"THE TREES IN THE FIELDS WILL CLAP"

Another theory I have about current church music is based on the MTV high school loyalty and visiting other churches. Read on, faithful reader(s) to see how these fit together.

John Cruiser was a great Athletic Director at the high school. He was the first full time AD with no teaching load. But he had a load having to attend the various activities and games for a growing athletic department featuring both boys and girls sports. He is also responsible for beginning my announcing career which spanned 35 seasons in varsity football, basketball, and baseball. But that's a sidebar.

A guy who would have made a terrific athletic coach, W. F. Beckmeyer, known simply as Beck, was MTV's Music Dept. head for many years. While not writing the high school loyalty, he arranged it musically into one of the best around. It was original, catchy, and revered by many over the years. In the early 80's, one could see AD Cruiser on the gym floor of the varsity games clapping to the tune. I don't know if he knew the words, didn't want to sing, didn't like to sing but wanted to show respect, but he simply clapped to the beat. Others followed suit. Soon, students didn't know the words to the loyalty any longer, but they could clap it.

When I was less mature as a Christian and we were on vacation, that's what we did--vacate the church. We simply didn't choose to attend. What a mistake! When we're on vacation now, even a cruise, we seek a church or will lead the service as we did in South America in January. We have had some great experiences attending churches in Jerusalem, Australia, Boca Raton, etc. If it's Sunday, you'll find us skipping no more church if at all possible. What we have noticed at some, certainly not all churches we visit is that there's usually clapping. Sometimes in the place of singing, sometimes along with singing. Our son's church in MTV and our daughter's current church in San Diego probably do both as well as any. Many though drown out the words with the clapping.

So my final thoughts on church music are not to let the clapping take the place of the words as in the high school loyalty. My rule would be if you're going to clap, you must sing, too. Otherwise, please keep your hands to yourself.