Songs of the Church You Kind Of Know The Words To

We are now home from the singles group retreat this past weekend. I think there is a consensus that it was a great success. GREAT JOB LESLIE AND JANEL!!! Personally, I feel spiritually challenged and significantly closer to the group after this weekend.

I think there is also a con census that one of the most enjoyable times of the weekend was the completely unplanned and unscripted "ole' time song service" on Saturday night. In between guffaw laughter, my mind kept matching the fun we were having to these following thoughts. Many of the songs we were singing were in fun, sprinkled with an appropriate portion of irreverence. These were the songs that I grew up with and remember as a kid in the Church of Christ. They conjured up memory of a stuffy church, but, I infer, a pretty typical C of C for the 80's and 90's. During some of the songs I actually felt a prick somewhere in the far back of my mind saying, "Whoa! You can't CLAP to that song!" Caroline had a pertainant comment at the end of her account (here)of these events. I agree with her assesment of that classic, "Jesus is Coming Soon". What a riot. Now, none of what I am saying is intended to be critical. In fact, I kept thinking just the opposite. I have spent my entire life in the Church of Christ, and church related activities have usually taken up most of my "free time" (i.e. not work time). The culture of the C of C is part of my personal wiring. Singing all those old songs the other night reminded me of how different a "mainstream" C of C is these days. While I appreciate the change, and I am ... proud (?) ... of the church for its growth, I appreciate our heritage. The thought occurred to me then that while we can all joke and be critical of our church history, I really appreciate it. I LOVE a good C of C joke, but at the same time those quirks and cultural nuances give us an identity. Saturday night was a great example. A room full of folks that, literally, grew up all over the country can sit in the dark in a room and sing the crustiest old songs for hours from memory. We even had the four part harmony some of the time. AND they didn't feel crusty, they felt familiar. It was fun to sing those old songs, though I can remember, as a kid, trudging through them for endless Sunday's. There's a double entendre there, "endless Sunday's" as in an uncountable number of them, and Sunday's that would never end. The difference this time around is that those old songs immediately reconnect me with the history of the C of C, as well as my own personal history, as well as to each of the other individuals in that room. We have a shared culture. I also got to thinking that while I appreciate other denominations, and it has been suggested to me innumerable times that it might be good to switch denominations and try something new, the C of C culture is so much a part of me and it is such a precious thing to share with others that I don't want to change. I couldn't switch to a Baptist church and be able to share all those years of history with them. That shared history and culture is very important. It is a huge part of being family.