An evangelical vicar once literally stopped me in the street and asked incredulously why I attend the unfashionable, spiky, Anglo-Catholic church that I do. Caught off-guard, I blurted out two unlikely words: the music.
For though I'm tone deaf and can't sing, alas, I do appreciate music, despite my ignorance, and my church has a wonderful, if small choir. On the rare occasions that I'm paying proper attention, there is, for me nothing quite as heavenly as the moment during the breaking of the bread before Communion when that choir sings the Agnus Dei: 'Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.'
I don't dare sing along to that, for fear of ruining the sound from the choir-stalls. But it is one of the few moments at our church when everyone present does not join in, whether it's with the hymns, the Gloria - or the Kyrie, eleison during penitential seasons – the Creed, the Sanctus, the Benedictus or the Gregorian chanted psalms during Evensong.
For that is the point, surely of music in church: communal worship.
This question of the role of music in church was raised recently by the evangelical writer Tim Challies, who outlined why he did not sing at a recent service he attended.
'There weren't any hymns in the service or even any familiar worship songs,' Challies wrote. 'So it's not that I didn't want to sing; it's just that I didn't know the songs.'
And here's the crux: the songs, said Challies, 'weren't congregational...Most of them seemed to have been written with the band in mind more than the congregation'.
Challies went on to list other problems: the band would ad-lib; the congregation wasn't singing; and 'it felt like a performance': 'We were in a darkened room sitting on theatre-style seats. The band was on a brightly-lit stage at the front of the room, singing their own songs with the volume cranked right up. This set a context that struck me as more concert than church. I really enjoyed watching the band and listening to them, but it felt to me that they were doing rather than facilitating the worship. So finally I just sat back and enjoyed the show.'
I acknowledge that evangelical music is often very communal indeed, with people's hands raised aloft in unison in a kind of ecstasy.
And I also accept that if I'm criticising some rock-style music in evangelical churches as performance rather than worship, I should also admit that Anglo-Catholicism can be open to the charge of being 'theatre'.
But there is something about the timelessness of the music at my church that aides reflection (and even repentance) and makes me think I'll stick with that, for now.
There is, after all, a huge wealth of music going back centuries which we shouldn't forget about. Some of the plainsong reaches back to the 6th and 7th centuries.
All forms of worship should be respected.
But in an age when the evangelical movement is increasingly dominating the British scene, that surely has to include 'high' as well as 'low' church. And that's partly, at least, thanks to the music.
Ironically perhaps, Challies did not feel involved with the modern music at the church he attended, which was aimed at popular worship, and I do feel drawn in with the ancient music at my church, even though it, too, is something of a performance.
The key point here is surely that music -- of whatever sort -- should be inclusive, even if it is a performance. It should be greater than the sum of its parts and make the individual feel involved in something bigger than themselves.
It should, to use Challies's word, be congregational.
