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(This post was written prior to 2016, in a blog entitled “Jubal’s Jottings.”)
I’ll have to admit that I heard a lot of Christmas music this year…as in live concerts! In most cases they were quite good. They ranged from large choirs with hired orchestras to small churches doing quite well with lesser resources. These concerts provided a sense of the season for their church communities – for those who participate and those who attend. There are, however, a couple of troubling trends that I just must comment on.
Trend #1 – Of the concerts I’ve attended, there seems to be a pretty comfortable sense that these churches have done something like this for several or maybe even many years. Comfort is all right, you know like “comfort and joy,” unless it starts to get too familiar and stale. I saw one church that advertised the “64th Annual” Christmas concert. It must be really good, so they just HAVE to do it every year…or perhaps it has become the expected, obligation, status quo thing to do – so they just keep doing it. The sense of outreach can get lost in the comfortable nature of things. The same people come every year, and may even invite the same people to come with them – and attempt to call it outreach. Comfortable is OK, but where’s the balance with reaching beyond the walls of the church at a time of the year that is most uncomfortable for many?
Trend #2 – Some church that are particularly modern in style are not doing Christmas concerts or much Christmas music of any kind at all. I know this sounds a little contrary to what I said in Trend #1, but I firmly believe that people of all ages are looking for things that sound like Christmas at this time of the year. They may, in fact, hear more music that sounds like familiar Christmas in shopping malls than in the worship services of many modern style churches. Frankly, Christmas doesn’t “modernize” in too easily! The average guitar player can’t play carols too well – there are just too many chords! They don’t have the chops! So, there is a tendency to just not do the familiar songs of Christmas. AND, since these churches don’t have choirs or organs, what else can they do? Yes, there are many excuses about why they minimize the season, but the truth is that they generally don’t have the resources and/or skill to do it – or even make the effort. AND, if that wasn’t all, there is likely no mention of the Advent season in these settings at all. I know that’s a big word when you’re trying to be “friendly” to the post-Christian society in which we live. However, I think a uniquely outreaching, “friendly” church might attract some seriously seeking people if they would do some Christmas events, including music, that were traditional in nature.
Jubal, I know you didn’t have Christmas! See what you missed?
P.S. Did you know there is so much doctrine in the carols of Christmas that is either missed when we sing them so tritely, or by not singing them at all? One example – “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” was written by Charles Wesley within the first year of his dramatic conversion experience. Is it any wonder that you see phrases that are so important to our faith in that familiar carol? There are phrases like…”God and sinners reconciled…offspring of the Virgin’s womb…incarnate Deity…God with us, Emmanuel…ris’n with healing…born that man no more may die…born to give them second birth…” See what we miss when we don’t sing these songs? We should do them 3 or 4 times a year! They contain more theology than some of the songs we sing 12 times a year! Merry Christmas!