Bible-Presbyterian

I’m not one of those stiff-necked folks who insist that only hymns are proper worship songs, but given the fact that there’s actually a plethora of bad Christian music out there nowadays, I still prefer hymns to contemporary Christian music (CCM).

There’s just something majestic and magnifying of the Lord in hymns, unlike bad CCM that harp about “what I want from God” or worse, not mentioning God at all in the lyrics.

As you can probably guess by now, lately I’ve been harking back to hymns after having listened to CCM for awhile. Perhaps it’s a ‘grass is greener on the other side’ phenomenon, but for most of my time in a church it was in one that only sings hymns, and not CCM.

The only reason I started listening to CCM was that I was younger then and needed a beat. I mean, if you’re a teenager who’s listening to Run D.M.C. and Bon Jovi on normal days and had to go with the slow solemn hymns on Sunday, you would not have any interest in the latter.

So, perhaps it’s also because I’m older now and (hopefully) more matured as a Christian, I have a new-found appreciation for hymns, especially those sung by a good church choir.

Here’s one I found recently that I particularly like titled Worthy of Praise — it’s from the church choir of a church that I plan on visiting on Sunday.

Of late, I’ve also thought much about going back to my Bible-Presbyterian roots, hence the planned visit. Sure, I don’t agree with infant baptism, and the KJV-only stance, but it’s a Biblical church and teaches sound doctrine.

Not to mention a great choir and mmm… hymns!

If you liked Worthy of Praise, take a listen to the hymn Trusting Jesus too.

Soli deo Gloria!

Source: All hymns linked in this post are sung by the Calvary Pandan Church Choir. Photograph of the Calvary Pandan Church Choir taken from the Calvary Pandan Church web site.

This is not an attack on any church or denomination. I am going to simply tell my story as it is, about my experience in a Pentecostal church and why I stepped out of it.

Back in my youth, during college days, I started attending Charismatic/Pentecostal church services as it was the natural thing to do. Natural because back then I was in a college run by the Anglican Church of Singapore and the school’s chapel was skewing towards the Pentecostal movement.

Moreover, I wasn’t attending any church on a regular basis as I was looking for one where I could really find the form of worship I would be comfortable with.

It was easy to step into the Pentecostal movement and feel part of the community immediately. Most of the friends I made in college were of the same inclinations — Christians who were looking a church to attend. So when seniors of the school who were also members of the church started inviting us to attend the services on Sunday, it didn’t take much to say ‘yes’ to the proposition.

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