Unhappy Clappy

My sister told me this weekend that clapping in church is no longer cool. Not in England anyway. Now, I don't know about this because I haven't been to church in England for a while, say 6 years or so, but it seemed to be quite popular then though definitely denominationally dependent. Problem is, what do we call the 'evangelical free churches' if they are no longer 'Happy Clappy'?

In Switzerland there is still clapping. However it is not really happy, more try hard and sometimes painful. It does happen though so maybe we are a few years behind the fashions; things tend to hit mainland Europe after the UK and I can't see why clapping habits would be any different.

I like clapping in church, when I don't play the piano. It can be tricky to do when not many others are into it but I have a loud clap and last Sunday we did such a funky gospel number (Soon and Very Soon) and it was my baptism, so I was very up for giving it a go. Got a bit of a following too, my dear clap fan friend was sitting in front and we carried on gallantly for a good verse and a half. Daddy taught me well about hitting the off-beats and I wasn't really paying much attention, just enjoying the moment.

Until...

Someone on the other side of the Oratoire started very stubbornly hitting the on-beat.

Now that threw me. For one thing I'm not very good at identifying which beat is which when I think about it, I just go wid da flo, so while that felt wrong I wasn't sure and thought maybe they were correcting me. Needless to say I stopped and soon after my friend was adjusting to their time keeping. I could not bring myself to do it and was sad to miss out on the rhythm praise but I also did not claim to know better. Plus, the idea of a clap-off seems ridiculous and church the wrong place to do it. And ridiculous.

One of the vocalists was desperately trying to click it out for us in the manner that I had started so with hindsight I suppose what I was doing was right (if you can have a right and wrong about what beat to clap on) and really I just lacked confidence at the crucial moment.

But if I can't go for it when God is calling me to clap for Him, even with the guidance of a more mature time keeper, what use am I?

I say clap. Clap with everything you have. The on-beat faux pas didn't last and there was silence... don't let that be you.