Date Posted:20:05:10 04/07/05 Thu Author: PECAS Subject: Re: The UBF favorite hymn In reply to:
Chris
's message, "Re: The UBF favorite hymn" on 16:36:17 04/07/05 Thu
>Exactly. You're right, the service did not start with
>the hymn, but with some contemporary songs and the
>young members standing in front and singing as
>"warm-uppers." In UBF jargon it was called "creating
>the atmosphere." It made the service a little bit more
>attractive for newcomers. After that, the "official"
>service started with that hymn and everything became
>formal.
Asking young members to sing contemporary songs is also a form of training. The performance must be exactly as the leaders prescribe. In addition, when UBF leaders find out that a growing sheep enjoys singing or playing an instrument, the leaders will manipulate the sheep by using singsperation and other opportunities to perform music as a carrot. For example, the sheep will have to come to the worship service every Sunday, go fishing at least once or twice per week, feed sheep, and write testimonies in order to perform with the singsperation team. The UBF leaders will justify these requirements by claiming that in order to provide a good environment for the worship service, they must have reached a certain spiritual standard. In UBF, sheep only prove their merit by through testimonies, fishing, feeding sheep, and attendance to meetings. If the sheep misses one meeting or fails to feed sheep one week, he/she are likely to be removed from singsperation as training and made to write a repentant testimony describing how their lack of 'faith' to 'do God's work' ruined the singsperation and thus, the entire worship service environment.
