by Don Chapman
A few months ago I visited a church and helped
them creatively work through some worship
issues. Some might call this consulting,
I prefer to call it worship brainstorming.
This church is very traditional,
complete
with choirs, organs and
cantatas, and started
a contemporary service
in a nearby strip
mall. They sunk lots of
$$ into the beautiful
new facility.
The contemporary service
is a hit, and attendance
has grown larger than the
mother church.
The contemporary plant
has attracted the
late 30's to mid 50's crowd,
including several
successful (rich) professionals.
Their offerings
are larger than the offerings
of the mother
church.
There you have it - contemporary
is the new
traditional. This scenario
is happening all
over the country - traditional
church plants/starts
a contemporary church/service
and it booms.
Sometimes this even causes
strife as the
traditional church becomes
jealous of the
success of the new service/plant.
From my travels and observations,
here's
how I see the current state
of evangelical
Christendom:
On one end you have the
die-hard traditional churches. With some exceptions, these churches are
dying or dead, are attended
exclusively by
older people and will probably
close shop
soon when the last remaining
congregant is
buried. This church would
never think of
doing a song written in
the 20th century.
One person recently emailed
me to tell me
that the church organist
thought my contemporary
HymnCharts arrangements were inappropriate because
use of the piano "cheapened" the
hymn [did you know that some traditional
churches believe that only organ should be
used in worship.] Yikes! Do churches like
this still exist?
In the huge mainstream
middle you have contemporary churches filled with rich, poor, old, young, families
and singles. They have praise bands, sing
the CCLI top 20 and some hymns (not too loud)
and have relevant messages.
On the other end of the
spectrum you have
the radical, cutting-edge churches. Often called "emerging worship"
or "post modern," these churches
have loud, guitar-driven music (you'd probably
never hear the songs on CCM radio), are big
into outreach and thinking outside the box.
Congregations are mostly young and single.
While these churches can be large, they're
usually smaller by design and often prefer
an intimate, coffee house environment. Since
the congregation is young (i.e. no money)
they usually meet in rented facilities. Lots
of volunteers keep these ministries running.
These three touchstones
are a gauge for most
churches in America, and
of course many churches
fall somewhere between
- like a traditional
church that does a few
choruses and perhaps
gets wild and uses a piano
on Sunday nights,
or a contemporary church
that has cutting-edge
guitar-driven music that
isn't loud enough
to scare off the baby-boomers.
Now, back to the story
of the traditional
church I visited. So what
was their problem?
The pastor, who preaches
at both the contemporary
and traditional services
(same sermon, but
coat & tie for traditional
then a quick
change to casual clothes
for the contemporary
service), is concerned
that the contemporary
service wasn't attracting
that desirable
20-30 demographic.
After rehearsing with their
band, I understood
the issue. In one of my
recent articles,
I describe how music doesn't necessarily
grow a church, but instead
defines who attends
the church.
In this case, the band
of the contemporary
church was very good but
sounded like they
were stuck in 1987. One
of the quickest ways
to date your sound is to
have a guitarist
who uses chorusy, reverby
effects from 20
years ago. Because of the
instrumentation,
even the cutting edge songs
they were doing
sounded dated.
Another factor is the worship
leader - a
rather hip guy in his early
50's. I also
got a feeling of that old
Willow Creek performance
vibe so popular in the
90's. All together,
this added up to a service
that attracts...
people in their forties
and fifties.
So here's the predicament: take the music
up a notch and risk losing regular attenders,
or stay the same and not attract younger
people and families.
Isn't this funny - 15 years
ago the issue
was introducing praise
choruses. If you did,
you risked upsetting the
traditionalists.
If you didn't you wouldn't
attract younger
people and families.
Here was my suggestion:
if it ain't broke,
don't fix it. Obviously
the contemporary
service is successful.
People are getting
saved and are ministered
to. So what if the
music is a little dated
- it's still well
done.
The church had talked about
starting a Saturday
night service. Why not
make this service
a little more edgy? Get
a hot band and a
young worship leader and
see who shows up.
Then, with new, younger
musicians in the
mix, maybe some cross-pollination
would start
happening. The new, edgy
guitarist might
play in the contemporary
service one Sunday
and show the 80's guitarist
some new effect
settings and playing styles.
The young worship
leader and the older worship
leader might
occasionally swap services.
And everyone
will live happily ever
after!
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