Miller, Mandi Michelle2023-01-052023-01-052000https://hdl.handle.net/10092/104929http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/14024The relationship of the Pentecostal-Charismatic's style of music and worship practices to religious experience is the central focus of this study. The church uses music to facilitate religious experience in congregants during the music and worship portion of a typical Sunday morning service. The music's compositional characteristics were analyzed to ascertain their potential emotional effects. In Part A of this study, of a single Pentecostal­Charismatic church at a Sunday morning service, 95 members responded to questionnaires regarding their personal views about the degree to which the music is important in the church service and why. Participants' mood significantly increased from directly before the service to directly after the music and worship portion of the service, although there was little further change immediately after the service was finished. Taped interviews with church members provided additional information. Two groups - a non-Pentecostal-Charismatic group and a group from the church - constituted the samples for Part B of this study. The questionnaires measured participants' affective responses to four musical selections of the same "pop" type genre. Two selections were secular and two were religious selections used in worship services at the church. While both groups reported having similar affective responses to the two secular selections, the Pentecostal-Charismatic group experienced significantly higher "energetic" and "awesome" emotions when listening to the two religious selections. When explaining the results, familiarity with the music and associations with the music proved most important, while musical composition seemed to be of secondary importance. Results from the combined studies are discussed for what they imply about the connections between music, emotion, and religious experience. Overall, this study demonstrated how music is used as a main facilitator ofreligious experience in the Pentecostal-Charismatic style of worship.enAll Rights ReservedMusic--Religious aspects--Pentecostal churchesEmotions--Religious aspects--Pentecostal churchesChurch music--Pentecostal churchesWorshipTheses / Dissertations