Orthodoxy, Gypsy's and Christian Music

Nick and Igor



What do the Orthodox Church, Gypsy’s and Christian Music have in common?
How’s that for a blog title. Just come to one of my classes and there’s no telling what discussion of interesting combinations of ideas and topics we will get into. Here are just a few for today.
Several of my students are from a church/group called the Lord’s Army. This is a church, well it’s not really a church. They work along side the Orthodox Church and try and help the people have a greater understanding of scripture and Church doctrine. They don’t want to start another church; they are working with and along side the Orthodox Church. It was started by a priest by the name of Iosif Trifa in the Orthodox Church in 1923. When asked what does ‘Orthodox’ in Orthodox Church mean, Iosif said, “We are as orthodox as the Bible allows us to be.” The interesting thing is that this church/group is recognized by the Orthodox Church. There are priests that are in the Orthodox Church that work along side with the Lord’s Army. This group wants the people to stay members with the church. They feel that what they are doing is an addition to what the Orthodox Church is doing, so they even have their worship services in the afternoon, after the Orthodox service is over. They believe that the doctrine of the church is Biblical, but it is the practice of worship that has been changed down through the years through the inclusion of rituals and pagan traditions. And it’s these that the people understand and follow more than the original doctrines of the Church. An important teaching that they stress is on prayer. They try to help people understand that they can pray directly to God. Pray can be a personal thing. You don’t have to go to a priest to pray, you can, but you don’t have to. They want to try and teach Jesus as a personal savior. I think that here is a group that is trying to use a mixture of old worship, with new and current ideas as described by Robert Webber. Almost everything in the Orthodox Church is very symbolic. This group is trying to help the people understand what these symbols mean in today’s life.

Another one of the students Vidjai is from a gypsy background and will be starting a gypsy ministry soon here in Moldova. In fact his home church paid for his education, first a Bible college here in Chisinau and then for his degree from TCMI with the understanding that he would start a gypsy ministry. Here is a student who has a heart for the gypsy’s because he himself is one. It was interesting talking to him. We spoke a lot about different styles of music and why some would and some wouldn’t work with the gypsy’s.

We got on the subject of music in the church this afternoon. The question I asked was “What is Christian music?” We have 22 in the class and I got 22 different answers. But most of them really didn’t answer the question. What I got was what each student thought was good and bad music and if it was good music then it could be said that it was Christian music because it moved your soul. I never really did answer that. There’s not enough time in month of Sundays to give that the importance it really deserves. Actually what I got was why some music shouldn’t be used in worship and some music should be used in worship.

John