-breathed, songbook in history. You know, there's a lot of good hymns out there. There's a lot of good hymns that have been written by a lot of good people.

But none of them, outside of the psalms, are God-breathed. So we have, starting in the Old Testament, the God-breathed hymnal of Israel. And what was it for? It was meant to be sung. If you read through the psalms, you'll see where it says, this was meant to be sung with this instrument, or this was meant to be sung this way, or this was meant to be done this way.

It actually has identification on how it was meant to be done. Now, the next one, if you want to look at a text of the Bible, 2 Samuel 6 and verse 14. 2 Samuel 6 and verse 14. You mentioned David, Mr. Irv.

Well, this is a reference to David, if you guys want to turn there. I like this story, 6 .14. I like this story because David is dancing before the Ark of God, or singing and dancing, it says in verse 14.

And David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So we see here, David dancing before the Lord with all of his might, as there was singing going on. And if you read through the story, you'll find that Michal, his wife, was very displeased with his dancing.

She found it very inappropriate. And she said, all the handmaidens are watching you. And so she was either jealous or ashamed, or maybe a little bit of both. Probably a little bit of both. But she found it to be quite displeasing.

And he told her that he's going to do what God calls him to do. And he's going to worship before the Lord. And he wasn't going to let her stop him. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She despised him in her heart, what she was doing.

You can see it starting in verse 20. And David returned to bless his household. But Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David and said, how the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of the servants, female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.

And David said to Michal, it was before the Lord who chose me above your father and above all this household to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord. And I will celebrate before the Lord.

I will make myself yet more contemptible than this. And I will be abased in your eyes. I always like this. I'll make myself more contemptible than this if it's what God wants. You think this is bad. You ain't seen nothing yet.

If you're offended by what I'm doing, I'll make myself. If God calls me to it, I'll do it whether you like it or not. And I just always thought it was an interesting little little moment in the life of David, whereas he is worshiping and song and dance before the Lord.

And his wife calls him out and he says, no, no. I'll do it and I'll do it even worse if necessary. Oh, nay, nay. Yes. Crowder. Really? Who was it? David Crowder. David Crowder. Yeah, that's good. So we have in the Old Testament, we see David writing many of the Psalms.

We see David himself dancing before the Lord. Obviously, the music, obviously, the singing. We see this in the Old Testament. We see singing in the Old Testament. We also see singing in the New Testament.

If you just want to make a mark, Matthew 26, 30. Matthew 26, 30 says that Jesus sang a hymn with his disciples. It was after they had had the Last Supper. It says he sang a hymn. That's interesting, isn't it?

That the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ, sang a hymn. And of course, Acts 16 and 25. Most of you are familiar with that story. Acts 16 and 25. Paul and Silas are in the jail. And what are they doing? They are singing a hymn.

The text tells us they are singing a hymn. It means simply a praise to God. The word hymn simply means a song of praise to God. So they're singing a song of praise to God. There's this earthquake. The shackles fall off.

The jailer runs in and going to kill himself. And they said, don't kill yourself. And, you know, what shall I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. You and your household.

You know the story. You know what happened. But it was in the midst of the singing of a hymn. That all of this takes place. So, we see that now. There is also direct admonition in the New Testament regarding singing.

And these are the passages I actually want to look at. So, the two passages we're going to look at is Colossians 3 .16 and Ephesians 5 .19. And you can actually add to that James 5 .13. I'll just read that one to you very quickly.

James 5 .13. Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. That's the admonition of James is to sing. If we're cheerful, then what's the natural thing that we do? We sing praise.

That's part of it. But Colossians 3 .16 and Ephesians 5 .19. The Apostle Paul says two very similar things. Let's go to those passages together. The first one is Colossians. We'll go there. Colossians 3 .16.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Now, keep that in mind and we'll go back to Ephesians 5 and 19.

Ephesians 5 and 19. We see. I actually start the sentence begins in verse 18 and do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.

So we see in the Old Testament there is singing. We see in the New Testament, Jesus sings, Paul and Silas sings. And then in James and in Paul, we have the admonition to sing. So is there any doubt in anyone's mind that according to the regulative principle that we are only to do that which in worship, which is commanded in Scripture?

