You asked: "What is wrong with having two or three appropriate hymns during a wedding?"
Answer: It's because NO ONE sings at weddings. The biggest worry that my sainted mother-in-law had about the wedding service that my wife and I had was that we were going to have congregational singing. She thought it wouldn't work. I told her that it would. It did work because we had our wedding on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and we had a good number of pastors attending the service.
Later on, I found out why she was nervous about congregational singing at a wedding. I encouraged every couple to have congregational singing at their weddings. Occasionally a couple would agree to it and I'd pick a couple of hymns that I considered to be pretty easy to sing and pretty well-known. Whenever the time came for congregational singing, you know what happened? ALMOST COMPLETE SILENCE. It took me way too long to figure out why that is. It's really a no-brainer: A wedding service is the only kind of worship service a good number of people who are sitting there attend. They don't know any hymns.
I've given up on congregational singing at weddings. I do insist, however, that all solo songs must be Christian songs.
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GJ - Joel Lillo-of-the-Valley, your circuit has done its best to quash Lutheran worship, so you only have yourselves to blame. You are a prime defender of the entertainment seeker service.
The ministers who surrender to popular fads at weddings could be ones who insist on a worship service in a worship facility, instead of a justice of the peace ceremony in a church.
Chess players devalue the pawn at the beginning of the game. Then they give up a knight. Oh well. A bishop. No big deal. I have the queen. The queen is almighty. But later those players are extremely powerful, especially when used in combinations.
Church Growth ejected the Means of Grace in favor of sentimentality and marketing.
Long ago, I shook my head when I visited the Pentecostal church. The stage was filled with band instruments and microphone stands. The women who sang wore beehive hairdos and Lawrence Welk prom dresses. Now I can see the same thing at many SynCon congregations.
Lenski: "Resist the beginnings."
