Glad You're Here: Two Unlikely Friends Breaking Bread and Fences

by Walker Hayes

We walked in during the praise and worship portion of the service, a particular part of church I loathed and wouldn’t have minded missing one bit. It was just a white dude with an acoustic guitar in a golf hat. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was actually impressed with how unimpressive it was. Since moving to Nashville, it had really been a long time since I’d stepped in a church that didn’t feel like the Dove Awards. It was simple and honest. Speaking as someone who is helpless to the emotional tug of music, I’ve always thought church music had a way of taking advantage of people like me. The preacher begins to pray, a piano softly enters the background, the acoustic guitar begins to strum, the soundtrack crescendos simultaneously with the preacher’s volume, and by the end you’re walking down an aisle, wondering what in the world is happening to your heart. For someone like me, the Holy Spirit and music can be confused with one another. Regardless, that night, the music just wasn’t about the music, in a refreshing way.