I have yet to meet a large number of people who really LOVE "Praise and Worship" music. It seems most people who like it are boomers who grew up in the post-Vatican II era.
Having said that, my parish uses a lot of eclectic music from various sources. Some of it is a little more folksy, some is more Folk-hymns, some just comes from other traditions. Our music director works miracles when thinking about a particular Sunday's music.
It all just depends on how it all fits together at a particular service.

"Various kinds of music can be played to the best effect."

This is CHURCH. You play CHURCH MUSIC at CHURCH. If you want something other than Anglo-American hymnody, why attend an Episcopal Church? If I wanted gospel music, I would get in my nice, shiny 2yr old Jetta and head to the other side of town to hear a church full of AME Methodists sing it. If I wanted to hear it all the time, I'd have my membership transferred. Likewise, maybe a group of AME ladies would love to hear some Handel or some Stanford, or sing "Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven", and so they put on their Sunday best including those gorgeous hats, and show up to St. Alban's Parish or whatever..and a bunch of white people are clapping their hands and swaying to some Ugandan song in an African language...don't you think they'd be disappointed?
Come on, the musical and cultural inheritance that we have received is our responsibility to transmit, and transmit well. Everyone else seems to understand that but Westerners. What's the deal? If we stop doing it, it will die out. If we don't do it, who will? The "Continuing Anglicans" or the "Presbyterian Church in America" or the "Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter"? Do you really want people with those sorts of theological inclinations to be only ones who still have church in a way that carries on the European and American musical traditions?
There are plenty of places to go to hear the other kinds of music, but only in Episcopal churches is our music sung, or expected. If we don't do it, or don't want it anymore, or are bored with it, then what will happen to it?

We're very eclectic: we do Gregorian chant AND Anglican chant. When we're feelin' crazy we throw in some polyphony too!

What David pointed out works in "high church" Congregations, but there are also the rural "low church" Congregations whose membership is a mixture of differing local cultures and many times a variety of converts from other denominations. So in these Congregations you find the members more and more wanting to sing hymns they grew up with; not at the expense of Traditional Anglican hymns, but in addition to them.

Jim McFerrin

Clint, the full quote is: "Rather they discuss the manner in which various kinds of music can be played to best effect." I was summarizing the article, not making a stand. You've done some violence to my meaning.

Blah. Theirs is exactly the reasoning that has informed every hymnbook revision in every mainline denomination for at least the past 20 years.

The more 'eclectic' our selection of worship music becomes, the less connection we have to any particular tradition of religious music. To say that we should dabble in many different styles devalues each style and the community that created it.

For example, there is a living tradition of Early American religious music—the Sacred Harp tradition—and there's probably a weekly (or at least monthly) singing in your area. That community very intentionally sticks to one style, and they practice for years to really make it ring out.

Where the 'global' music traditions are concerned, first look around at your congregations. The Episcopal Church is still largely a church of privileged white people. This certainly isn't the case in every congregation or diocese, but for a mostly white, affluent congregation to appropriate African-American, African, or Latina/o music isn't just devaluing of the musicianship and tradition of those styles. It willfully ignores our own privilege, both globally as US citizens/residents and within our own communities.

I am all in favor of congregations expanding their musical horizons, to "sing our faith" as authentically and energetically as we can, provided that we do justice (in every sense) to any tradition we may adopt. That means undertaking learning a style well enough to make it sound true (and no, simply "adding a triangle, tambourine, and hand drum" will not "enhance the Irish flavor"). It also means recognizing when, for whatever social or geopolitical reasons, a tradition does not belong to us.

Even when we incorporate traditions of which we have rightful use (that is, some respectful relational connection to), it remains to consider what we can truly connect with. Say what you will about the 'boring' old hymns, they have a home in many of our hearts and our congregations (and our skill sets!). Congregations should absolutely go beyond the limits of the hymns they already know, but the purpose of singing in church isn't to expand our horizons. Try choosing one style from those that the original article outlines, and really learn that style as a community. Start with all the hymns in that style that are in the Hymnal (or WLP or Gather or whatever you have in the pews), but also look into the primary sources of that tradition. Pick up a copy of the Southern Harmony or the Sacred Harp or a Celtic hymnal [from the Celtic Isles]. And practice the style, at least as music leaders, to make it as authentic as possible. You have to be comfortable in a style before you can truly praise God in that style.

