Changing Times

I've been attending church each Sunday with my younger sister and her daughter. I've never been a church going person, but since I stopped going at the age of about fifteen, I have missed the singing. In the twenty-seven years since I last went to church, much has changed. Most churches are very modern now. Gone are the long tinted windows, and the formal atmosphere. There is very little hymn singing - it's mainly fast paced songs that are sung now, accompanied by guitars and electric piano. The congregation claps in time, and members of the band dance as they lead us in song. People in the congregation move to the music, and often lift their hands to the sky as emotion takes hold of them. There are large screens in front, showing the words for us to read as we sing, rather than hold hymnals as we used to do when I was younger.

I have mixed feelings about all of this change. During my childhood, the church was very formal and stuffy. No one moved to the music, or clapped. The songs were sung quite slowly, accompanied by piano and/or organ. Now it's very free and joyful. There's a real sense of celebration, people are not critisized for letting their emotion show in their body language. I remember that I used to resent the disapproval toward any outward show of feeling, but now I miss the formality. I miss the harmonizing - in these modern churches we all sing soprano together. In the old days, there was soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass - all the voices blended together so beautifully it was quite breathtaking. When the congregation lifted our voices in song, the sound of it swelled to the rafters, the memory of that brings shivers up my spine. I feel a sense of loss at the idea that this sort of old fashioned worship is dwindling, and will one day be a thing of the past. Sometimes, in the modern church I attend with my sister and her daughter, we sing an old fashioned hymn. Though there is always an air of modernity, with a faster tempo, and accompanying guitar, still, it's an echo from the past. It's often not apparent right away, that we're singing an old hymn. Then we catch on as we recognise the words, and our voices take on an air of confidance and nostalgia. All over the church, people alter their singing from soprano to alto, or bass, or one of the others, and soon we're blending together, just like the old days. It feels like a kind of reunion. Or like we've all come home to taste our mother's cooking, and smell the kitchen smells that we'd nearly forgotten.

Still, I find enjoyment in the modern style of singing. I feel happy as I sing, and clap or tap my hands on the bench in front of me. It feels liberating to be able to move in time to the music if I wish to, and let my joy come out, rather than keep it all tightly within. When I enter the church I feel a sense of excitement, quite different from the quiet reverence I felt when I entered the church of my youth. Here again, I find my feelings to be mixed. On the one hand, I feel strongly that worship should be fun. It should not be stilted and confining. People should be excited about the hour or two that they are about to spend on a Sunday morning in church. On the other hand, there is something to be said for being still and quiet. When one sits in an old fashioned church, with its long arched windows, and the organist playing softly as people slip into the pews, there is a feeling of awe, and humbleness. One gets a sense that they are partaking in something ancient and traditional.

Tonight I joined my mother for dinner at her condo, then we walked across the street to an old fashioned Mennonite church where the congregation is mostly elderly. My mother had invited me to hear a quartet. I thought it was quite sweet of her. I was excited to go, because I knew it would be traditional, as I remembered church from my youth. The church is white, with long arched windows. As we entered, we were greeted in near whispers by elderly women and men. We were ushered into a pew, and sat quietly waiting for the service to begin. I looked around at the others, and felt a tug on my emotions as I realised I was in the midst of something that is dying. The congregation was made up of people in their seventies and eighties. Hard of hearing men and women who prefer the old ways, and are not changing with the times. We stood up to sing from our hymnals. My mom sang alto, while I sang soprano. I heard all around me, voices picking up their chosen tone and blending with the others.

It was impressed upon me that we are losing our language. Soon, all these older people will be gone, and with them, the link to yesterday when we worshipped in harmony. Soon there will be no one to argue for the way we used to be, no one to carry it on. Already, children are growing up without ever having known what it is like to harmonise in church, or to hold a hymnal, or to sit very still and quiet as the joy they feel swells inside them, but is not let out too obviously.

I believe some of the changes are vital, and were too long in coming. Today, for example, I took part in communion - something I was never allowed to do before in my life, because I haven't been baptised. In the old days, the unbaptised members of the congregation had to leave the church as the wafers and grape juice (no wine allowed), were handed out to the others. And baptism was a judgemental affair, where applicants were expected to speak before a group of elders, to be judged whether or not they were ready to take this step, or if they should be refused. Now, people are allowed to make their own decision as to whether they are ready to be baptised - no more "kangaroo court" as it used to be. I'm relieved to see these changes. I feel it is important to move away from some of the old traditions that were, in my opinion, rooted in attitudes where certain people were naturally excluded. It was things like this that brought about resentment in me, towards the church. I'm gratified to see that they have been set aside in favour of more accepting attitudes. Yet I think we're throwing too much away. If only we could compromise a little bit more, rather than leave everything behind in favour of the newer ways. One day, all of the old way will be gone, never to be experienced again. I find this to be a tragedy.