Tag Archives: church orchestra

Using the Orchestra in the Intergenerational Church During a Pandemic

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As a follow up to my last post Resuming Choir Rehearsals During a Pandemic- How we’ve done it, I wanted to share how we began our process of re-incorporating our orchestra into worship. Like most all churches, we found ourselves having to become digital only for our March 15th service. We went to livestream only, where I led from piano only until April 26th. On the 26th, I had our rhythm section and two other singers join us to enhance the sound knowing that we would begin in-person worship on May 17th. You should have seen the joy on our player’s faces that day; they just wanted to play and serve. We operated in this manner through all of May and most of June.

In the middle of June, I contacted our 38 orchestra members and asked them their comfort level with playing in worship services. All but two were comfortable returning. Because of the physical distancing requirements, I have only been able to accommodate 25 players in any service. We have lots of folks in our orchestra that are family members so I was able to group family members nearer to each other to fill out our orchestra. On June 28th, I welcomed our orchestra back to the platform and continued to use our praise team to lead our congregation. My goal was to create a familiar atmosphere for solid congregational singing and the orchestra with the praise team was the “safest” choice to accomplish this.

Some will disagree with me on this point, but I felt that getting the players back in the building to lead was more important than bringing back the choir instead. I have over 90 singers in my choir. With distancing requirements and our space limitations, I realized I’d have to create rotating teams that were, based on our room, inadequate to bring the full sound we were accustomed to. There was always the option to mic these singers well, but I was also worried about finding the right combinations of singers to carry an anthem well. Further, our choir has found a safer way to still serve in music ministry that allows them to be a part without being in the loft on Sunday mornings. Recently, our choir has begun meeting in our sanctuary spread out and we’ve recorded some anthems to use on Sundays. Because we’re only averaging 35-40 percent of our people for in-person worship, those watching livestream can’t tell the difference in the recordings we show. The choir meeting and recording for worship gives them a chance to still serve in music ministry until we get the opportunity to all be together again. In fact our choir and orchestra will begin meeting on Wednesdays starting in October to record together spread out.

Why the Orchestra is Vital to the Intergenerational Church

A few years ago, I wrote a blog about the growth of our orchestra here at Ivy Creek and how this single ministry perhaps is the best visual representation of the intergenerational church at its best. It is yet another one of the reasons I’m glad we’re using our orchestra every week for the time being. Read it here:

Developing an Orchestra in the Intergenerational Church—from 7-30+ players in five years.

If I were to count the number of evangelical churches across America that use orchestras every week, my number wouldn’t be very high based on resources, size, space, et al. My experience the orchestra is one of the most intergenerational groups in our whole church. In few other groups in our church will you find teens serving alongside many other generational cohorts on a regular basis.

At this moment, four generations in our church play in our orchestra. Ten of those players are under the age of 20; all my string players (7) are students. The students who play for us are excellent players and the sight-reading they get to do for me helps them in their school bands and orchestras. Without using all our generations, we wouldn’t be an orchestra…we’d be a band…we’d be smaller, less effective, and have less color/timbre. Teach them to serve for life. Invest in your students.

You’ve Made me Learn to Love Contemporary Music

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Last night I was approached by an octogenarian woman during our family night meal. She looked me dead in the face and said something to the effect of, “Will, you’ve made me learn to love contemporary music.” As I’ve thought about this over the last day, I’m starting to wonder how I’ve made her learn to love contemporary music? I didn’t realize I had that power! Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to continue our conversation because I needed to get to my first rehearsal. Of course the next time I see her I’m going to ask her, but for now, I can only guess why she said that to me—and 80-something year old woman whose church music heart-language likely does not include the latest Passion tune. However, something in the way we present contemporary music resonates with someone from our Builder generation.

While I don’t have an exact answer to why she felt compelled to stop me at the coffee bar yet, I have some guesses:

