Whatever Works

I've been thinking about music lately. We're involved in a search for a new music director at our church, and I'm a member of the Search Committee. I've been asking questions and listening to answers.

I attended Annual Conference a few weeks ago and was impressed by the mixture of music that was used in worship -- classically based, old hymns, new hymns, praise music, contemporary anthems. The Music Director for Annual Conference's philosophy is "Whatever works."

I like that philosophy. Whatever works.

Why is it, I wonder, that the genre of music becomes more important in some people's minds than the ability of the music to reach God's people with his message? Why is it that we are willing to believe that we all have different gifts and different ways of being reached by God (in fact, is it Ortberg or Yancey who explains that we all connect to God in different ways). If that is the case, why do we assume that people will hear God in through music in the same way that we do ourselves?

Whatever works.