I mentioned previously that I’m working on a History of the Big Emory Association and I discovered an interesting bit from 1938 that I feel like passing along.

Included in the minutes of that year (193 is the report from the ‘Church Music’ committee - which wrote

‘Church music consists of the following: (1) proper musical instrument (organ or piano); (2) Trained band of singers in harmony with God’s will. It would be well for the choir to be elected by church. (3) A consecrated song leader, who is a Christian and member of the Church; (4) Gospel hymns selected from religious books. I am sorry to find so few of our churches equipped with church music as defined above.’

The committee went on in its report to lament the fact that so many churches were using ‘modern song books’ instead of proper hymnals! One is forced to wonder, as an aside, what they would think of the ‘music’ performed in many churches today!

The issue of proper music in the Church continued to occupy the ‘Music Committee’ that in 1939 and they felt compelled to recommend to the Association that

‘… the churches of Big Emory Association discard the cheap song books with their cheeky and ragtime music and replace them with our regular standard hymnals’.