Is there any doubt that we are to sing as part of corporate worship? It's a psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Now, I want to add a caveat. Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs is a very it's not an easy to interpret trifle mention there.

In fact, when we were at when we went to the conference, Pat and Sue and I went to the worship conference. I stood up and asked that question because throughout the whole conference, they had sort of sort of downplayed most contemporary music.

And while I think a lot of the new stuff is not good, I don't think all of it is bad. And we obviously we do a lot of it in our worship. So I wanted to know what their definition of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs were.

And essentially the definition, which if you guys remember, was that spiritual songs was not the newer songs couldn't be spiritual songs. I sort of disagreed. Of course, I was going to make an issue at the at the conference.

And we don't we don't have to agree on everything. But I do think that the reason for the trifle mentioned by Paul, and it's twice, is because of the identification of the fact that there are different kinds of music.

A psalm is a psalm written for us. We have 150 of them and a hymn is a song of praise and a spiritual song is a song of the spirit. It's a song from the spirit. It's a spiritual song, a song from the spirit.

Yes, sir. Did you? Well, that's that's what we're going to get to in a minute. What constitutes proper singing? What constitutes a proper song? Because while I do believe that there are a lot of songs that fit the category of a spiritual song or hymn.

I do not believe that a lot of songs, even older songs, qualify. And that's where this is going to get controversial tonight. And I wore my running shoes in case you guys start throwing stuff, because I will tell you this.

There's a lot of bad songs that are being written now, but there were bad songs are written 100 years ago. There are bad songs are written 50 years ago. There was bad songs written by people that you probably respect and like, and that's OK.

But the key to all this is understanding what we're going to get to in a minute. And that is content is what matters. What does the song say? So anyway, I just want to make the point in our first question, does the Bible teach that we should sing as part of worship?

The overarching answer is yes. There is no doubt that the Bible teaches that we ought to sing as part of corporate worship. Yes, ma 'am. There's multiple doxologies in scripture, you know, doxa, worship and logos word.

So it's a word of word of worship or you see them. You see people breaking out in words of praise or words of worship throughout the one that we typically sing. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

You know that that one is, is I don't I actually don't know the answer to where that came from. But it's pretty much has been established among a lot of churches as being, quote unquote, the doxology.

That's the title of it. But it's not necessarily that it's a it's clearly biblical, but not a biblical hymn in the sense of having come directly out of scripture.

Yes. Why are we not saying that anymore?

I, I actually made a little bit of a change in our liturgy because we were doing it every week as part of the ending of communion. But now you'll notice we don't take the the offerings back up. We pray before the offerings come out.

It gives me another extra moment to get myself ready to preach because the way it was, was that we'd sing that song and then I'd preach. I didn't have any time to get up onto the chancel, take a breath after communion.

I asked for a break and we took it out as that. And we've added a different song in at that point now. So we we move it. We move. We have different songs each week at that point in the service rather than that one specific song that was done in that way.

There was a change in the liturgy that I, I, I, I did that actually. The Bible says in general, it says, let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. This is 95. And that to me would be kind of nebulous.

Would it be? What is songs of praise? We would know, I guess, if we heard it, whether it was or not, we would have to do it song first to make a decision. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, again, that's what a hymn is, by definition, a hymn is a song of praise.

So that when it's calling us to that, it's calling us to sing hymns in the church, if you will. All right. Moving to the second question, does the Bible teach that we should use instruments as part of Lord's Day worship?

Well, this is where we get a little bit more difficult because this is actually a very big question. Some have argued that the use of instruments and the New Testament church violate the regulative principle because they are not mentioned in the New Testament.

These would include the historic Church of Christ. If you've ever been in the Church of Christ, you will see they don't sing with any musical accompaniment at all. And if you go into some reformed churches, they do not use any musical instrumentation at all.

And the great Charles Haddon Spurgeon, whom I love, also believed that instruments were a hindrance to worship. He said, and I quote, I would assume pray to God with machinery as to sing to God with machinery, end quote.

