Required viewing!
Dare I forward this to professor friends o' mine at nearby denominational colleges who've created "Majors" in this worship "form?"
Nope, that wouldn't be Christian.

Did the ad actually ask for nunchuck and crossbow skills, or did you add that to enhance the absurdist flavor?

brilliant. absolutely brilliant and not that far off of what is actually happening in more and more "worship spaces" on sunday.
the only thing better was the ad for disposable "sanitary" communion hosts and grapejuice wrapped in cellophane. the only problem was that the ad wasnt a parody...

Oh, my.... I was in that world. I was blind... but now I see.

This is the model...and Catholics are well on their way to it.

Intriguing. But can you really invent a past with a new tattoo? Not sure. If I can, I think I would make it a fake past. So it would be a really obscure foreign looking thing, as if it came from a farflung opium cult or something. That way I could say, I've been there but left it all behind for Gregorian chant. That way I would have more credibility.

If I remember right, the guy in the video had the Tetragrammaton on his arm, so he wasn't revealing a terribly shocking "past".

I'm expecting a little occasional gang tension between those with St. Gall tats and those with Laon, but the empathic schola director can bridge the gap.

"hmmm, but maybe we chanters need to be more shocking."

Doncha think that vis a vis the liberal surge at PT and the surprise revelations of extent versions of Haagen/Daaz MR2 settings, that we're already considered "shock troops" already in search of some "Krystalnacht" moment to hijack the rest of enlightened Christendom? I wish I could say that was a joke in poor taste.
When we read/see/hear Dom Ruff (for whom I still say my C-Note investment was more than worth it) declare that we are not fringe or marginalized, and in fact appreciated and extolled by increasing numbers of regular PIPs, then I'll retract my national socialist insinuative implication.

In the meanwhile, if you need a poster boy for chant as shocking, I'm your guy.
Stay Churchy, my friends.

Tats are "so yesterday." Go for multiple eyebrow piercing.

Jeff, I think you need a salicus tattoo to really show where you stand...

You want edginess?

Well, O Bow-tied One, I have heard you refer to "chant jocks," why not "chant punks"?

Instead of mallrats, churchrats?

There could be indie scholas, with names like "Smashing Punctums."

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Or...

Black-eyed Pes

A good description of contemporary worship. It's very predictable and formulaic. I think I will stick with the true "old-time-religion" handed down from the apostles. As for tattoos, my late mother told me many years ago that they were trashy. I think she had it right.

Mass of Creation. Or wait ... was that a "bad-means-good" type of wickedest? ;)

This might be an appropriate time to promote one of my more recent works, my Missa Mister Mister. It consists of five Kyries.

Marueen, you're missing my points, one being that many people just go through the motions with no real sense of awareness of what they're participating in. The sincerety of prayer gets lost. The other point is that we don't exactly have a high horse from which to snark on the superficiality of these megachurch productions if we're insincere or lack focus in our own worship. What are Catholics doing in their own churches that's so much better?

The Missa Mister Mister. Good one, Dan.

Well, the difference is, in the parody, the singer wanted you to buy his song in the bookstore, and here you can buy the song on iTunes.

Oh wait, iTunes also sells books ...

BruceL, you are of course correct. But the problem is extremely serious and deeply entrenched. The liturgical problem has seriously hurt this organization and its mission. It is not obvious to me what the solution here is because the current penchant for pandering to youth culture, as it is called, comes from all-knowing top down. I would love to lend a hand in helping to fix this problem but there seems to be zero interest on the part of any decision makers. There is much more to say about this problem, but I will stop.

well, maybe a bit at the beginning and end.

It's hard for me to know what to do about the liturgical problem and youth.

Fortunately the anecdotal evidence of young people interested in chant--and turned off by CCM--is ascendant. However, the question remains as to whether this is, or will ever be, a majority opinion among teens and twenty-somethings, who are mostly musically pop-oriented.

Things I have seen:
1. WYD 2005: Hymns widely ignored, Taize chants sung
2. The stadium rocking to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzqdSs0sg00
3. 20 year old German kids singing Here I Am, Lord, with rather astonishing depth of feeling
4. I've only seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1lzK21oNT4 on youtube
5. I've seen similar enthusiasm in similar situations, though. It's phenomenal.
6. Two pieces were sung during the Vigil for Life Mass in DC last January. I was sitting among about 500 teenagers. During the first song, a hymn set to Hyfrydol, all the kids sang. During the second piece, a Latin introit refrain set melodically and accessibly, every single kid sat down and disengaged. (I've seen this same refrain work very well with adults.)

There really is no way to tell kids what music to like. And we have to accept as a given that many of them have been indoctrinated into a certain Church music mindset.

Here's what I'd do if I ruled the world. There can and probably should be one Mass at each parish with icky music. Yes, it's for God; it's apostolic and missionary.

Every other Mass at each parish should have a Latin chanted ordinary and propers, with maybe an offertory hymn and a motet at Communion. Okay, okay, you can have a polyphonic ordinary at the missa pro populo. But no orchestra, ever. Oh, all right, one Mass can have more hymns.

One Wednesday a month there should be loud icky music at Adoration. But this should be an icky opportunity set among a solid menu of devotions and the Liturgy of the Hours, all chanted.

(Some parishes won't need the ick. But I think right now most do, and this is a way to phase out.)

Those who have youths in the schola or fortunate enough to have youths schola (older teens), how do you keep them engaged in singing chants? Also, are those young people who want to learn Gregorian chants different from the rest of the youths who still want pop style music in Mass? And what motivates them to come to sing chant ? (The children in my children's schola come mostly because the parents bring them, and they seem to get to like it as they become more confident. Hopefully they will continue as they get older. But how about the youths who didn't have early exposure to Gregorianc chants, how do you attract them?)

Noel, it sounds like you've had this conversation under much more serious conditions. That sounds like slow martyrdom.

Here's what I think: if you raise kids on Gregorian chant that will be their desired Church music. If you raise them on the Glory and Praise or Gather hymnal, that will be their desired Church music. If the next parish plays electric guitars, a lot of kids will go there.

You can re-educate over time, but you risk disengaging in the meantime.

Ideals are not the only datum. Humans bring their own needs. I agree that the human needs aren't always what common wisdom thinks they are, but kids like a good beat.

There's a mix. Due to the kind of people I tend to associate with, I know that there are far, far more youth who love Latin, the EF, and chant than the CCM people would want you to think. On the other hand, here at Franciscan it is abundantly clear that a majority of twenty-something Catholics today really do prefer CCM music that they hear on the radio, etc. They don't necessarily like folk Mass -- all that stuffy 60s music they grew up on; if they like it, it's mostly nostalgia. It's the contemporary, more rock-like stuff they like. Although most people are pretty sure that a full metal-band-type instrumentation is not appropriate at Mass, not too many people have a problem with drums, and very few have any problems at all with guitars and basses.

I've heard many people say, "chant is beautiful and all, but I prefer modern music"; or, what makes me wince: "the Latin Mass is good for you pre Vatican II types" ...like, is there another schism I haven't heard of yet? >:(

But most people will concede that Gregorian chant is definitely beautiful, and definitely Catholic, even if it is not their personal preference. Those folks could probably be easily converted to good liturgy if someone would make clear to them that the church clearly prefers one kind over another. They're very loyal to the church and to the pope, but they just don't realize the extent to which the liturgy has been corrupted over the years.

People need to learn to dissociate their personal preferences with what is good at Mass. Personally I do not like the organ, but I would much rather hear that at a Catholic Mass than any other instrument. (Of course hearing that in Orthodox churches is a different story.) How you can get people to do that, I have no idea.