What is worship?

“If there’s no music, people won’t come.” That was the declaration. The conversation was about worship and, more precisely, what we are going to do about music next summer. The assessment: no music; no people.

At Old South, the church I serve, we are in the midst of a search for a new organist. In order to make the feeble salary that we are offering seem a little more reasonable, we made the job a September-through June-position. When we made the plan, we didn’t figure out exactly what we would do about next July and August (and the following summers). We’ll talk about that at budget time in the fall.

Already, though, there is concern about next summer. “If there’s no music, people won’t come,” was announced and left hanging in the tense air between the speaker and myself. The sentiment was not unknown to me. I’ve heard similar decrees several times over my decade of ministry at Old South. But, still, each time I hear it, it feels like a slap across the face.