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MissMusicTeacher
Member
| Joined: | Mon Jun 30th, 2008 |
| Location: | Silicon Valley, California USA |
| Posts: | 24 |
| First Name: | Laura | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | EVFree, Catholic seeker |
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 06:06 pm |
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I have noticed on a few people's profiles that there are members or former members of the EVFree church. In May (before I started thinking about becoming Catholic) I joined the Free church that my family has attended for the last fifteen or so years. I'm wishing I had waited. At the time, I had no problems with their doctrines, but I felt for some reason that it wasn't the right time to join. I did anyways, at the encouragement of my parents. Now, if I become Catholic, it will seem even stranger because I just joined a church.
If you are/were a member of the Free church, was there anything in that denomination that specifically bothered you, made you want to look at other churches or even at the Catholic church?
One thing for me is the music. Even the traditional service at my church is pretty contemporary. It sometimes is hard to focus on worshipping God when I have drums in the background (or...not in the background). I LOVE the music of the Catholic Church. Especially the Masses written during the Renaissance, like Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass. The first time I heard it all the way through, I was nearly brought to tears by its beauty and reverence. I just don't hear so much of the beauty and reverence in the music at the Free church anymore. I want to be at a church (Catholic or Protestant...not sure which yet) where there is an attitude of reverence and not so many distractions during the service.
Laura
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out of town until August 2
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David W. Emery
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Brownsville, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 2072 |
| First Name: | David | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic |
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 06:48 pm |
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I LOVE the music of the Catholic Church. Especially the Masses written during the Renaissance, like Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass.
Indeed, if we would only use it! At my parish, nobody knows how to do the good stuff any more. So all we get is dance music, like cumbias or rock ’n roll. The sad truth.
But I do make up for it at home, listening to the great traditional music while I answer questions on the forum. Like you, I love chant, polyphony and baroque.
David
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MitchyMitch
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Snellville, Georgia USA |
| Posts: | 86 |
| First Name: | Mitch | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Independent Baptist and Southern Baptist...Now Catholic |
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 07:26 pm |
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We go to the teen mass, where there is a drumset and electric guitars.
I don't know how the Catholic Church does it, but even with the musical arrangement, it is STILL more reverent than the baptist churches with the same set up.
My personal taste in music runs from classical to punk. I do like CCM, and use it in my personal reflections and meditation. But I also like the older music, and have just realized I have a chant CD I need to dust off.
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Pax,
Mitch
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JillD
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Visalia, California USA |
| Posts: | 768 |
| First Name: | Jill | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | heathen, EvFree, Messianic, LC-MS, Catholic 2007 |
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 07:47 pm |
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We were in the Ev Free Church for quite awhile. No particular reason. Liked the pastor and his sermons, they had Sunday school for the kids and nursery care for the babies. At the time, I liked the mix of contemporary and traditional music, though it was all played with "modern" instruments. I don't like any of that any longer, at least not in the setting of a service. It puts too much emphasis on emotional manipulation, in my opinion.
We left that church as we began our search for "the 1st century church." Went through "home churching" and Messianic Judaism to look for that. 'Didn't find it. I wanted to explore the Catholic Church, but my family would have none of that, so we compromised for a time in the Lutheran Church. But God finally brought me all the way home.
I cannot imagine going back to the Free Church, or even visiting. It wouldn't feel as if I'd gone to church!
All this is my opinion and perspective, of course. I realize we're all very different from one another....
Jill
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"I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are our works! My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret." Ps 139
"Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men." Ps 140
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january tuesday
Member
| Joined: | Fri Apr 4th, 2008 |
| Location: | Minneapolis, MN |
| Posts: | 41 |
| First Name: | Karli | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Evangelical Free, Baptist, Roman Catholic (2008) |
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Posted: Wed Jul 9th, 2008 04:52 pm |
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I grew up in an EV Free church. Being from a small town in Minnesota, the congregation was mostly older Swedish people so we actually sang a lot of old hymns, which I love, and some of them we sing at Mass now. When I got into high school I went to a Covenant church with a younger congregation, and more of the newer songs. I really liked singing the new songs for a time, but I found myself really missing the hymns. The new worship songs focus on repeating the same phrase over and over, and often focus on emotions so much, while the hymns had such depth and richness to them. Singing them was like learning theology, because they were rich with meaning. I think that growing up singing old hymns prepared me for the reverance of the Catholic Church.
Some Evangelicals think that Mass is stiff and rigid, but it always felt reverent and right to me. I often felt uncomfortable in more contemporary charismatic type services, like everything was a show, it often felt false to me.
