Tag Archives: musical style

Merging Worship Styles

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Over the last several months, I’ve heard of several churches that have had multiples styles of worship prior to Covid making changes to one, more balanced, intergenerational style. Most of the worship pastors I’ve heard from are excited that their churches are embracing a more inclusive worship experience. For those of you in a similar boat, here are some great guidelines (not exhaustive, of course) for you to use when considering a shift from multiple styles back to one, more balanced, style. To be clear, this is not a call against churches with multiple styles, but rather some practical ways those churches seeking to bring greater unity to their churches by merging into one style may do so.

  1. Prayer! Pray for unity in specific ways (1 Cor. 1:10; Phil 2:1-8; Col 3:14; 2 Cor 13:11; Rom 15:6; et al). Remember: the goal is not to make everyone in the church unhappy by telling them their preferred style of music (and let’s be honest, music and time frame are what people care about) will no longer be the same. Pray for soft and receptive hearts, for unity, and for God’s glory.
  2. Must be approved by the Senior/Lead Pastor. While many of the worship pastors didn’t say this directly to me, I got a very strong sense that the move to multiple styles of worship was championed by senior leadership who felt the need to reach more people/please more people in their church. While this is not a hard and fast rule, many worship pastors would not advocate for having to plan and lead (or even oversee other leaders) for multiple worship styles. Therefore, you can bet that the senior/lead pastor must be on board with this change. If you can, remind your pastor of the biblical precedents of intergenerational worship and how unity is the goal.
  3. Must have buy in from key leaders. I don’t think I can stress this enough. Have meetings, have conversations, have prayer with all those major leaders/players in the process of coming together. Share your heart and philosophical reasonings for why intergenerational worship is biblically sound. Be prepared to answer tough questions and anxious people. Think through every aspect of how the changes will affect as many groups inside the church so you’re prepared when confronted with questions.
  4. Consider your church context. Every church is unique. When hearing from each church planning to merge together, each and every one had a specific set of limitations and concerns. Carefully consider how this move might affect your Bible Study/Life Groups/Sunday School, your choir and orchestra, your band, AVL teams, etc. Ask yourself: what challenges present themselves that we need to solve before and during our merging process. The most common questions will likely be, “what will the new service look like? and who will be involved?”
  5. Work hard to bring together a “new” common musical language. One of the biggest tasks you’ll have to navigate is merging the hymnody of your multiple styles of worship. Perhaps there are songs that overlap from each of the separate services—begin with those. Look for ways to integrate familiar songs for “all” groups represented. You may have to unify the charts used and the instrumentation depending on your new intergenerational style, but choose wisely and carefully…especially if drums were not present in one of the services.
  6. Figure out a way to utilize all the musicians from all services. This is also a challenge because when combining forces, you’re going to realize there might be some redundancy in your players. Find creative ways to use them all in an equitable rotation. Just remember…we’re in this together; no one is totally excluded. There are some challenges to face depending on your context. I heard from one colleague that has merged styles and their choices related to merging styles has the choir not singing every week for now. He said it’s hurt rehearsal attendance because there’s not the weekly service to sing in. However, this same choir is now having to sing for multiple services on the weeks they are scheduled! The scenarios are endless. Just realize there will be compromises ahead! Handle them with grace.
  7. Make changes slowly. Unless you have an incredible reason to make a dramatic shift quickly, make slow changes—working in one new song that might be new to everyone–or one new instrument that might change the timbre of the sound. Perhaps the dress of the worship leadership themselves might need to be done slowly. If one service was formal and the other very informal, find a compromise on the dress to help foster unification.

As a church that is pretty textbook intergenerational and our services are identical with one prevailing style, which has both traditional and contemporary elements, I can say our move in 2014 to two completely mirrored services had its own challenges. While we didn’t have a musical style issue to overcome, we did have several practical issues to deal with. Here was our scenario:

*We had an 8:30 and 11:00 service with SS in between (choir and orchestra only at 11-PT and band at 8:30- same music, but without choir feature; we moved to SS at 8:20, 9:45, and 11 and our worship times went to 9:45 and 11.
*Our shift to back to back services allowed us to use the choir and orchestra for both services (although choir was only in loft for first 10-15 minutes of service–major drawback). The plus was each service got the identical worship experience. To date I have less than a 15-20% change in choir size between the services, because the choir sings and then can go to SS, stay for whole service, or leave. The change did require many more volunteers than we had before, but the dividends have been worth it. I built up the excitement of being involved in the worship services while not having to miss SS.
*Biggest drawback has been parking. Between 10:30 and 11 is the time frame we have the most people on campus at any given time. The 11 worship attenders are starting to arrive, 9:45 attenders are still here, and our largest SS time (9:45) is still in session. We regularly max out parking, so many have to park off-campus.

If you and your staff are considering a shift and have questions, either I, or some other trusted friends who’ve been through shift like mine or a musical style shift, would be happy to talk with you about it!

Generation X: Tolerant of All Types of Church Music?

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I was recently reading a dialogue in a Facebook group I’m a part of that basically said that folks under 35 only want to sing worship music in church like Passion/Bethel/Hillsong, to name a few, while folks over 65 only wanted to sing traditional hymnody in a traditional four-part way—forget any creativity in hymn arrangements. The folks in the conversation then agreed that if all church members were of Generation X age, there wouldn’t be this polarizing disparity in congregational song. Obviously, these comments are not scientific and exceptions abound, but it sounded like something I would agree with. This conversation got me to thinking, “are folks in Generation X more tolerant of varying types of music for musical worship? If they are, why is that?”