I'd also note (@Clint) that passing on a tradition doesn't just mean teaching our kids the same hymns we sang as kids. Again with reference to the Sacred Harp community, contemporary composers have been writing new hymns in every generation of that tradition, back three centuries. Those new hymns are recognized by the community as fitting with the tradition, and are incorporated as favorites. Handing on a tradition also means keeping the tradition alive, by reinvigorating it with new material. Where are the contemporary hymnodists and lyricists writing in the tradition of Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley or J.S. Bach or Martin Luther, but informed by a contemporary understanding of the Gospel?

And none of the above is simply about what we like or dislike. It's about what makes it possible for us to authentically praise God and know each other more deeply in song.

At Parroquia San Cristóbal we use the 1940 and 1982 Hymnals, LEVAS, WLP, El Himnario, Gather, the National Baptist Church Hymnal, the Seventh Day Adventist Hymnal, a hymnal from some Protestant Evangelical church (I can't remember the title) and an Armed Forces hymnal left over from the U.S. military presence, and that's just in the English language service! At la misa en español we use El Himnario, Cantos de Camino, and a Cancionero assembled by the Diocesan Youth Office. We consider all this music to be part of our tradition.

Jim, I meant no violence to your words or meaning, just decrying an eclecticism that is generally very badly done.

@Kevin: I LOVE new hymns and music, and discovering new composers, etc. Usually the people who say the things I do are Museum Rite sort of folks, but I am no such thing, so I can understand your need to make the point you did. But I write new music all the time, one of my choristers, Lisa Stafford, is a very skillful composer and she's been published by W[orld] L[ibrary] P[ress]; one of her new mass settings for the new Catholic translation is even going in their missalettes. But it's that sound, can't do without it. Gotta have that hair-raising strangeness in there--the very strangeness that says you're at church and not in your car or your living room or at a festival/party--combined with text-appropriate emotional content and a sense of familiarity, even if the piece is brand-new. In an Episcopal Church it should sound like Episcopalians; in the Catholic Church I direct music for, I try to make sure the sound is congenial to the Holy Roman Church, even if I'm not one of those faithful myself. Otherwise, what's the point?

The only question I have for the "traditionalists," is what about the unchurched, especially young people?

I spent many years singing in a choir which specialized in renaissance music. We sang other things, too, but it was all very traditionally Anglican. My life would have been poorer without the experience. It was wonderful, and the congregation loved it.

I also spent several years singing in a choir which made a point of exploring diverse styles of music. We used Lift Every Voice and Sing for African American music. We did Taize. We did styles I had never heard of before. I had a blast, and the congregation loved it.

The lesson, to me, is that both approaches can be very effective, depending on the motivation and skills of the music director. (That last proviso may be the deciding factor.)

Clint, your post about Church Music in Church absolutely resonates with me. In the main service, I see no reason to trot out yet another bowdlerization of some tune or hymn from another culture. Nor do we need to sing it in the breathy praise style. Howells, Parry, Vaughn Williams, and others of their time will do just fine. I will make an exception for those who produced Lift High the Cross and Alleluia #1.

John D. Andrews,

Do you listen to much current EBM/Industrial music? It's not normally seen as the music of choice for the church-going demographic. And yet, it's not too uncommon to hear the use of chant samples. mixed in with the beats. What the use of these samples tells me is that today's kids and unchurched still have a "sonic profile" for what the holy is supposed to sound like. If they do darken the door of a church, what do you think they want to hear--the sounds they already associate with holy worship or with poorly-written and (all too often) poorly performed Christian pop?

John Andrews, I think the best thing we can do for the unchurched is stick to our guns about our own musical tradition. There is a altogether too much about liturgical discussion of the last half-century that displays a lack of nerve, and it's five times as bad when it comes to music, and ten times as bad when it comes to anything musical we got from American Novus Ordo Catholicism, because they lost their nerve far more than we ever did.

There's hardly anything that makes us want to go out and "beat down Satan under our feet" than St. Patrick's Breastplate, except maybe "A the Name of Jesus" or "God is Working His Purpose Out" or any number of things we stole from the Lutherans. I whine about some of the stuff in the 1982 Hymnal (starting with my opinion that the 1940 and Hymns III did far better by accompanied plainsong), but all in all it contains a lot of powerful music that on the whole plays well together.

