How the Organ Lost the Battle But Won the War

Dan Kimball shares a great post about how people never stop complaining about worship changes in the church.

I didn’t know this, but apprarently the early church disliked the organ:

Christians in the early church originally protested the bringing in of
the organ into the church saying it was a "worldly" instrument. The
organ at that time was used to signal praise in the emperor’s court,
like trumpets are used when someone of royalty was formally entering.
Around 500 AD the church began to adopt the usage of the organ from
culture and used it to signal the entering of the Pope. So there was
protest from Christians who felt there was compromise happening and
that the church was allowing a worldly instrument into the church.

Kimball sees the rise and fall of the organ in Christian worship as an expression of changes in the surrounding culture making their way into the Church:

When you study history, you realize that forms and expressions of
worship have always been changing. Culture has influenced worship
practices and styles – and so much of what we do in our church
gatherings today stems from a specific point in culture and what was
happening at that time.

While on a larger scale I agree with the use of cultural instruments in Christian worship, I disagree about the grand scale of cultural changes that affect Christian worship as Kimball argues.  I think that when Kimball says, "I hope when I get older and there are new styles and approaches to worship that develop," the new styles and approaches to worship should develop primarily from within local communities and cultures, and not be so influenced by the colonizing approach of mass media, consumerism, and popular culture as much of the modern worship movement has been.The whole Kimball article is here: The Controversial Organ