The music: not performance, but godly

It is easy to confuse good music well done with mere performance; but as we are called to do things well, and this would apply to our music, we must consider that too.

I recently attended with a friend a small ethnic church about 40 minutes drive from my place.

I couldn't understand the language, and wondered what it would be like.

At service start time I became aware of a musical hum. Not acoustic feedback, but on purpose. It grew louder, and varied subtly.

I then noticed the keyboard artist at the synthesiser. I noticed another set of keyboards near him.

The musicians started moving onto the stage: calmly and unassumingly. I knew this was not 'performance' but something done well and in good order.

We ended up with four guitarists, one drummer, two keyboards, four singers. The 'lead' singer (the cantor?) changed, so there was no celebrity occuring. It was Christians joining together in doing a Colossians 3:16. Beautiful. Full of earnestness, but no over-emotive 'swoon' music.

Oddly, I had a similar experience at Christ Church St Lawrence at Easter  many years ago when Austin Day was serving as rector and the choir of King's College at Cambridge was serving as choir.