It has always seemed to me, likewise, that the "we need stuff that appeals to young people." OK, so let me ask this question of the old folks out there: who can tell me what the first cut is on ELP's Brain Salad Surgery? Anyone? Something by that Parry guy, right? Maybe young folks respond to the style, but I think they respond more to the power and conviction which the music ought to manifest. And again, the message they get from the elders saying "we have to keep the young folk happy" is partly one of being patronized and partly that the adults lack the courage of their convictions. The camp song aesthetick is especially disastrous because it conveys a message of the juvenile and trivial; if anything, the ad jingle style of something like "Taste and See" is even worse.

Which isn't to say that we shouldn't keep stealing other people's good stuff. But it needs to be worked into the core of our music: the V-W tunes, the psalter music, and the big Lutheran and Welsh hymns. Spirituals and shape note music have proven that they can fit in to this, even at the expense of highly inauthentic arrangement. But then, the authenticity that counts is not to them, but to ourselves. (And believe me you can find some very strange things in those shape note books as they adapted tunes to their style.)

I wouldn't call this "bowdlerization" per se, but it seems to me that some singing styles lead to some problems with this. Never mind the lack of Elvis that a lot of Episcopal parishes suffer from (and "suffer" isn't really the right word, because we don't all have to be Elvis); gospel music is embedded in a way of doing church which we, as a rule, don't do, for better or worse. So we lapse into pretending to do it, which is never a good thing.

I am wondering what kind of music people recommend for multi-cultural congregations?

Jim,

Perhaps the way to answer is this: We have quite a lot of well-informed people who serve in our music program. They know all kinds of music. What the music leadership has determined in relation to our worship and clergy is that there are particular styles of music that will work best for accomplishing the liturgical and theological vision of our parish. Thus, that's what we do.

I think the process would be the same for any other congregation.

"...what kind of music people recommend for multicultural congregations?"

Music that is authentically theirs. If a congregation is comfortably multicultural, then the music that arises is going to a comfortable fit too. But one has to be careful even with this. A false, forced "integration" isn't going to do anyone any favors. Many multicultural congregations are actually two congregations to begin with; many, if not most, remain that way and comfortably so. Others integrate. Whatever happens, it must be natural and not forced, and it must be authentic. I know from hard experience that it is difficult for an Anglo and Hispanic community to worship together in a "bilingual" sort of way, hence there's a Spanish mass in the afternoon with its own set of musicians, and no one sees this as "less than", but a part of the diversity of St. Joseph's parish. It is also not unusual for Anglos to attend the Spanish mass, even regularly, and vice-versa. The most complements I get during Holy Week are from the Hispanic community--during Holy Week I really try to do chant, polyphony, some Byzantine chant, and other music that either is older or feels older than either recieved musical traditions. I also try to do at least one Portuguese or Spanish polyphonic piece. Also such pieces from the New World missions are great, and usually somewhat easier than those from the Old, for obvious reasons. It works for us.

And what about the unchurched? Well, maybe they don't want to be churched. If they want to be churched, we're here.

As I love all music and having it in church I find this discussion very condescending and dismissive. Music should be fun and open oneself to the Spirit -- most of what is "traditional" is just another era's idea of this - please spare me from being stuck in "white European" genres -- much as I might like it, too. Most of us live in small churches where we are happy to sing things that work for us - we don't have paid choirs and organists.
We had a Patrick Evans from Yale Divinity School at our Diocesan Convention - he taught us all sorts of things for all over the world - everyone sang - it was great.

1. "As I love all music and having it in church..."

It doesn't matter what you love or what I love. Why is your musical love or my musical love even on the table? It doesn't matter, it's not about us, it's about something else. When you come into church, it looks, sounds, smells and feels different. It is church, not my living room or your living room, or my Jetta or whatever you drive. I happen to have Wagner and Azam Ali and Altan and Dolly Parton and Orlando Gibbons on my iPod, all of which I adore and cannot live without, but only one of those is a recording of music that is gonna get played at church (Gibbons). Why? Because that's The Sound, and you won't hear it anywhere else.

