Holy Sound
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
The War Between The Drums & Organ?
Growing up in Jamaica during the 1990s-2000s as a young Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) boy, I experienced two distinct sounds within the same church. The church, its doctrines, the Sabbath, and the Bible remained consistent, but worship styles varied depending on the location you attended. Some churches were deeply reserved. The atmosphere was quiet and orderly. The organ, or most times a keyboard, carried the service gently as members sat in solemn reflection. Reverence, I believe, was expressed through silence, stillness, and composure. Worship in those spaces felt sacred, dignified, and controlled, and you did not cross those ‘boundaries.’
Then there were other SDA churches, just a couple of minutes from my church, still preaching the Three Angels’ Messages, still proclaiming Christ, but the sound was different: Drums were present, the music pulsed with rhythm, and the congregation responded with energy. Worship moved beyond observation and became participation, and somewhere between the organ and the drum, I grew up trying to understand both.
I remember many Sabbaths watching pastors or elders quietly approach the musicians during song service. Yet it was rarely the organist or keyboardist they corrected. It was usually the drummer. A whisper here. A gesture there. Sometimes the beat became “too much.” Sometimes the rhythm crossed an invisible line no one ever fully explained.
What fascinated me as a child was that the same church that seemed uncomfortable with drums on Sabbath morning suddenly embraced them during evangelistic crusades, youth congresses, and outreach programs. The full band would appear, and energy filled the atmosphere. The same sounds, once viewed with caution, became tools for evangelism. Even then, I sensed something deeper was happening. As I matured, I came to appreciate reserved worship; after all, it has been a greater part of my socialization. Truth be told, there is beauty in quiet reflection.
There are sacred moments when silence allows the soul to breathe before God. The soft movement of a keyboard beneath a congregation singing in harmony can create an atmosphere of awe that ministers deeply to the heart.
But even while appreciating that style, part of me still wondered:
“Where are the drums?”
That question followed me for years because I slowly realized the tension in our churches was never simply about music. It was about culture!
The more I observed church life in Jamaica and across the wider Caribbean and its diaspora, the more I noticed that worship styles often reflected deeper historical and cultural influences. Certain forms of worship, reserved, formal, and restrained, were often treated as more reverent and therefore more holy. Meanwhile, expressive worship rooted in rhythm, movement, and emotional participation was sometimes viewed with suspicion.
I pondered whether I would be judged for expressing the thought that my church had developed two worship identities, even as I struggled to write this blog. I suppose I will not know until it’s published.
One leaned heavily into Eurocentric notions of reverence: silence, order, composure, restraint, and controlled expression. The other reflected Afrocentric and Afro-Caribbean expressions of worship: rhythm, communal participation, emotional transparency, embodied praise, and celebration.¹
Yet both existed under the same denominational roof. And both sincerely loved God.
That realization changed me, because eventually I had to confront difficult questions within myself:
How much of what we called “holy” was actually cultural conditioning?
To what extent had our understanding of reverence been shaped by colonial influence and inherited respectability politics? And how often did we confuse personal comfort with biblical righteousness?
The Caribbean church did not develop in a vacuum. Christianity in the region was deeply shaped by European colonial history. Historians have noted that colonial Christianity often carried European ideas of decorum, bodily restraint, and institutional order into worship spaces throughout the Caribbean.² At the same time, African-descended worship traditions preserved rhythm, communal participation, movement, and percussion as sacred forms of spiritual expression.³
This tension between restraint and rhythm did not disappear when Caribbean people became Christians. In many ways, it entered the church itself. The organ often became associated with reverence, sophistication, and proper worship. The drum, however, carried a more complicated history. For some, it symbolized celebration and cultural memory. For others, it represented emotional excess or a departure from “acceptable” worship culture.
Looking back, I realize the issue was never simply the instrument. It was what the instrument represented. The drum represented a worship style that felt too emotional for some. Too free. Too expressive. Too culturally African. And without realizing it, many churches inherited the idea that holiness sounded more European than Caribbean. Scholars studying Western Christian worship traditions have observed that many European worship structures historically emphasized restraint and control. In contrast, African diasporic traditions embraced embodied participation through rhythm, movement, and communal response.⁴ This does not make one holy and the other sinful.
It simply reveals how culture shapes expression. I do not say this to condemn reserved worship. That would miss the point entirely. As I grew older, I came to appreciate the quiet aspects of worship. I learned that silence can be holy, too:
Reflection matters.
Reverence matters.
Stillness before God matters.
But I also came to understand that silence is not the only language of reverence. Incidentally, as a young man, I experienced judgment firsthand. There were moments where expressive worship was subtly associated with emotionalism, disorder, or even spiritual immaturity. Dancing, shouting, or responding passionately during worship could make someone appear less reverent in the eyes of others. But over time, I came to a conclusion that settled deeply within my spirit: “I am not demonic because I danced, and I am not a saint because I am silent.”
That sentence captures years of observation, tension, and spiritual growth.
Here’s the truth, my friends. Holiness has never been determined by volume. A quiet church is not automatically holy, and a loud church is not automatically worldly. The Bible itself presents worship in multiple forms. There are moments of silence and reverence before God, and moments filled with cymbals, dancing, shouting, and joyful praise.
David danced before the Lord with all his might (2 Samuel 6:14). The Psalms repeatedly call believers to praise God with instruments, loud sounds, and celebration (Psalm 150:3–6). Yet Scripture also teaches order, humility, and reverence (1 Corinthians 14:40).
The tension, then, is not between drums and organs. The real tension is whether we can recognize God moving through expressions that may not look or sound like our personal preferences.
The years of my childhood went so fast, but the old tension remains. Now, as a pastor in said denomination, I find myself shepherding, or better yet, lullabying, the same tension, as both worship cultures within our church seemingly strengthened their resilience, for they both have survived the long debates, board meetings, and intermittent shift of congregation. Some members connect deeply with reflective hymns and quiet meditation, while others encounter God through expressive praise and rhythmic worship. How many of us are worshipping not from the deep roots of our cultural heritage but from the environment in which we were socialized?
I am Mark, but for a moment, I would like to be Frank. I have a healthy assumption that many people from the reserved tradition secretly enjoy the upbeat worship style, too. I have seen members criticize drums during divine service yet celebrate the same energy at crusades, concerts, youth rallies, and special programs. I have sat through long board meetings debating whether drums belong in church, even as I knew many of the same people enjoyed those very rhythms outside formal worship settings.
That contradiction taught me something important: People often struggle not only with theology but also with cultural comfort. What feels unfamiliar can seem ‘irreverent’, while what feels inherited can seem holy. But inherited does not always mean biblical, and unfamiliar does not always mean ungodly.
What I have learned as a pastor is that both groups often desire the same thing: an authentic encounter with God. And perhaps that is what worship has always been about:
Not performance.
Not cultural superiority.
Not inherited aesthetics.
But vulnerability before God. Too often, churches divide over style while forgetting substance. We defend our preferred sounds while neglecting the condition of the heart producing them. We sometimes measure holiness through cultural lenses rather than spiritual fruit. But commitment to God cannot be measured by how European or Afro-Caribbean someone’s worship appears.
The Kingdom of God is larger than either style; the organ does not own reverence, the drum does not own passion.
And perhaps the church becomes healthiest not when one sound silences the other, but when both learn to worship together in humility, understanding, and grace. Because maybe holiness does not have a single sound after all.
Have you ever felt judged based on your style of worship?
Yes
No
Maybe
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