So it has been an interesting thing throughout the history of the church to see the division on whether or not we should have instruments in the church. Yes, I would assume pray to God with machinery as sing to God with machinery, end quote.

He's saying I don't believe in instruments in the church because I think the voice is the instrument. That was Spurgeon's argument.

He's saying he would just as soon sing with instruments.

No, he's saying I would just as soon pray with a machine as I would sing with a machine. So he's saying I would just as soon do this as I would do that. And I wouldn't do that, so I wouldn't do this, was the was the outline of the quote.

So this, as I said, this subject's a little bit more divisive and we're going to get divisive. We'll get we'll get there. But this just starting, does the Bible teach that we should use instruments as part of Lord's Day worship?

Well, the Bible does address positively the use of musical instruments in the Old Testament. You can make any number of quotes from the Psalms, Psalm 33 to Psalm 71, 22, Psalm 81, 1 through 3, Psalm 150.

Praise the Lord with with all these different instruments. You know, you know, Psalm 150. Let's read it real quick. Just hear all of the instruments which are referenced just in that one Psalm alone. Psalm 150 closes the song book of Israel with a call to praise.

And it says, praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his mighty deeds. Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with trumpet sound.

So there's a trumpet. Praise him with the lute and harp, two different instruments. Praise him with a tambourine and dance and with strings and pipe. Praise him with cymbals and loud clashing cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So the Old Testament is without doubt that not only were musical instruments employed in the worship of God, but they were commanded. Praise him with this.

Praise him with that. And praise him with all of it. Let everything praise the Lord. So we know that Old Testament, no doubt. Now, as you see in your notes, letter B, there are no mention of musical instruments in the New Testament.

And because of that, some people argue for their exclusion. That because they're not mentioned in the New Testament, we can't have them. And that was the argument of the the the Campbellites, the Stoneites, the ones who were foundational in the restoration movement, which became the Church of Christ.

In fact, there's a book, Campbellites, Cowbells, Rosary Beads and Snake Handling. That's a book that's on my shelf. I was I have I can remember that title because it's very creative title. And the book is about the fact that I believe it was Alexander Campbell who said that if you allow instruments into the church, then soon what you'll have is rosary beads and cowbells and snake handling, because that's what's going to come.

If you allow any instruments in the church, those things will naturally follow. Well, yeah, just all it's just all going to flow and it's all good. It's just going to be. And we call that the slippery slope argument.

And if you allow this one thing, it's going to create a snowball effect. And it's just going to be it's just going to be wanton. Everything's going to be all crazy and willy nilly and it'll be Nathan's fault.

Nathan's fault. Yeah. So here is the issue. Before we even get to letter C, let me. At least point this out. And I think it's worthy of our attention. The Old Testament clearly says that the worship of Israel was done with instruments.

The New Testament doesn't have any reference to instruments. However, there is also and there must be it must be agreed on that there's because there's no reference to instruments at all. There is no prohibition either.

There's neither a for or against. And because we have the established worship principle in the Old Testament, which not only allows instruments, but commands instruments. And then in the New Testament, there is no prohibition or change because you think about the dietary restrictions of Israel.

Acts chapter 10 totally changes that. It says you didn't eat this before, but I made all things clean. You know, there's this change. It was so obvious that the apostle Peter had to see it with his own eyes to even believe that such a change would occur.

You understand. So when we talk about. The fact we're talking about the regulative principle, I do think that the whole of Scripture comes into play. I do not believe that we can simply say the absence in the New Testament creates a prohibition.

Especially when the Old Testament is so clearly for the use of instruments as as as the objects of worship. But let me clear that up as instruments of worship. But let me just show you one passage very quick, quickly.

We're in Ephesians five. I think some of you turn there. But if you haven't turned back quickly, I just want to show you one phrase. In Ephesians five, 19. When it says that we are to address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and doing what?

Making melody to the Lord. That we're making melody in the Greek language is it does mean to strum an instrument or to take Leonard. You look like you want to be followed by with your heart. Yes. Well, in the ESV, it says making melody to the Lord with your heart.

