The older generation says about the younger generation’s music, “That’s not real music!” The younger generation says, “Ok, Boomer.”

While these comments are usually made in good nature, I have found that this is not necessarily true in the church when it comes to hymns versus praise and worship songs. I find myself caught in the middle because I love them both.
Lately, I’ve become obsessed (the rest of the band might call it, ‘psycho’) with blending hymns with praise and worship songs. I get a dopamine buzz when I sit down on Mondays and realize I have two songs in my hot little hands that can be blended or as I prefer to say, mashed up. What happens next takes a good amount of work, but the end result is worth it. The 2 songs must be the same tempo and the same key. I love three-quarter time (the Lord’s tempo) and the key of Bb (the Lord’s key). I find that the congregation moves and sings more with
that tempo and key.
My goal is to help hymn lovers see that there is value in praise and worship songs and vise versa. I want to show both camps that the overlying themes in both styles, if they are theologically correct, are similar and are worthy of singing. Recently, on a Sunday morning, the band mashed up the praise song Great Are You Lord, written in 2010 and the hymn Blessed Assurance, written in 1873. These songs went together like peanut butter and jelly and were just as
satisfying in our mouths as we sang them.