In his Worship Matters newsletter, Bob Kauflin recently shared the following story (original author unknown):
An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big-city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.
“Well,” said the farmer, “it was good; but they did something different. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns.”
“Praise choruses?” said his wife. “What are those?”
“Oh, they’re OK. They’re sort of like hymns, only different,” said the farmer.
“Well, what’s the difference?” asked his wife.
The farmer said, “Well it’s like this: If I said to you: ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well, that would be a hymn. On the other hand, if I said to you: ‘Martha Martha, Martha, Oh, Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black-and-white cows, the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, the CORN, CORN, CORN,’ then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well that would be a praise chorus.”