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Affect of Worship on the Christian Faith -Emma Kate Patterson

    The act of worshipping is something we do to honor, glorify, and praise God. In todays church worship is one of the main points of a service and time is set aside to worship. There is often teams and leadership positions just for worship. Music is built into the program the church often goes by. At what point though does worship become not about the words but about the music?

    The music in the church has changed over time to better suit the world around. Although some churches still sing hymns, a lot of churches have worship teams. The music has gone from being in a Hymn Book to being on a screen. There is no longer just one genre of Christian music but multiple different genres such as Contemporary Christian and Southern Gospel. As music in the church as changed has the focus been taken off the words. I think it could be argued that this is not the case because when the words are stripped away from the music the words still move people. I do believe though that people get distracted by the music that surrounds the words. When the articles talks about the affects that the music has on St. Augustine it makes me think about a conference I was at a few years ago. At the conference I was surrounded by people who were worshiping during the music and it gave me a feeling of pure awe. I think music has a way of having this affect on people not because of the music itself but because of a combination of the music, the words, and the Holy Spirit. I believe that to worship is to praise God. Worship was not meant to be a concert. 

    I also liked when the article talked about the affect of music on someone who is young in their faith. The beginning of the Christian journey is a vulnerable but exciting time. This period of time is exciting because often times at the beginning of the journey is when you have the most fire in you. It is kind of like at the beginning of a run when you have a lot of energy and you feel like you can do anything. At the beginning of the Christian journey is when you feel like you can do anything. I like that the article points out that when St. Augustine was young in his faith that he was inspired about the words of the song and not by the music. This shows the change from simply being at worship and being a part of worship.

I commented on Abigale Bell's and Leanne White's

    

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