The worship meeting last night was two things: very interesting and long. I now feel quite naive to having said to the choir director that I expected the meeting to only last "about half an hour" as I fully expected to be able to go to the choir practice before it ended. But it was not to be; the worship meeting lasted much longer than choir practice. I guess I had expected that the person calling the meeting would have had a clear picture in his mind of how he expected the worship service to go and we were only going to make suggestions to specific areas of the service.

Of course, that is not what happened. Not having been to any of the Love [Your City] meetings, he was not really aware of what had been suggested so we were really starting from scratch. Which was not a bad thing. It gave me a very enlightening insight in the kind of thought process that goes into putting together a worship service. The other thing it brought out is that I am sadly lacking in deeper understanding of liturgy and/or theology. We did spend a lot of time coming up with music that would heighten the experience of the people coming to the service. And I got the clear impression that our minister had a picture in her mind of where she hoped the service would go.

Our minister and I had a chat about the music afterwards. I had been wondering how the different styles of music would be accepted by the people of different denominations; particularly the ones that are used to a more traditional type of music. We did talk as well about using more contemporary music in our church services; and she said that it does not really matter which style of music you use as long as it remains true to the United Church theology.

And that is where I felt that I had just jumped into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim. I have attended church services at this very United church for almost 20 years and I am afraid that I would not be able to tell you what the United Church theology is. I think that I need to make myself much more aware of that aspect of the church if I want to be able to make informed decisions when I choose music. Still more to learn...

God Bless You!