Church Music Negative Effects

The Negative Effects of Adapting Contemporary Church Music for Worship among Young People in UCCP Churches

Music and song continue to play a vital role in the life of God’s people particularly in the church. Contemporary culture and modernization bring new possibilities and new challenges to the music ministry. The theology of what we sing is certainly at least as important as the theology of what is being preached. In this regard, many traditional churches are shaken with this phenomenal event for century already because it attracts the young people who are considered to be the future generation of the church.How the church response to this is still problematic and debatable. The effects of the contemporary church music are very evident to

Rev. Dr. Evereth Mendoza on his lecture entitled “A Critique of Praise and Worship Celebrations” at Central Philippine University, Iloilo City suggests that Churches and parachurch groups that are characterized by P & Worship tend to stay out of ecumenical involvement. They don’t make efforts in building bridges of unity among churches through theological dialogue, cooperation in mission or other means. This anti-ecumenical stance is apparent in songs that say virtually nothing about the church. Its songs suggest the message that it is sufficient for individual Christians to have relationship with Christ outside the universal church of Jesus Christ. Praise & Worship songs don’t meet the criterion of UNITY. (Mendoza,

UCCP is founded in the tradition of hymn, and UCCP is a congregational hymn singing. Young people maybe got boring with the hymn that’s why they are not really interested into it when it comes to congregational hymn singing. Longhurst in his book music in worship suggest that “Hymn singing has been central to worship; people learned to sing four-part harmony as children in the church. The singing of hymns was augmented by traditional performance groups: choirs, ensembles and instrumentalist (Longhurst,p.85)”. From an interview conducted, again Rev. Magnolia Nova Mendoza stresses there are a lot of theologies that we can make out of congregational singing. My quick answer would be theology of unity and harmony and engagement. This is not only of the worshipers in terms of vocal production but of the kindred spirit in offering worship employing sounds/music. It can also be a theology that values community or communal relation. Because of the very personal tone of the contemporary songs it encourages young people like they are the only one seeking God. Hymns tell us about God and God’s works and are usually sung in the first person plural “we”. Choruses are sung directly to God and have a very personal tone “I”. Hymn society of America define hymn as a lyric poem, reverently conceived, designed to be sung, which