This week on our social networks, it’s been fairly quiet. The Cafe’s art blog now has its own photo album on Facebook, which should make it easier for fans to share the images on their own pages if they wish to do so.
One of the threads on “Hymn Madness” evolved into a conversation about what brings people to church after one woman observed that she feels traditional hymnody drives away young people, and that she and her family attend the local Methodist church because she feels they do more, with their contemporary service, to attract young people. Enter Gia, who makes some sound counterpoints that it may not be the contemporary worship that draws the young people to the Methodist church and it’s probably not the lack of it that drives them away:
Your older parishioners’ resistance to change is exactly the kind of cultural attitude I’ve been talking about, that sends kids away feeling unimportant because only the adults matter. I would bet quite a lot of money that there are other symptoms of this culture in that parish: the decision-makers and power-holders are all old guard, children and youth are confined to small invisible roles, newcomers tend to be ignored, babies must be absolutely silent in worship or they are banished to the nursery, youth ministry falling heavily on one or two people instead of being owned by the entire parish. Changing the music alone will not address those cultural factors. It simply won’t, and in fact it’ll drive away those who value more traditional hymnody.
You can read the extended conversation here.