Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Guilty pleasures?!

I have been reflecting on Sunday nights meeting/service. It was imaginative and thought provoking. (For those not Sallys its probably worth stopping here, as it gets a bit irrelevent). At our corps the Sunday meetings are being "done" by different people at the moment. So Geoff did Sunday night.

We meeting was based around a journey over Morecambe Bay Geoff did a couple of weeks ago. We got a good idea of what happened as Geoff had taken some great pictures.

I have been thinking about the music and songs that we used. They all followed the theme of a journey. We have not sung some of them for an long time. We had "We'll Sing in the Morning the Songs of Salvation". Some very old song called "Over the Sea", even some of the more mature Salvationists did not know this one. Fortunately my 100 year old Grandma did, so we where treated to a solo (She needs no encouragement).

We used the band arrangement for "We'll Sing in the Morning" and it certainly rattles along(good old N.B. for good arrangement). I was left wandering what we where singing about,

We'll sing in the morning the songs of Salvation
We'll sing in the noon time the songs of his love
And when we arrive at the end of our journey

We'll sing the songs of Zion in the courts above

We will be doing a lot of singing if the song is correct. Its an awful lot about what we will be doing not lot about what God is, or what he can do. Will we sing in the courts above, because we sing in the morning and at mid day? (Sophistry). I suppose it's OK once in a while though

The other one was "Travel Along In The Sunshine", which I don't understand at all.

Travel along in the sunshine
On the Kings highway
Travel along, singing a song
Follow Jesus day by day,
Never mind what lies before you
Never mind what others do
Just travel along in the sunshine
On the Kings highway

It has synchopation which makes it more modern than the other one, I suppose. Imust have sung this countless times and not really thought about what I was singing.

If we filled our services with this kind of worship every week, I'm not sure too many new people would understand what it being sung, or how it relates to them.

Are they best locked up in the song book cupboard or is it good to bring them out onto the digital projector and display them to the world/congregation once in a while? I am not sure.

Comments?

2 comments:

Dan Elson said...

Well about singing in courts - I'm sure Brucey will have something to say about that, but in other news...

This one...

Travel along in the sunshine
On the Kings highway
Travel along, singing a song
Follow Jesus day by day,
Never mind what lies before you
Never mind what others do
Just travel along in the sunshine
On the Kings highway


I think has SOME relevance. The key for me is "Never mind what lies before you/Never mind what others do". It's encouragement, and it's an affirmation that we don't need to folow the ways of the world because we're following the ways of God. Admitedly there is some awful imagery and a terrible tune, but I think there is a little bit of a point going on.

As for "Over the Sea" - I have no idea what happened there, and we shall never speak of it again.

Kevin said...

I can see your thinking there but for me the "never mind what others do" is somewhat selfish and uncaring, others who may not be "travelling along in the sunshine". It may not be possible to "just travel along in the sunshine" either.