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Praise team, or Choir?

I was on the praise team before we left our old church, and in the end it was a negative experience.
It got to where the people were competitive with one another and the focus was totally wrong, but it was just another symptom of a much worse problem in the church. I stepped down before we left the church because there was too much vain glory going on.
This was the negative experience I walked away with but I realize it's not always like this.
There are good worship leaders out there who know how to exhort the people to worship Jesus Christ....(The key is good leadership)

I think a choir is more open for anyone who wants to sing and glorify God, it has less censorship and is open to everybody.
 
I personally prefer worship teams over both choir and hymns. I feel they all have their place in preparing a persons heart for the message and enticing new people to attend and return to Church.

A little background about myself:
My wife grew up in the Church and when we had kids she decided she was going to attend again. Keep in mind I hadn't gone but maybe 4 times in my life to this point. I told her have fun, I'll see you when you get home. She informed me I was going as well to set a good example for my kids. Well we went to a multitude of Churches and each had its good and bad points. Some were just too big and lacked the personal touch. Some had good messages but the music put me to sleep (I grew up with rock and roll). Others made me feel like I was at a funeral (my personal belief at the that time is it should be a celebration). All in all I think we went to about 10 different Churches.

Finally I told my wife I couldn't deal with this and I wasn't going unless she found a Church that did this and this and this. I thought great she'll never find a Church like that and I'm off the hook. Well guess what, she did. One of the requirements for me was music. I wanted something upbeat that felt more like a celebration of Jesus rather than a funeral.

Now the music is one of the things that got me to go to Church but that is not what kept me there. Like Destiny, I became a member of the praise team (sound board) and had a very similar experience to what Destiny described. Had it been the music that kept me going I would have stopped based on what I saw out of the praise team. That among other things that Church was doing caused me to pull my family.

We are now at a church where they start with a hymn and then some worship music. The service also ends with a hymn. The hymns still have the effect of putting me to sleep. :wink:

Bottom line: All music was created by God. It has taken man to corrupt what God has created. We are told to make a joyful noise to the Lord. It doesn't say that has to be any specific form of music, it just has to be done with joy in our hearts towards the Lord our God.
 
NRoof said:
Bottom line: All music was created by God. It has taken man to corrupt what God has created. We are told to make a joyful noise to the Lord. It doesn't say that has to be any specific form of music, it just has to be done with joy in our hearts towards the Lord our God.
Click to expand...

Amen!

I've been to a few Churches where the "praise" team was nothing other than a show for the spectators and I've been to some Churches where they assisted in enhancing the edification of others. I agree that it's not exactly "what" we sing, but that the music we do sing praises our Lord and that it comes from out heart.

The Church I attend now does not believe in praise teams nor musical instruments. For me, that's ok because it's a choice we as a congregation make. Other congregations (or even a few of our own members) dispise musical instuments in worship and find no biblical background for them. Therefore, they are unauthorized agents and do not belong in worship.
(I don't agree with them, but I know the argument)
 
It would be interesting to see how the people reacted if there could be no musical assistance in praising and worshipping God every now and then (without notice no advance warning).
 
Although I greatly enjoy the choirs, I prefer praise bands with contemporary music and an ensemble (is that spelled correctly?) of 4-6 singers lead by a main worship leader.


Funny, that is how it is at my congregation! :angel:
 
Our church has a choir director, a choir, a band, and a praise team all working together at the same time. That seems to satisfy everyone.
 
I prefer a praise team without instruments. This is sthe way our church does things, keeping in mind that this is my preference and our churches tradition. Some of our members think that it is scriptural to not have instruments, thankfully our church leaders do not beleive this. I have been to other churches that have instruments and I have enjoyed it.
 
I am a member of the choir at my church. We, as a group sing on Sunday mornings, during Cantadas and pageants. I am also a member of our praise team. This group sings every Sunday night. We also provide special music on occasion on Sunday mornings. We work on having blended services. Our praise team accused our music minister of not getting enough sleep before he arranged one Sunday evenings service. We went from singing Dennis Jernigan's song, "When the Night is Falling" to "Bringing in the Sheaves" and "Bring Them In." We were some confused folks that night. So far, our group hasn't shown any signs of trying to be in the spotlight. We've really been focusing during our prayer time as a group that our job is to lead the congregation to the throne room. If we're working hard to do this, there's no room for the "It's All About Me" syndrome.
 
I've been in both kinds of churches and in choirs and worship teams, and I prefer a worship team -- I like worship to get spontaneous, and when I'm not on the platform I like to hear whoever has a "song of the Lord," because I think He gives them to minister to the body, and/or to bring the body to a particular place, in preparation for a certain kind of ministry.... hard to explain.... Worship teams seem more flexible than choirs for that type of thing.

blessings
tal
 
I play trumpet and flugel horn in my orchestra and praise band. I love music, but I am disturbed that people feel like they need music to "prime" their worship. Unfortunately, these people have no idea what true worship is. There ought not to be a worship "time". We should worship every hour.

Destiny, I wanted to see if we could have church with the pastor getting in the pulpit at 11:00 and just start preaching without music. People would really have freaked out.
 
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