I can personally speak to my own experience as someone who falls on the lower end of the 38-62 year old range. I remember as a teen in the late 80s and early 90s, the incorporation of new praise songs in corporate worship joined together with familiar hymnody. Back then, I don’t remember knowing any churches that had multiple services that were altogether different musically. But, by the mid 90s and early 2000s, I knew of many. Could this worship service polarization shift be a major reason why those older as well as those younger than those of us in Generation X feel so passionately about specific types of music for worship? Let’s explore further…

My church musical experiences up to the late 90s, and many of my generational cohort, was more than likely one of musical fluidity in church worship services—all types of music were used in each service (however lame or overly repetitive they might’ve been).   Those of us in Generation X who’ve grown up in the church can remember when churches were unified in their music approach yet had different musical styles. Sure, during this time there were churches that used more traditional or contemporary music (and instrumentation), but by and large, each church had a similar hymnody and basically one style of service.

Why is it that it seems those of us in Generation X are more tolerant of varying kinds of music? Do you believe this to be true as well?

Worship services, during the formative years of many Gen Xers, included lots of musical styles. So, when churches (in the late 1990s and 2000s) decided to segregate into music-specific worship services, many from Generation X were comfortable in any worship scenario. I believe we of Generation X are not as firmly stuck in our “old ways,” as the over 65 crowd. Remember, most Boomers were at least 40 years old during this shift. Being over 40 myself, I can tell you–change its much harder at this age! Likewise, I believe many of our younger Millennials and Generation Z (especially those born since the advent of segregated services) have yet to see passed their own limited experience, which may include internet-based or concert-based worship services. So, much more could be said here, but I think you get the idea.

Without proper research, these questions will remain. What I do believe to be true is people resonant with familiarity. Given to our own devices, all humans default to their comfort zone. Without exposure to multiple types of musical worship, we humans will always resort to the familiar or our preferences. That being the case, I hope that people under my care as worship leader will sing truth with as many available musical types of worship with strong texts. The key is exposure!

I’d love to hear your opinions on why Generation X seems to be more tolerant with music in the church?

 

Bringing the Church Back Together- Part 1- Biblical Foundations

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Over the last few years, I’ve had people contact me and ask questions about serving an intergenerational church and leading an intergenerational music ministry. I’ve really enjoyed discussing how we do what we do here. One of the more difficult questions that is asked of me is, “how do we go from having multiple services with different types of music to one type of service?” Honestly, I must confess, I’ve never had to do that so my personal experience is not applicable to my answer. However, I’ve talked with several who have brought their churches back together and their experiences are very helpful to the conversation. As a side note, I have, in all other churches I’ve served but my current church, started new services with different music styles. Let me tell you, it is generally not sustainable for the long term for many faith communities—especially those established churches. I’ll speak about that issue another time.

The purpose of this series of post is to delineate a few of the many ways leaders can navigate the transition from multiple worship styles back to one style. Because of the length of the material, I will break this into several posts. This first post centers on why we need to be together anyway. Click here for a few other blog posts I’ve written that deal with the importance of intergenerational philosophy:
Why Leaders Value an Intergenerational Choral Ministry,

Why should we educate ourselves in importance of Intergenerational Ministry/worship?

What does it mean to be Intergenerational?

Varying Music Types that are Biblically-rich Promote Unity

I begin with the MAIN reason I believe church worship should be unified in purpose…the biblical foundation of mutual submission. Sometimes being unified means not always getting your way. Many intergenerational churches strive to use a variety of music in their services because of the variety of people present. However, this is a common misconception. I know many intergenerational churches that are mostly traditional or modern in their musical approach. Find out the DNA of the church culture and be that first. Let the context drive the music selection. Be unified in purpose first.

Generally referenced as the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus included these words:  “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:21-23).

There are also many verses about preferring one another in love and striving for unity. For instance the well known passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians 2: 2-5: So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,  complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

There isn’t a biblical worship model that supports divided worship styles that I can find. Realistically, our churches couldn’t launch enough style-based venues to satisfy each church member’s musical preference. Have you ever notice that stylistically divided worship only exists almost entirely in the US evangelical church? I haven’t seen or heard of anyone who’s encountered churches with multiple style venues outside our country.

All Spirit-filled believers long for a healthy, growing church. I believe our worship structures should be guided by the words found at the end of Acts 2:  “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe…all those who had believed were together…Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple…taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

Over the years I’ve discovered one thing…most churches with multiple types of services truly only have one prominent thing different—the music. Outside of musical differences, there are few changes worth noting: some “relaxed” atmosphere and casual dress. Maybe a lack of traditional liturgies in those churches that use creeds, responsive readings, etc. But, music and the teams that lead the music, are often the focal point of the style-based service.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are convicted that an intergenerational approach is necessary for the continued longevity of your church body, take heart. If you are weary from the strain having multiple smaller churches under one roof, then you’ll want to read the next few blog posts about some practical ways to bring your people back together.

I’m praying for the “few” who might read this and their spirits are crying out for their church to become unified in purpose and mission. You can be the catalyst for the Spirit to use you to inspire the needed change in your community of faith.