But one thing you all may find VERY humorous was a comment made by a girl I had been hanging around with at the last convention I went to, about nine years ago. I told her about the Christian pop music I had discovered. She said "Oh, I would never listen to any music about God that the WORKERS didn't write!!" Further, she asked RIGHT after she said that, "Have you heard the new one from Prince? You know, 'You Need Another Lover Like You Need a Hole in the Head'?" By the way, she thought the Prince song was really cool... I am not surprised. You see, it was MY music that was considered dangerous and worldly.....God help these people!!!
You're glorifying God not yourself. He's the one that gave you the gift of music, you are using it instead of squelching it and all to His glory.
Anyway, the reason why I make such a big deal out of this is that music, since then, has played a huge role in my life. In _______, I sang in church regularly,and realized that the gift of singing that God gave me was not some evil, prideful thing to be squelched, as the workers wanted. I discovered how my gift could be used to glorify God, and God made me realize yet another way I was important to Him.
I'm glad to hear that there are others who have found such comfort and blessing from music. Growing up in 2x2s, my family allowed more music than most. We had a radio & I sang from the time I was a child. As I got older & professed (at 15) I was always led to believe that singing/or music was "worldly" except in meeting. I REALLY wanted to be a singer when I got older but was really nervous in front of a crowd! In fact my Dad & I did sing some at the request of a man we knew who played piano. Further amazing was the fact that we sang a couple of times at his church. I also sang for a couple of weddings. Nothing was directly said to us about it until I tried to give a very small amount of money to my cousin who was in the work when I was about 18. He turned it down because he had heard that Dad & I sang & the money I gave him might have come from one of those singing things (like we were professionals?!) Anyway, the shame & guilt settled back in & that was pretty much it for my singing. After I got married I sang for 2-3 funerals in 20 years! During that time, I'd always feel guilt when I'd turn on the radio. I often wondered, why would something that I enjoyed so much, that could lift my spirits when I was depressed, improve them even when I wasn't--be so wrong? I tried to imagine what the singing would be like in heaven & the prospect that it would just follow the pattern in meeting wasn't terribly promising. (I do still like the old tried & true hymns very much but love to hear them sang with joy, expression, praise and worship!!) I am SO thankful to have found Christian music too. It wasn't long after we started attending the church where we now go, that I was asked to join the choir. Later I was asked to sing solo. I was quaking in my shoes & I remember how the microphone & my knees were shaking the first few times I sang--but I was worshipping God & praising His name! Our girls all sing too & music is as important to them as it was to me. With a song in my heart--_______
In 1992 a few weeks before we left the fellowship we went to ______ convention and at testimony time we noticed the lack of joy and how depressed (or oppressed) most of them were as they testified. The overseer worker noticed it too and after testimony time he got up and scolded them all for not having joy and said, "If you don't have joy, try a little more sacrifice". I suddenly got that sort of "knot" in my stomach and I gave my wife the elbow and whispered, "Try worshipping God". I wanted to standup and SHOUT it but I managed to stay in control. Later the same worker said in his sermon, "See all you people, where would you be today if WE hadn't come with the gospel". It was around this time (we were still going to meetings in the 2&2s) that we snuck out to our first service in a Baptist church here ____ and noticed the startling difference in the joy they seemed to have. We were as scared as we were thrilled and the feelings were intense as we walked up the steps into that forbidden church building. My wife had never been to such a church service in her life before and for me it had been 31 years. I noticed the modesty of the structure and I noticed that the women looked like average ordinary women. The next thing to catchmy eye was the drums and musical instruments up beside the piano. Were they actuallygoing to play all those things in church? Sure enough! The song leader asked the congregation to stand and sing and they all started clapping their hands in time to the music as they sang. At first I couldn't decide which would be worse, for people to see me clapping my hands in church or for them to see me standing there not clapping. There was not a hint of giving glory to their church group or to their ministers and the words of the choruses were full of praise andworship to God (of whom Jesus is part). As they sang and prayed we realized how very little we knew about worshipping God. We listened closely and there was nothing we could find fault with but instead, our hearts were filled with joy. The salvation message was: "Believe in Jesus Christ and accept HIM and His sacrifice and ask God for forgiveness". God's Way was simple after all! Rejoicing in Him ! _____
It was such a paradox to love music so much and be told to deny it, forget it, and feel guilty about it. There is no freedom like the freedom of Christ!!
Did you know that a lot of the 2x2 hymns are really Christian hymns and the words have been changed somewhat or changed completely? This is actually one of the first things that caused me to wonder! A long story, but basically I began hearing the hymns of other churches and wondered: "If *our* Hymns Old and New is exclusively *ours* why, oh why, are these other churches singing them? And how come some of the words are not quite the same? And how come I know the tune but the words are totally different? I thought the workers wouldn't have ANYTHING to do with OTHER churches so how CAN *we* be singing ANY of the same hymns?!!!" Really, I was very surprised!
Regarding the 2x2 hymn book. There is a lot of doctrine in the hymns. Some is Christian doctrine some is 2x2 doctrine. I believe the hymns are very confusing. Double messages being sent.