Will

“When I was single I learned over dinner, careful not to drip tomato sauce upon discussions about the sprinkling of blood on the Temple altar.”
― Ilana Kurshan, If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir

“The great success of our strategy can be seen in Daniel Southerland’s sincere conviction that members who object to a Performance Driven transition are just like Sanballat. They are enemies of the Enemy, and should be driven from the community. To our great advantage many of these are former leaders, or elderly servants of the Enemy who might never find another church to which they can belong and are thus effectively sidelined from the battle.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive

“As you know, real musicians (and the performers must keep reminding themselves that they are indeed real musicians) don’t like to play familiar songs repeatedly. They intensely dislike overused arrangements for hymns and praise songs; they need a challenge, and this means new songs added each week, songs that have ever more sophisticated arrangement and accompaniment. Over time fewer and fewer audience members are able to give voice to the songs.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive

“We have convinced church leaders and music ministers that classical choral styles are unattractive to the younger crowd, that so-called ‘seekers’ will be—what’s the American term?—turned off by a Mendelssohn psalm or a hymn arranged for choral singing. At the same time we have allowed such music to flourish in secular environments and liberal churches where its spiritual effect is negligible. Many evangelical music ministers now consider it a fact beyond question that radio styles, driven to popularity by clever marketing schemes, are the way to penetrate the hearts of those attending church. Repetitive phrases and a beat that encourages clapping are taken as sure signs of our Enemy working in the hearts of the congregation.”
― T.G. Brown, The Wormwood Archive