Worshipping in Defiance

In Joe Horness' response to Bests' arguments for traditional Hymn-based worship, he mentions that this style of worship is "sometimes... used almost in defiance of new styles and expressions of worship being written today" and that this "becomes the tradition that binds us to the overly familiar, and that quietly suffocates what is genuine and real in our praise." Admittedly, there are some churches that are guilty of this attitude of defiance, but this is certainly not the type of worship that Best is promoting. The type of Hymn-based worship that Best describes is interactive, intelligent, readily accepts sound new texts, and genuine. There are also some congregations that have embraced only new style and music "in defiance" of the "traditional." Some have gone so far as to rid their sanctuaries of hymns and hymnbooks altogether. This is disconcerting to me personally, because, as someone who has a poor musical memory, but can read music, it will take me the entire song just to learn the melody if there is no text and music right in front of me. Consequently, by the end of the song I've neither interacted with the text, nor have I participated in the singing. I appreciate what Best said about the singability of good hymns- old and new. Funny how such a basic and indespensible factor in congregational singing is so often overlooked.