One of the songs I least like singing in church can be found here. I'm ok with the first two sections, but the third one is very distracting...
Oh, I feel like dancing -
it's foolishness I know;
but, when the world has seen the light,
they will dance with joy,
like we're dancing now.(from Over the mountains and the sea (I could sing of your love forever) by Martin Smith)
*stops*
*looks round*
*realises that actually no-one is dancing, even when it's in a fairly charismatic church*
*realises that what people are singing is actually therefore "when the world has seen the light, they will be so overjoyed that they won't be dancing at all*
*doesn't agree with that sentiment*
*decides not to sing*
*tries not to laugh at all the silly people*
*wonders why either they are singing something they so blatantly don't mean or why they aren't at least trying to dance with joy at that point*
Yeah, but if they're a really rich church they're probably evangelicals, which raises the chance that they'll see persecution everywhere?
ReplyDeleteThe song which annoys me most is "The splendour of the king (How great is our God)". The bit where everyone sings, "How great is our God - sing with me": It strikes me as both ungrammatical and annoying to have loads of people all using the first person singular, and singing it to lots of other people who are already singing.
So how's that different to Psalm 118 if used as part of Israel's corporate worship?
ReplyDeleteHi John - this amused me BUT
ReplyDeletea) I always make an effort to dance at that point
b) Martyn Smith made a stoopid mistake when he wrote it, to wit, the song actually slows down/mellows out quite a lot at that point, the precise point when the words require very lively movement. So don't blame the singers, blame the guy who didn't match words to music.
Ah yes.
ReplyDeleteSean, I know you make an effort to dance and approve of that. But it is a 1st person plural...
Erik was good on that front this morning, though he seemed to misunderstand the word "now".