church

I can only speak from an evangelican Protestant perspective.  I've been attending churches like that for a long while.  In them, there are a few songs from the Methodist Hymnal that a lot of folks might recognize, but by and large the music is "Praise and Worship Music" that has a lot more similarity to 1970's singer/songwriter and folk music than it does other hymns.  Some of it's pretty good and rocks pretty hard.  Some of it's pretty good and creates a good mood of worship.  A lot of it stinks out loud. 

I have played bass in a Praise and Worship band.  There are some nice advantages.  One, you have a gig with an audience every week.  Two, you get to play something new that you haven't heard on the radio a gazillion times (assuming that you don't listen to Contemporary Christian radio stations anyway).  Three (if you're a guitar player), they are meant to be sing-alongs.  This means that the keys are often keys in which guitar players infrequently play - so you get to practice some different chords.  Four, arrangements are expected.  People don't complain, "Hey, that's not the way Zepp does it..." 

Usually worship sets are three or four songs, and maybe additional song time during collection, or maybe the guitar play picks out a subtle and contemplative tune during prayer time to add to the mood. 

It's a lot of fun.  The key things to me for playing in a Praise and Worship band were two-fold.  First, the audience is an audience of One.  Two, the other folks present are encouraged to participate and when it all comes together and everyone's having fun and grooving and singing and praising it's a kind of fun that's tough to describe.  I guess these are really just two sides of the same coin. 

Down side - rarely applause.  That's not what it's all about, but I'm immature enough to admit that sometimes when I've done a really good job on the bass and everything was grooving that it'd be nice to have an ego stroke.  My problem, not the congregations. 

- Big D

I don't mean to sound too philisophical here, but I think guitars or bands in church speaks to the plurality of America. Our culture, our politics, and our churches are influenced by many different people from different backgrounds. Many churches have evolved because of influences from people of different cultures joining their church or as a result of wanting to attract membership from other cultures. I don't think this unique to the US. Christian societies in Africa or South America rarely sing songs found in the hymn book because those songs don't fit their culture at all. I would think the reason you don't see a lot of music like this in Europe is because the traditions of the religion were started in Europe in the first place so they ultimately fit the culture and remain relatively unchanged as a result of little outside influence.

I like that song 'Under The Milky Way' by " The CHURCH".

The Church are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with New Wave and the neo-psychedelic sound of the mid 1980s, their music later became more reminiscent of "prog rock", featuring long instrumental jams and complex guitar interplay.

The Church's debut album, Of Skins and Heart (1981), earned them their first radio hit "The Unguarded Moment". They were signed to major labels in Australia, Europe and the U.S. However, the U.S. label was dissatisfied with their second album and dropped the band without releasing the album.

Good band!

"Music is my religion."-James Marshall Hendrix

How many different churches are there in the USA? I was told long ago that the very first thing to do was become a member of a church.
If I wasn't people would neglect me. IS THIS TRUE OR NOT?
I must admit that when I see in a movie, people singing gospel that I am really amazed, the way they sing and swing, JESUS, this doesn't exist here in Belgium.

I've found that many Europeans from heavily Catholic countries (Ireland, Italy, etc...) struggle with understanding the plethora of religious options available in America.   If you grew up in a world where there was the Catholic Church and "other", trying to understand the nuances between Methodists and Presbyterians would be rather confusing.