Interestingly, one of the things the Christian converts in Port Hedland Detention Centre used to say was how much they enjoyed the singing in Christian worship. And how they can sing- from thier hearts! They found the idea of singing in worship totally different from the Muslim worship they had known and said it was liberating, joyful and enabled them to express thier faith.
By the way Andrew Watts who is also part of this group, did great work at Curtin Detention Centre, establishing a congregation of 90 new converts there. Since Curtin closed these people have moved to Baxter and Port Hedland. Knowing the trials these refugees are going through at the moment, Christians who are being refused refuge in Australia, threatened with deportation back to a regime where conversion carries the death penalty, the current discussions on sexuality in the UCA tend to fade into insignificance. Bev -----Original Message----- From: Judy Redman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 5:12 PM To: Insights-L Subject: RE: \\\"Has Guy made God cool again?\\\" A few comments from my personal experience: I think that one of the features of worship at NCYC Newcastle that made it feel not-like-worship to the older people there was the dancing. While the parents-of-teenagers generation is used to 'free-form' dancing, it is not something they associate with church. Grandparents-of-teenagers never really understood what their offspring did as dancing at all, let along feeling that it had a place in worship. If you think about what dancing means to them, you can see their point - a fox-trot or Pride of Erin don't quite feel like worship to me either - partly, I guess, because there is a pre-determined set of steps and there is a right and wrong way to do them - hardly spontaneous. And yet Hebrew Scripture has people dancing to praise God - including David. And the dancers at NCYC were certainly responding to the music by joining in. Some of them even sang as well. While some of them might have been dancing just to dance, I think that for a good number it was no less worship than it is for older generations to belt out the words of favourite hymns. My experience of under 30s is not that they don't sing at all, but rather that they tend only to sing when they won't be heard by others - if you have the music up loud enough, they sing (at least I assume that they are not just mouthing to the music - can't hear them over the music). Both my children (16 & 13) sing along with their CDs. But it depends on the young person. My daughter has sung in school choirs, vocal ensembles and the like for years and has loved it. She even enjoys the choreographed numbers that the school choir does, although it's obvious that some of the members feel a little self-conscious doing the steps. One of her friends is particularly inclined to bop along with music that she enjoys, to the point where this kind of music is known as "Kari music" by the whole class. My son (who has as good a voice as his sister, and possibly a better ear) is far more diffident about doing anything in public - this often extends to eating in restaurants - anything in public. He certainly won't sing at audible level anywhere except in his bedroom or the lounge room. One of the students I knew when I was at Monash who had grown up in an atheist home came to church for the first time to hear me preach and one of the things he said afterwards was that he'd enjoyed singing at school and had missed it, so one of the good features of the service had been the singing. He also says that he felt much closer to God in the big old cathedrals of Europe than he ever has in Australian churches (not that his experience of either is vast). Or, as Darren put it: > My point here is that its about situations too, theres a time and > a space for everything, (mind you if my dad starts singing in the > car im jumping out the window heh heh). If we provide a space > where the music touches then thats cool, music wont work everywhere > and we wont all sing. And as far as the original question - I certainly didn't follow Aus Idol very closely, but my impression was that Guy wasn't anywhere near as upfront about his faith as lots of American artists are - I suspect that the only people who have actually *noticed* have been other Christians. There are a number of other popular singers who have started their singing careers in church (I think Avril Levine is one). I don't think it's majorly noteworthy because I think that the majority of teenagers in Australia are so far from experience of church that they don't even know that being a Christian is supposed to be uncool - it's just something some people do. Judy ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: The information in this message and any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this message by anyone else is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, or distribution of the message, or any action or omission taken by you in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. Please immediately contact the sender if you have received this message in error. To the extent that this email contains information provided to Synod of WA/Wesley Mission Perth by other sources, Synod of WA/Wesley Mission Perth does not warrant that it is accurate or complete. Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual sender and do not necessarily reflect the views of Synod of WA/Wesley Mission Perth. ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
