After the so-called “worship wars” and the uneasy truce that followed, after several generations of faithful North American Christians being raised completely on contemporary worship music, after a flood of new technologies in church music ministries, an emerging understanding of how Millennials and Gen Z actually think, and an accelerating diversity of peoples, cultures, and ideas, it is reasonable to ask of congregational worship, “What’s next?”
It is this cultural phenomenon of Dolly Parton – the woman, the myth, the legend – that the podcast production team of Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee jump into with both feet.
Church musicians are prompt to assert that the musical practices of communal Christian worship shape us: What we sing and how we sing together forms us powerfully. Given the wealth of resources available on the topics of congregational worship and the music heard in our churches today, it is easy to be overwhelmed with new trends, new technologies, and new innovations.
If your favorite band were suddenly erased from the memory of the world, could you recall their lyrics accurately enough to do them justice on the world stage—and more importantly, would you dare?
The church’s musical imagination is limited by the vocabulary we use: traditional, contemporary, praise and worship, hymns, old, new.
What is it about some of the Christmas golden oldies that evoke such warm feelings of home and holiday?
