My Pet Peeves: Piano During Prayer
I don’t know about you, but one thing I don’t like . . . I mean, really don’t like . . . is when there is a piano playing softly in the background while someone is praying during service. You know, this always happens during the nice sweet tender moments of a message. It may be at the giving of the Gospel, the conclusion of a message, or during the prayer. Slowly in the background, somehow without you noticing, the pianist has stuck back up to the stage and began playing softly.
Call it creating the mood, preparing the audience, or whatever. I call it a shameful, fake, and manipulative part of the Christian sub-culture.
Stop it! Please. Throw this in the recycle bin. If emergers don’t do this, I am going emerging.
Seriously, while I don’t like it, why do we do it?
(This is part of a new perpetual series called “Pet Peeves” on Parchment and Pen. Please don’t take these too seriously as they may be over-the-top rants to create conversation. You can submit your own pet peeve in the lower left of the blog. It might be published!)
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Dan G on 11 Feb 2009 at 9:18 pm #
Yes! It seems many churches are ashamed of the silence when they announce a “prayer moment.” Why can’t we just have a corporate time without the intervention of music or prattling to just listen for that still, small voice?
I attended a large mainline church once where they had a “moment of prayer” on the Order of Service. “Nice”, I thought. The “moment” lasted all of 30 seconds which was how long it took for the prayer babe to walk to the lectern and begin reciting an insufferably PC prayer . . . interrupting my personal prayer time on completely different issues and subjects.
Just like “happy clap” worship, the stifling of real prayer is a common fixture in modern Christian churches.
Will we survive the trend?