It is astonishing how much the Korean churches have been quantitatively revived and developed in its 120 years' history. Nevertheless, the Korean churches are still less advanced in qualities. Especially, service music is just little used in worship ...
It is astonishing how much the Korean churches have been quantitatively revived and developed in its 120 years' history. Nevertheless, the Korean churches are still less advanced in qualities. Especially, service music is just little used in worship service because there's little understanding of the relationship between worship service and service music. In contrast, C.C.M.(Contemporary Christian Music), much of which is based on popular music, is whipping up Sunday services, causing lots of confusions.
The purpose of this study is to propose an advisable direction of service music in future Korean churches through focusing on the current use of C.C.M in church service. For the purpose, this researcher examined what proper worship services mean, with a basic knowledge of service music. In addition, the researcher suggested how service music should be performed in a right way during worship service. Furthermore, the researcher examined the history of service music in Korean churches and the current situation of contemporary service music.
The lives of Christians and unbelievers are little different in many aspects. The only difference between their lives lies in whether they worship God through worship service or not.
Worship service is a human response to the calling of love and blessing from God. It is a material act of life. Worship service is like the dialogue of love between God and his people. It is to express religious emotions, especially awe for God, and respect God as the highest being. Service music is not just an auxiliary means of worship service, but a critical part of the service.
However, the origin of the C.C.M. lies in secular music, not in church music. The musical forms, instruments and texts used in the C.C.M. are different from those of traditional service music. From a dimension of mission, it may be recommendable to use the forms and contents of secular music for the purpose of evangelization. But it seems not desirable to utilize those forms and contents in worship service. In other words, the forms, instruments and texts of service music need to be clearly discriminated from those of worldly music.
Service music should be highly sophisticated and refined enough to express a true praise for the glory of God.
In this study, this researcher tried to identify problems with worship service and service music in the Korean churches, especially focusing on the current use of the C.C.M., and propose how to solve those problems. This researcher hopes that further discussions and studies about worship service and service music are conducted, contributing to making the Korean churches provide high-quality worship services. Finally, the researcher expects that this study help provide a better direction for Korean churches and service music in the future.