It felt a little odd to be back in the Langley CanRC last weekend, but since I remain (at least officially) a member I figured that I probably should attempt to attend at least 1% of the year's services.
One thing that I was rather worried about when I wandered into the church was the liturgy sheet notice about a pre-service song. I've been in a fair number of churches that have done such and generally speaking its been something that I found could make visitors uncomfortable. It seems rather odd if a congregation breaks into song in a seemingly spontaneous fashion. Yet I thought that this worked out quite well in Langley's case - as there at least you would have someone saying something along the lines of "let's now sing __________". I suppose that I'm still not the biggest fan of pre-service songs (they still don't really seem to fit), but at least they can be conducted in a largely non-disruptive fashion.
One thing that I also reflected upon that Sunday were the Psalms and how they fit in
the contemporary church. There was a little bit of recent talk on this topic over at the yinkadene blog, and this is the subject that I focus on for the rest of this post.
There was some talk on a recent podcast about the purpose of copyright on the Book of Praise being to protect the integrity of the work. Yet blasphemous variants of it would generally be protected from legal actions as parodies, the CanRC would be unlikely to sue another church using it (as per 1 Corinthians 6), and here I can also quote from it under the copyright act's exemption for criticism and review. To repeat my question previously asked - what purpose does copyright serve upon such a work? I remain unsatisfied with the answers offered thus far.
The liturgy sheet for Sunday is yet to appear on the church's website, but one psalm of which several verses were sung was Psalm 81 of the Book of Praise (copyright the Standing Committee on the Book of Praise). Here are verses 2 - 4 of it:
2. O all Israel,
Voice your jubilation.
Let your music swell;
Harp and timbrel play.
Show in every way
Joy and exultation.
3. With the trumpet’s tune
Herald, in due season,
Feastdays of the moon:
Let its echo sound.
To let joy abound
God gives every reason.
4. Keep by God’s command
Your commemoration:
When in Egypt’s land
Captive Israel
Did in bondage dwell,
He gave liberation.
So, as to my questions:
- Do we use the same instruments the Psalm references?
- Do you "herald in due season, feastdays of the moon"?
- Do you still celebrate the passover? (the commemoration of Israel's captivity in Egypt)
As far as the applicability of the Psalms today goes, by and large I regard them as being as being as applicable today as are the rules and regulations of the Mosaic law.
