I suppose this comes up every year, but this year it seems to be an even more hotly debated issue: Christmas music. A lot of us music and worship folks who are on the more contemporary end of things have trouble with how much and what kind of Christmas music to use in our Advent worship services. A lot of folks have shared their opinions in interesting ways this season, and while the world probably doesn't really need my 2 cents on this... I'm going to throw them in the fountain anyways:
First off, I should say that I love Christmas music. It holds a special place in my musical heart, and I'm careful to protect that (I refuse to listen to it except in the period between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve). It's on pretty much nonstop at our house at this time of year. That said, I don't usually program a ton of Christmas tunes for worship during Advent. Why? Because they don't fit the thematic and stylistic elements of our services. Christmas tunes tend to be very horizontal, story-telling types of songs, and on top of that, the story that the vast majority of them are telling doesn't take place until Christmas Eve. I also find that Christmas tunes can also be tough to reinterpret musically, not so much because they're hard to work with, but because the folks in the seats on Sundays have a very specific way that they've heard them all their lives. It's hard to break away from that. Last Sunday we did Third Day's rather raucous version of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel", but that's all I've done so far this year.
Having said all of that - this Sunday I'll be doing an almost all Christmas set. Christmas Eve will obviously be the same. We'll be playing fairly traditional, straightforward arrangements, and that's ok. Because now it's time to tell the story. It's a story that was and is as simple as it is profound, and I see nothing wrong with pulling out the acoustic guitars and pianos and ukuleles (yeah, I said it!) and telling that story simply. I'm really excited for what we have planned for this week, and I think we've found ways to present these old songs that will keep them fresh for folks, without losing the qualities that have always made them so endearing. And that's the fine line we as church musicians walk: respecting the past while shaping the future.