2. "...I find this discussion condescending and dismissive.." Please stop reading malice where there is none, I'm a lover not a fighter, I assure you. Now let me inform everyone of something, this is a matter not of taste for me, but of conscience. I cannot in good conscience schedule certain "songs" or mass settings at church, as much as some very loud voices want them, and you know what, it SUCKS. I would love to just have fun and please everyone, but again, in good conscience I cannot. I have in the past done such a thing and felt entirely awful for doing it, worse even than taking the heat for not being groovy enough at 5:30 Sat. mass.
There's plenty of good church music that's not in your usual "white European" genres, and some of it is hair-raising and universally appropriate. It is hard work to find it and gather it and put it on, and such a thing is always worth the effort, I agree. But non-white, non-Europeans put out as much inappropriate for church music as white Europeans do, so the discerning ear is no more or less necessary with a "global church" as it is with GIA and Church Publishing.

3. "Music should be fun..." I will have to disagree with you on this, and to disagree is not to condescend or dismiss. Church is church, and sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's not fun at all, and othertimes it is neither fun nor not fun. But the music is in the service of the church, and more importantly, in the service of that which the Church is charged to transmit. Every time the church doors open for worship, there's a story to be told and to enter, and lots of times it ain't pretty. The music serves that story, not the community. The community comes to hear--no, to experience that story, not to have a sing along...surely you can schedule a hymn sing with maybe a potluck if you just want a sing along, and hell I would sure show up, that would be an awesome time. But that's not the liturgy, not really. Our primary responsibility, if we are to carry a denominational name or traditional affiliation, is to carry on what we have received because we believe it transmits the very Best Thing There Is, whatever that is. Everything else flows from that Source and is subservient to it, even if, like in the case of violating the Sabbath (AD 20) or same-sex unions/marriage (AD 2000), it seems to turn the received tradition upside down.

4. "Music should...open oneself to the Spirit.." My experience is that The Spirit can take care of that Herself and that we don't have any control over when that happens or how, nor should we. I've been broken open in a Baptist church and a Methodist church, and a Solemn Latin Mass, and at a usual Broad Church Episcopal Sunday Eucharist, and at a Buddhist temple, and many other places waaayy outside a religious establishment, and have set awash in incense and William Byrd, or incense and Slavonic chant, and been entirely clammed up and suspicious. She don't care, She does It when She does it and not when you want it or expect it, all we can do is the best we can do. When the Johannine community reported Jesus as saying "The Spirit blows where it will", all I can say is "You know that's right!"

Clint - come out to Wyoming to a congregation of 5 and see what works. What you are saying is as much 'yours" as my post speaks to "mine" All point of view IMO>

Two words: Calvin Hampton. If you're not singing his tunes, it's your loss! [Or, mainly, it's mine: if I'm in your church, and we sing {boring} old tunes, instead of Our Calvin's. Died too, too, young. :-( ]

JC Fisher

@John: I don't really claim the label of 'traditionalist', with the baggage it entails, but I'll bite. Have you talked to any young people about what kind of church music they like? My generation (I'm not yet 30) and younger tend to prefer the traditional stuff (of many hymn traditions), because it sounds like church music and sets worship apart from secular life. As for the "unchurched" (often the de-churched), trying to be something other than ourselves for their sake won't attract them thru our doors (and more than likely, we should be trying to meet them outside our doors anyway). The best thing we can do is be authentically ourselves, confident in our own ways of being. Doing anything else is uncomfortable for congregations and comes off as gimmicky to others.

@Ann: I am an unpaid musician for a small campus ministry. Far from wanting to minimize or condescend, I care deeply about what works for any congregation. I'm constantly looking for new music we can incorporate. I look for things that are new-and-yet-familiar, so that it can be both comfortable and challenging. We do shape note hymns, old and new Celtic hymns, Taizé, plainchant, and traditional hymnody. I'm going to try to incorporate some of All Saints Company's stuff. We do ourselves and others an injustice when we Anglo-American Christians assume that our own (living!) tradition(s) resign us to being "stuck" with the same old, increasingly boring hymns. As hard as it can sometimes be to find, there is life—new music and new interpretation—in the old traditions, and new traditions being made. I throw my effort there, and advise any of my fellow privileged Christians to tread gently when considering singing "Lift ev'ry voice and sing", "Shma Yisrael", "Tú has venida a la orilla", or "Siyahamba". (And I have led at least two of those in worship myself—I don't advocate prohibition, merely humility.)

@Kevin - you said what I meant - only lots better. Thanks

I have nothing to contribute about church music. My last experience was belting out the old Marian hymns at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City, strangely like the Baptist choruses of my youth. My comment would be to look carefully at the lyrics. The theology of most hymns is worse than that of many sermons. (I was grateful whenever a hymn with words by John Mason Neale came along.)