So are you sure? Sure. But my point is, we see here, if there is a reference to instruments at all, this would be the only one. If there is a reference to instruments at all, this would be it. The Greek word here does indicate at least in its in its base, the the strumming of an instrument or the the the playing of an instrument.

The point of the matter, though, again, the argument, I think that that is to be made for the use of instruments should not come from Ephesians five, because at best that particular passage is somewhat an argumentative passage.

We can't prove anything from that passage other than to say that it does have a reference here which could relate to the playing of an instrument. But the Old Testament clearly, without doubt, offers up a true sense in which the playing of an instrument is key.

And Jameson Fawcett Brown does reference in Ephesians 519 that this is the playing and string singing with an instrument. So there are some there are some who would argue that it is the use of an instrument in Ephesians 519.

But here's my point. I think that this is at best a Romans 14 issue. What is a Romans 14 issue? An issue of conscience, an issue of liberty. It's certainly an issue of liberty, because this is a this is a place wherein if your conscience binds you to not using instruments in the church, then you shouldn't.

You know, I don't I don't go into a church of Christ and say you guys should be using instruments because if their conscience is bound to not use instruments, me going in and telling them, no, you ought to be using a guitar, you ought to be using drums, you ought to be using that.

I think that's totally an issue of conscience. It's totally an issue of Christian liberty. And it would not be my place to simply divide them or to confront them on something which certainly is not a sin.

It's certainly not a sin to not do it. But I also believe it is not a sin to do it. I don't believe that exercising that liberty, liberty is a sin. Very, very few churches that I'm aware of make it a complete and absolute prohibition to use any instruments in the church.

Like I said, when I mentioned it, what did you guys immediately think of? Church of Christ. Right. And as I said, some reformed churches, but very few have taken the scripture to understand it as being absolute prohibition.

And I don't think so either. If I thought that it was a prohibition for worship, I wouldn't allow it in our church or I would seek that the elders not allow it. But I don't believe it is a prohibition.

So that's where we are. Yeah. Yeah. You get the thumbs up from the guy who played one of the instruments. But but that but again, it's not an easy question, not an easy question at all. And that's why this is such a divisive subject.

But let's move on, because once we look at does the Bible say we should sing? Absolutely. Does the Bible say we should use instruments in the Old Testament? Does the New Testament doesn't? But at least the scripture does speak to the issue and says that instruments can be used as as instruments of worship.

So, number three, third question, why is congregational singing an important part of Lords? They worship. Why is that the case? Number one or letter a rather singing is a form of prayer. Singing is a form of prayer.

In our last session, we looked at prayer and Lords. They worship. And remember, we talked about the different types of prayer. We said that there was the prayer of invocation. There was the prayer of intercession.

There's the prayer of consecration. There's the prayer of dedication. There's the prayer of benediction. There's all these prayers that make up Lords. They worship. And there are each one directed and intentional prayers.

But also, when the congregation of the faithful, together with one voice, sing to God praises, we are, in essence, speaking those praises to Him. And as such, in that sense, we are praying. A hymn is a corporate prayer spoken together in rhythm for the purpose of praising God.

Yeah, it's a participatory action. You're participating in it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's where, you know, I don't print my prayers beforehand and give them to you to pray with me when I'm praying the intercessory prayer or when we're praying at the table or I'm praying the benediction.

We don't give those to you. But the songs you have. And thus, we can pray them together. We can sing them together. This is why, by the way, I have a big problem with what I call the 7 -11 songs. You know what a 7 -11 song is.

What is it? What is it? Seven words, eleven times. Seven words, eleven times. It's the repetitious songs that's only the same thing over and over and over. A few weeks ago, we watched videos. You remember, listen to the rhythm of heaven.

You weren't here for that, were you? That was almost hypnotic. It was two or three minutes of just those words. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Jesus tells us in our prayers, do not pray in vain repetition, believing that you will be heard for your many words.

So I believe that that would apply also to singing. That if we are singing simply vain repetition over and over and over without putting thought into our words, but simply causing somewhat of a hypnotic effect of just singing the same thing over and over and over and over and over.

