Versus: Hymns vs. "Praise and Worship"

I grew up in a United Methodist church singing some of the great hymns including Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, O For a Thousand Tongues To Sing, and Great is Thy Faithfulness. I also was a part of the influx of some of the great southern gospel songs including I'll Fly Away, Just a Little Walk With Jesus, He Touched Me, and His Name is Wonderful thanks mostly to the involvement of my family in gospel quartets and bands.

I was also exposed to some of the earliest praise and worship songs (this is a ridiculous name since all hymns and southern gospel songs are full of praise and worship) including As the Deer, We Exalt Thee, Majesty, and Great is the Lord. I remember watching as my dad, mom, uncle, aunt, grandpa, and grandma played and sang these at our small rural church in Kansas before moving to Chicago.

I currently play guitar and sing with a praise band in the church I serve and we do some of the newer contemporary praise and worship songs like Let the Praises Ring by Lincoln Brewster, Mighty to Save by Laura Story, Because of Your Love by Paul Baloche, and You Never Let Go by Matt Redman. I greatly enjoy playing and singing these songs.

So as you can see, I have a vast background of music styles, which could make this a tough decision. However, given the choice to sing and play a hymn or a praise and worship song, I would chose the praise and worship song probably 90 out of 100 times. I know my grandpa and dad's response, "but there is such great theology in the old hymns." To which I would reply, "Yes, but I can't understand half of the words I'm singing."

As great as the old hymns are, I'm definitely going to pick the winner as praise and worship. But I will say that praise and worship music loses the name contest. I would also add that I've found some arrangements of the old hymns to be very powerful in bringing me to a place of worship through music.