Carried Away
I didn't set out to be an internet troll. It was early in 2007, years before I even encountered the term. I was music director of a large (by Northwest standards) United Methodist congregation in Vancouver, Washington, supplementing the income from my 0.8 FTE job teaching music in Hood River. Between those two jobs, I was on the road a lot. Early on, there were grumblings in the church that I wasn't doing enough "contemporary music" during the early service. It soon became clear to me that what these peoples meant by "contemporary" was Praise music, a form of simplistic, rock-flavored worship music that is heavy on praise (hence the name) and light on everything else. You won't get much theology from a praise chorus. You may get the feeling that the hymnal has been chucked in favor of the religious rack at Hallmark. Despite the word "contemporary," the musical style of this music is usually about 15-20 years behind curr...