Last weekend I attended a Christian event which began with sung worship. This was nothing unusual - a young guy with a guitar, songs I had heard before and sung along with  joyful songs, praising God's power and our salvation, songs full of encouragement and truth. Yet something felt wrong - the songs were in the wrong key for me.

Lent is traditionally a time when we remember two things: the forty days of temptation that Jesus faced in the desert at the start of his ministry and also the run up to holy week, the crucifixion on Good Friday. In preparation for the Good Friday service that I'm planning, I've really been living in the feeling of that day, exploring the imagery of the stations of the cross and music that reflects the minor key, the lament of Lent.

At another conference recently, a speaker who has a fairly high profile here in the UK made a throwaway comment on the reasons that many young people are leaving the church. One (among many) that he suggested was that there was no place for lament in our evangelical and charismatic churches. The worship music is, as I experienced at the weekend, overwhelmingly up-beat, positive, happy. But if you're anything like me, that's not how I feel every Sunday morning, let alone Monday morning or even Friday afternoon. We deal with that in different ways, ranging from guilt to
<ul>
	<li>upbeat worship feeling wrong</li>
	<li>lack of lament a reason why YP leaving church</li>
	<li>lent a time to remember mortality</li>
	<li>need worship in a minor key to counter balance the upbeat</li>
</ul>