I don't think that that's appropriate. Now, somebody might argue and say, the angels in heaven sing holy, holy, holy always. So I will respond to that and say, you ain't no angel. No, there is a there is a sense in which there are certain attributes of God which are worthy of being repeated.

Yes, yes.

Now, but that is a purposeful repetition. The reason why we do the model prayer is it has a didactic element. I don't know if you remember that from last week. You were here last month. Remember, why do we do the Lord's Prayer every week?

The model prayer, rather, is because it is the didactic prayer element of our of our service. It's meant to teach. And I do it specifically because I know that kids are not getting that in school anymore.

Kids are not. A lot of them are. Some of them may not be getting it at home. But when they come to church, they learn the prayer through the through the corporate. We're going to talk about didactic part in a minute.

Part of what we do is we do to teach. Yes, sir. And the model prayer is also sang. Yeah, there is. There are those who sing the prayer, too. I have a version of it by Anne Murray. I've used it for funerals before.

I have quite a large funeral library because I do so many funerals that people get music. And Anne Murray's Lord's Prayer is a beautiful version of that. All right. Singing is a type of prayer. Now, this is going to kind of go with what you said, Miss Ray, because this is the next thing.

Singing is the type of prayer. Singing is also a type of catechism. It is a type of catechism. Now, people often associate catechisms with Catholics. But let me tell you something. Catechisms predate Roman Catholicism.

They predate Christianity because there were catechisms even in the in Israel. But the idea of teaching by memorization, the idea of teaching by question and answer, that I teach you the answers. And then you memorize them and then you learn to answer the question.

That is an ancient technique of teaching. And it has had a rich history in reformed churches. The Westminster Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism. You know, the Baptists had catechisms, even though modern Baptists would say, oh no, that's Catholic.

No, no, no. There were Baptist catechisms. You know what? There are those. A lot of them now are in English, though, because they want people to learn them. But yeah, there are. For so long, so much. For a long time, that was true.

Yeah. Well, that's what that's kind of where I was going, because catechisms are meant to teach sound doctrine through memorization. And one of the best ways to get people to remember things is to harmonize them, put them into a song to create a melody.

For instance, most of us learn the alphabet. How? As ABCDEFG. You know, we learn it as a song. I learned the Greek alphabet as a song. You know the song? Mama's little baby goes shortening, shortening.

You know that song? Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, yotta, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, p, rho, sigma, tau, epsilon, phi, kip, xi, omega. That's how I learned the Greek alphabet, was to learn to sing it.

And so, too, the books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy. And that was the song Deuteronomy twice because it kept with the little rhythm. But that's how we taught it to the kids.

We teach it to them in song. So most of us understand the value of learning through this mnemonic device of singing. You mentioned that, Mr. Erb, that we sing things to memorize them. This is why music is so valuable for teaching.

And while I say it's a type of catechism. Because you will remember the songs and you will internalize what the songs say because of the melody. You'll remember them more. So that's another reason why it is so important that when we sing, we sing good doctrine.

We sing good teaching. We sing things that are right because singing is didactic. It's D-I-D-A-C-T-I-C. It is didactic. It is a teaching tool. Much the same way we repeat the Lord's model prayer.

So, too, when we sing, we try to sing songs that have a teaching quality. We're teaching something. OK, well, in that regard, there is built into the worship service a teaching portion in the music. So we've looked at the three questions so far.

Does the Bible teach that we should sing? Yes. Does the Bible teach that we should use musical instruments? It does in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. There are those who would disagree, but I would say yes.

Number three, the question is, why is congregational singing an important part of Lord's Day worship? Because it is a type of prayer and it is a type of catechism. It is both to praise and to teach. It has a twofold quality.

Lastly, what would make a song appropriate or inappropriate for Lord's Day worship? Well, it's a huge question because often people want to apply very subjective standards. You know, we want it a certain way.

Some people believe all hymns are appropriate and all contemporary music is inappropriate simply because one is older than the other. I remember I was standing right here welcoming people to leave after service.

I'm inviting people to leave. No, you know, I stand at the end and I shake hands. This was years and years ago and there was an older gentleman at my church. I knew he didn't like the music, some of the music that we were doing.