Here is my view of the whole situation. Remember! This is my opinion based on the facts I have already given in the first part. Again, I will try and use tact and just get straight to the point without dwelling on my personal commentary.

One would come to think that their minds were already made up before it even started. All evidence, no matter how good it was did not seem to be considered. Some of us thought that the decision was going to be taken to the church but when things looked good for us-at the debate that is, it never really happened. During that debate which lasted around 3 hours I could only recall maybe 1 reference to Scripture from the opposing side. When we used it those arguments were not attacked. Instead, new ones were brought up without really any scripture.

Do you want to hear the latest? (Now don't quote me on this but it was from a reliable source). I found this out as of Saturday June 19th., 1999. After a good portion of the debate, someone was flipping through a Canadian Tire flyer while the debate was going on. I welcome correction on this one and will not mention names. Again, I am not trying to create scandal but I felt this was serious enough to mention due to my curiosity. I hope that I am wrong.

Either the church will change or it will die. One of the two. Our membership is dropping and new people are NOT being attracted to what we have to offer. Change doesn't always have to be bad. Usually, the music one prefers or can relate to is set depending on what time period they grew up in, while they still can appreciate music as a whole respecting a variety of styles. There was mention at the debate that if you bring in new things the church will go downhill (I can't remember the exact wording) from there and I could see another member nodding their head saying, "Yeah...yeah."

We were playing for over a year and the church was still the same. Only the attitudes of the opposing parties changed. Some view it as grasping at straws. Another instance is at the board meeting prior to that (the one with the 2 youth leaders present), things were brought up that I guess could be considered a concern by some, but on the other hand if we were really known personally, it shouldn’t have been a concern at all. Things like we would do "moves" because we were having fun while playing at a hall our church rented for our Christmas program as well as playing some old age homes. It wasn’t in the sactuary and we hadn’t done it the whole year and a half we played in the church. And one youth leader even made a challenge to catch us doing it or to remember a time when we had done it.

As Christians, we do make mistakes as does everybody but nothing we have done should suggest our dismissal from praising God in His house. Here is another example. Out of the whole time we had been practicing in the church after the service was over, we were only too loud one time. But I guess that was enough. That is why we had lost our privileges in the fisrt place for practicing in the church, the decision hadn’t been made to have us not play during church service as of yet. And we had apologized to them and said it would never happen again, and it hasn't. I (and others) felt that it shouldn’t have been brought up again, especially after our apology. And this whole thing happened a long time prior to that and we had gotten our privileges back at that time as you will see and it never happened again. At the debate, one person said that out of all the times we have played the divine service she can never remember a time when we were too loud.

Then, the purpose of the debate was shifted by someone once again from our actual instruments themselves to things like rock music and how it affects you etc. The person said something like the music itself bypasses your conscious reasoning resulting in making body movements etc. But we had noticed that the individual who made that comment moved to the hymns as well. And it was mentioned. I feel at times double standards are set, especially in the field of technology.

It first started when my brother and I were at prayer meeting at this woman's home (where it used to be, it's at the church now) and a member of the board and the pastor came over to tell us that we couldn't play or practice in the church anymore. That really hurt and here is the reason. When the prayer meeting used to be at that woman's home hardly anybody went, and we went out of our way taking the bus when we usually drove the car just to get there and get a blessing. Then after it was over, we were pulled into the living room and were told that. It might have been done to catch us during mid week because we were going to practice on Saturday. We got a real blessing out of eating and fellowshipping together as well as playing. The wosrt part was that after awhile nobody even stayed after church besides us. Myself, my brother, and another player/youth leader. Another friend/player would've stayed but could not get a ride back every week as he lived too far but eventually found a way. We tried to get something going like a sack lunch and a program but it was hard. It was the same thing week after week for months. We were told that we had an image to keep up but again, no one really stayed after awhile. I could kind of tell by the look on their faces that they expected us to take a fit which even if we would have I think it would have been righteous indignation, but by the grace of God we stayed very calm and alert to the whole situation and spoke gently. Later, someone would say at a future board meeting (the one where the 2 youth leaders were present)..."If the youth leave the church over music, that is not a very good reason.” And one youth leader said, "They are STILL here!" With that being said, I still feel that doesn’t give anyone the right not to make room for compromise just because music wouldn’t be a good reason for leaving...

NOTE: This can go to show that some do not consider the impact of something (such as music) concerning the life of an idividual hence the reason for my testimony - to give one a rare, different perspective. Additionally, I might have left it alone to just sheer opinion if I felt it did not have a religious base. But it does. Read what Ellen White says concerning music, "Care in the Conduct of Song Service --In the meetings held, let a number be chosen to take part in the song service. And let the singing be accompanied with musical instruments skillfully handled. We are not to oppose the use of instruments of music in our work." The Voice in Speech and Song, page 439, paragraph 3.

Then, after a long period of time, my friend and band mate asked if he could get his privileges back to practice again after church and the answer was that we had never really lost them. Now, we were starting to get a little confused. My brother and I were right there when we were told we couldn't play anymore.

Then, as time drew on, this whole thing happened. Letting people play (not just youth) for over 1 year and then stopping us was very hard to take. They are so afraid of becoming a "praise" church that we have gone too far on the other end. The pendulum has swung ultra-right. The way our church is set up is far different from the New Testament church, from the public address system to the pews. It wasn't all there. It is kind of contradictory.

And why just guitars and/or music? We advance in everything else electrical except guitars. We have a video projector, photocopyer, T.V./V.C.R., satellite dish etc. One would almost get the impression that they are afraid of the youth or have something personal against us or don't trust us or something. Of course this is only speculation but how would you look at it?

Our church does rents its' building on Sunday to another denomination and they have drums and the whole bit. It is the same place. We find that a little strange.

Our main hope now is just to take our talents elsewhere to praise God. This weekend (the 19th. of June 1999) we went to another church as a youth group and put on an excellent youth program there with skits, testimonies, and of cousre, music. We were so scared and had kind of been programmed by our own church through this experience that we were debating whether or not we could even bring our equipment in there (just like when this first started with the youth before the adults got involved, I was thinking maybe it was in my head but it wasn’t). But! It went from that point to receiving a HUGE blessing! Everyone loved it, including the pastor. They were asking all kinds of questions about our music group (as well as all of us) and loved it. Everyone sang along and we had the words to the songs on the overhead projector. The pastor was even talking about singing to the music of our group at campmeeting and couldn't believe why our music would not be welcomed. A lot of churches are looking for youth groups like ours. See Luke 4:24.

In conclusion, I think we could all learn a valuable lesson from this. Any comments can be addressed in the forum.