The Best of the Best of the Best

Here is an example of the youth preserving something ancient and passed down. I love that.

My grandaughter performed in a youth choir that was part of the Christmas Extravaganza of our largest Christian High School, which was using the 1000 seat sanctuary of a church that began shortly after I moved west. As you know, I kind of dropped out of the contemporary church scene a decade ago, and I was reminded again how much things have changed from the more traditional way we worship.

The church has a black stage, more like a rock concert, with fog,(which I am told makes the cameras focus better). There was singing and dancing and acting and glee like comedy and I knew I was watching the best of the fine arts kids, from full orchestra, to piano, to singing and acting and even a percussion group. There were fast moving slide shows and movie clips on two large screens with teenage cameramen preserving views of the faces, and even snow at the end.

It was all great, and there was all kinds of interest among the kids in serving God with their lives, but......I could not escape the fact that for these kids, serving God is singing and dancing, and high tech lights and computer graphics, and showy, glitzy entertainment.

It made me feel old and obsolete, Laura observed that even the Gospel invitation was so perfect it made her uncomfortable. My daughter says the tuition is quite high, and I wondered about what will happen when all this is old hat. Have we Christianized Glee or has the world Gleefulized the youth of this generation. I feel really bad thinking that.