  1. Utilize contemporary songs that are biblically-rich. I refuse to put on the lips of our people songs that aren’t clear in theology and Christ-glorifying.
  2. Utilize contemporary songs where the music and text complement each other. Much has been said about this, but effective text/word painting is crucial to cementing the truth in the minds and hearts of the worshipers.
  3. Utilize contemporary songs with a hook. You all know what I’m talking about—songs with the indelible earworm. Songs that have sections that contain melodic (or even harmonic) sections that you can’t get out of your head. My current earworms are Way Maker and I Belong to Jesus (O Hallelujah). If you don’t know them, be prepared to invest lots of time hearing the song in your head. But you know what? These songs reinforce the TRUTH of who God is and my relationship and response to Him. If you listen any pop music at all, the most popular songs have hooks–and rightly so, we humans respond to them. No matter your age, a fantastic hook transcends generations!
  4. Instrumentation. I don’t think we can overestimate the importance of how the music is played and sung. A rock band is going to sound different on most contemporary songs than a full orchestra (even if you have the same rhythm section in your orchestra). We use orchestra every week and my guess is our chosen method of presentation is more intergenerational friendly.
  5. Volume. I CANNOT stress how important volume and decibel level is in a worship service. I talk at length about this in my article here: The Noise is Deafening and It’s Not My Fault!  Basically, as we get older, we get more sensitive to sound. If you want to ostracize older people, disregard decibel levels. We make very sure that we set volume levels appropriately for our worship space.
  6. Relationships. I care about the people I serve. I care about the content that God has given me the responsibility to feed them musically. My octogenarian friend probably has learned to love contemporary music because I do not lay aside our historically-rich hymns of the faith either. In fact I try to find creative ways to use textual similarities between new and old and put them together in worship services. I want all generations in my church to know that no music is off-limits based on it’s copyright date alone. By this I’m able to bridge gaps and build relationships across generational lines. It’s kind of an inter-musical approach for the intergenerational church!

What might you add to my list here?

What is Modified Intergenerational Worship?

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I believe there are leaders who truly desire to be intergenerational in their approach to worship but have multiple types of services in their church. These leaders sincerely believe their church fits the definition of intergenerational in every context, except the part where services should be mirrored in terms of content and style. These churches are not a “pure” form of intergenerational, but truly believe in the biblical concept that intergenerational behavior, interaction, and philosophy is important. These churches are what I refer to as modified intergenerational.

Some reasons why modified intergenerational churches are necessary:

  1. The church with space issues. Sometimes a second worship team is necessary because there are more people than seating.
  2. The church with aesthetic issues. Worship spaces that are very traditional make it difficult to achieve more diverse styles of worship. This may also include acoustic issues as well.
  3. The church with programming issues. I’ve found this particularly common in large churches with multiple Bible Study times, etc.

Here are the non-negotiables to being modified intergenerational:

  1. The leadership must always seek ways to integrate the generations in worship and in other ministries of the church. A regular opportunity for the church to worship together can be quite effective for integrating the generations.
  2. The decision to create (or maintain) different services cannot be based primarily on music preferences of those in charge. I think a better approach is to find what musical styles your particular congregation does well, and capitalize on them. Consider the talent pool of your church and start there. That doesn’t mean not to branch out and take a few risks, but don’t be something you’re not to try to reach certain people. Inauthentic and mediocre worship services do not attract anyone in the long-term.
  3. The decision to create (or maintain) cannot be based on a power struggle from staff and/or key leadership to “get what they want.”
  4. The decision to create (or maintain) cannot be based on what some “other church” is doing that seems to be growing. Every church context is different and what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for all.
  5. The leadership of the church doesn’t move service times with the specific purpose of trying to target families and then decide/assume that young families prefer a certain type of music. We’ve all read the research that says that services that start before 9:30 on a Sunday will be mostly older generations and not families. I’ve seen numerous churches that “assume” that young families are only interested in modern worship music so they may a flip-flop long standing traditional worship with a new contemporary service at 11 am. Guess what this does? If 11 am is still the highest visiting hour for new visitors, it almost assures that visitors to your church will be getting a skewed view of the whole church. Likewise, if it’s targeted for families, the Bible study hour for children may only be offered opposite this service, which makes it almost necessary for any family wanting to worship together to attend 11 regardless of what the family might desire to do. Moving what was traditionally the “church” hour for many Boomers and Builders to another time can be a slap in the face. It screams, we don’t care about you, we only care about the new people who might be here…or our young families…so because you are more mature in your faith, you need to take one for the team and submit your desires to the new believers. Okay, there is merit to this argument to a degree, but if every time you turn around your submitting and there is nothing on the other end, then we’re missing the part in Philippians 2 about being MUTUALLY submissive.
         *A better solution is to make sure that members and visitors alike aren’t hindered in service choice based on other (controllable) factors such as Bible Study/Sunday School choices. Other factors, such as time, location, and music will vary from congregation to congregation in the modified intergenerational church, but the emphasis is again ALWAYS on valuing ALL generations and making the best choices with what you have.

What would you add? Send me a message or respond and join in the conversation. I’d love to hear what other churches that are modified in their approach are doing to keep generational integration alive.