Are many of our Sabbath church programs (Sabbath School and the Worship Service) missing the joy ingredient on Sabbath?

Does nobody want to touch this topic with a 10 foot pole?

Perhaps we will have to wait for everyone to read Ed Christian's " Joyful Noise"!

Tom

Where should our joy come from?

Should our joy be based on music, or on anything, or anybody else?

When a person says that joy is lacking in the church, on what basis is such a statement made?

I pastor a new breed of church that is springing up in Adventism. It is a "Cowboy Church".
Our music is warm heart felt music. Our concerts (once a month)are "Southern Gospel" featuring mostly quartets. We started 11 months ago and the church, Praise God, is growing like a weed.
Music is a great part of any worship service. If we come into God's house and all we sing is 5 verses of "Woe is me, I am a worm", we are probably not going to be very much of a blessing to anyone.

Praising God usually is an activity that brings joy. However there is a huge difference between giving praise and singing songs out of old habbit that someone else thought should be sung a week before compared to praising God in whatever way the Holy Spirit leads. Its kind of special when a prayermeeting reaches the point where someone starts to sing something on the prompting of the Holy Spirit, wheter it be a new or an old song.

/Thomas

Oooooooo, I like that! As a pastor and a praise and worship leader, I am always amazed how tightly folks hang on to the hymn book to sing a song that they have been singing since they were young! What are we going to do when they take our hymn books away?????