Old? Or out of touch?

I've had a few interesting revelations this week. The first is in relation to music. The second relates to slang.

Most of the songs we sing here at the River are "popular" wrshp songs. But I realized that I'm pretty sure they have a different meaning for us (or at least me) here because we don't have them thrust upon us by radio stations and popularity charts. If we hear them, it's because we've chosen to add them to a playlist and listen to it.

Sure, I know what's "popular" and "in" for wrshp services in the states, but I know because I'm reading blogs of other wrshp leaders and seeing what they're playing. When I see new songs listed in their weekly song sets, I look up the lyrics, the chords, and an mp3. That's how I'm exposed to new music. And that's how the River is exposed to it- mostly through my "research."

And I'm glad that the songs that encourage us, challenge us, comfort us aren't songs that we hear 80 times a week on the radio. Sure, hearing the songs on the radio could encourage us repeatedly through the week, but maybe we just wouldn't be encouraged at all anymore. But also, I like that I'm not constantly hearing "professionals" sing the songs the "right" way. The songs we sing become "ours" and they morph a little- to suit our multi-cultural group.

My second revelation happened just now for the umpteenth time this week. I had to look up an abbreviation that I saw on someone's FB status. I'm lucky I even know that FB stands for Facebook. Having limited access to the "lingo" of the online world means that I now sometimes don't understand people's status updates. All those abbreviations, random symbols, and weblinks that don't even look real (actually, at first I thought they were all spam-related and couldn't figure out why so many people's FB statuses had been spammed).

Don't people use words anymore? Can't we just go back to the good ol' days where we spoke in complete words?

I feel old. How am I going to feel when I'm my grandparents' age?