The main thing that disinterested me in EV Free however, was the creation vs evolution debate. At my church, you had to believe in a literal 6 day creation 6,000 years ago or else it meant you didn't believe the Bible. I was a Geology and Geophysics major in college, and I just couldn't hold to that anymore. I was also a Religious Studies minor and learned that the Ancient Isrealites didn't have a sense of history like we did and that written history was intended to teach morals and lessons more so than actually tell historical facts. It made perfect sense to me that the Genesis account meant to teach that God created man in his image, and it meant to establish the reason for the Sabbath, and stuff like that, not to provide a scientific explanation of the beginning of the universe. I knew this view would not be accepted in an EV Free church so I started looking for something else. I love that the Catholic Church allows members to make up their own minds about it, that they just teach that God created man, and allow science to research how.
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"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." 1 John 4:7
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MissMusicTeacher
Member
| Joined: | Mon Jun 30th, 2008 |
| Location: | Silicon Valley, California USA |
| Posts: | 24 |
| First Name: | Laura | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | EVFree, Catholic seeker |
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Posted: Thu Jul 17th, 2008 04:49 pm |
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David W. Emery wrote: I LOVE the music of the Catholic Church. Especially the Masses written during the Renaissance, like Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass.
Indeed, if we would only use it! At my parish, nobody knows how to do the good stuff any more. So all we get is dance music, like cumbias or rock ’n roll. The sad truth.
But I do make up for it at home, listening to the great traditional music while I answer questions on the forum. Like you, I love chant, polyphony and baroque.
David
This is slightly  but I found out that the Church in my parish has a "mixed" Mass, either with a combination of traditional and contemporary music within the same Mass or with separate traditional and contemporary music Masses (not sure which). I don't think they do the Latin though. So would it be all right to attend Mass in my parish, but then also attend the Latin Mass at a different church in my diocese (there are three with Latin Mass, one of them has only Latin Mass)? They are a bit far, but it would be well worth the trip, I think, even if only occasionally.
january tuesday wrote:
Being from a small town in Minnesota, the congregation was mostly older Swedish people so we actually sang a lot of old hymns, which I love, and some of them we sing at Mass now. My pastor was Swedish, too; in fact I think the first few senior pastors were Swedish. When one of them left for the mission field, we joked that the next pastor had to be Swedish.  But he's not. Which hymns do you sing at Mass now? I love the hymns (even though my Free Church rarely sings them) and would be glad to know that some of them are used in the Mass. I really liked singing the new songs for a time, but I found myself really missing the hymns. The new worship songs focus on repeating the same phrase over and over, and often focus on emotions so much, while the hymns had such depth and richness to them. Singing them was like learning theology, because they were rich with meaning. I think that growing up singing old hymns prepared me for the reverance of the Catholic Church.
Some Evangelicals think that Mass is stiff and rigid, but it always felt reverent and right to me. I often felt uncomfortable in more contemporary charismatic type services, like everything was a show, it often felt false to me.
I completely agree. There are some new worship songs that I really love, and a few in particular got me through a really hard time of illness. But in general, there is too much repetition and definitely not enough depth and richness. I, too, think that my traditionalism (in many ways, not just worship styles) has prepared me for the reverence of the Catholic Church.
I have been to some Protestant services where everything felt like a show. One in particular stands out in my mind: my cousins' church that I visited while staying with them several years ago. I remember thinking that this must be what a rock concert is like (!).  Needless to say, I really didn't like it. 
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out of town until August 2
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january tuesday
Member
| Joined: | Fri Apr 4th, 2008 |
| Location: | Minneapolis, MN |
| Posts: | 41 |
| First Name: | Karli | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Evangelical Free, Baptist, Roman Catholic (2008) |
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Posted: Thu Jul 17th, 2008 07:09 pm |
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I can't remember off the top of my head which songs we have sung in Mass, I do remember the song that goes "and they'll know we are Christians by our love..." and I know there were a few others.
I think there are good things to be said about the contemporary songs as well. A few years ago I would have really argued that a church service like a rock concert is a good thing, and I still think that for some it is, but it's not for me anymore. I think that we are all meant to worship God in whatever way is most honest and real for us, and I think for some that may actually be with a rock style song, but I think too often church nowadays becomes more like a fun concert than worship.
I was actually thinking about this last week, and it seems kinda like, the further you get from liturgy and sacraments in a denomination, the more focus there is on the music. I think the reason for this is because when you remove the sacraments, you end up with basically just a lecture by the pastor, and the encounter with God that we find in the Eucharist is missing. So what happens is that the encounter with God is replaced with emotional music. This is why so many churches today split up over the simple issue of what music to play, because it's not just music anymore, it's like a replacement for the Eucharist. But everyone is touched by different types of music, and if they aren't touched by the music, all they've gotten out of church is a sermon, and they know that there ought to be more.
I think music is a dangerous replacement for the sacraments though. Music can stir up the emotions really well, but it does not fill you the way that the Eucharist does. It doesn't convict you or cause you to examine your soul the way the Eucharist does. It doesn't challenge you to live in grace the way the Eucharist does. Sometimes music can do one or two of these things, but I don't know, for me it's just not the same.
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"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." 1 John 4:7
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