Responses respond to a cappella worship editorial

Your editorial on a cappella music (Page 30, May) was much appreciated, and I hope it challenges all of us.

I have often said that one of the greatest arguments in opposition to instrumental music has been good a cappella music in our worship. Sadly, it's also too often the case that one of the strongest arguments in opposition to our style of music and in favor of instrumental music has been our singing in our worship.

It causes me to ask the question: How seriously do we take singing in our worship? We would not and should not accept poor preaching from the pulpit, but we accept and allow poor singing from the pews! We would be embarrassed if we were to invite friends and the preacher did a poor job. Why are we not equally embarrassed when they come and our singing should bring us shame?

We are blessed in the church here in Nottingham with good song leaders and with members who love to praise God in song. When visitors come, they almost always comment on how good the singing sounds. It's the best advertisement for a cappella singing a church could have!


In your lead-in, you use the word “committed.” (“Churches of Christ have a long and deeply rooted commitment to a cappella worship music.”)

I may be playing at semantics, but the word “committed” sounds like we have a choice. Might not be your intent, but that's the way it hit me at first glance.


Advertisement used ‘man-managed hermeneutic'

This letter is a response to the advertisement “Does anyone have a plan to help the Church of Christ rediscover its identity?

It is Christ, not the church, who makes a saved one what he is. That is identity. Love the church, but look to Christ for who and what you are. No man-managed hermeneutic is needed for that, only a faith that submits to him in heart and life. Nor is that kind of hermeneutic needed to prop up or fine tune one's relational identity in Jesus. I am what I am because of whose I am.

The identity of the believer is wrapped up in Jesus. We need to point one another upward to Christ, not backward to some person's hermeneutical inferences and deductions about what constitutes the “true” church. If we get Christ right, we will get ourselves right. That is done through the adoration and imitation of Jesus, and the subsequent habits, heart, and mission which honor his kingdom principles among us as a people.


Aren't we just as ‘unworthy' as Donald Trump?

I enjoyed reading the piece by Darryl Tippens about William Wilberforce and the movie Amazing Grace (Page 31, April). However, in one paragraph Mr. Tippens referred to the dark age in which we live and the “unworthiest” of types — Anna Nicole Smith, Donald Trump and Britney Spears.

May I ask, who among us would be considered the “worthiest” of types in the eyes of God? According to the Bible, have we not all sinned and fallen far short of his glory? If at least part of our mission as Christians is to help bring more souls to Christ, will we more likely to do so through love or condemnation?