I take the perspective that music is only a tool - a vehicle. I can worship (and God can move) to hymns just as much as he can to contemporary music. In fact, God has spoken to me through secular music. Music is cultural identity and, I think, should be viewed as such. Foster admonishes us to be cautious of our cultural biases and maintaining the status quo (31-33). I think music is a way of maintaining the status quo since it is so closely associated to memory and culture groups (i.e., the 80's lunch-time music radio is now giving way to 90's lunch-time music). This is why I say it's only a vehicle.
As I had to re-read this week's assignment earlier today, I noticed something that I had missed earlier - that is, Foster's somewhat-subtle focus on community and relationships. In one instance he notes that programs "focus on instant rather than sustained intimacy" (30, emphasis mine). A couple of sentences down he mentions the "relationship with a transcendent reality or in the historicity of our common life" (30). I would agree that music fits into the "historicity of our common life," but music is but one small part of a much larger picture.
What I think one thing Foster is saying in pages is that discipleship is caught more than it is taught. More than any program or tool, a mentoring-type of relationship with another person in the faith is what should be driving our discipleship. We need more "sustained intimacy" with God and others who are intimate with Him (in appropriate ways, of course
).