Rick Muchow answers the question:
“Do you think it’s wise in a “small” church to have such a diversity in musical style like you do at Saddleback or should the Worship teams try to be aligned and consistent in the same style?”
Contemporary Is The New Traditional
I once 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 smash 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 – a traditional church plants a contemporary service and it booms. Sometimes this even causes strife as the traditional church becomes jealous of the success of the new service.
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 late 20th century. One person emailed me to tell me that their 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 and have relevant messages.
On the other end of the spectrum you have the cutting-edge churches. 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 enormous, they’re typically smaller. 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 baby-boomers. Where does your church fit?
How to Not Be Discouraged With Your Church
Alan Danielson on ministry expectations:
Most people, pastors and laypeople alike, become disappointed with their church. It’s inevitable. People are flawed and since churches are made up of people, churches are flawed. If we’re not careful, though, this disappointment can turn into discouragement, frustration and anger.
So if disappointment is inevitable, how do we avoid the awful emotional turmoil that often follows? One word: expectations.
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How Recording Can Enhance Your Worship Service
How can recording help your praise team? It’s not a top priority, but if your worship ministry is under control and well managed, recording can speed up the learning curve for your musicians and enhance the worship experience of your church.
Is your ministry managed and under control? By this, I mean: does everyone know their job and can perform it on autopilot? Do your band, praise and tech teams show up on time for rehearsals and Sunday morning without being pestered? Does your band know the bulk of your worship material so rehearsal doesn’t take too long? Are you in a steady routine of selecting music and planning your services? If your foundation is this solid, then you can try getting fancy.
At one ministry I was able to do little recording because there simply wasn’t time. In a small church with no support staff I did everything myself: picking the music, charting, copying, EasyWorship programming, scheduling and leading the music.
When I was at a megachurch there were many people filling many roles in the worship department and it ran like clockwork – which freed us to take things up a notch by recording. Here are some recording ideas:
Recording band rehearsals. One local megachurch records their band rehearsals and burns a CD for everyone. At Monday night’s rehearsal, they’ll practice a song until they get it perfect, record the song, then move on to the next song. At the end of rehearsal they’ll burn a CD and give it to each band member so they can listen and practice all week.
Sweeten the mix. What makes a recording sound professional? One big element are the bells and whistles thrown in – called “sweetening” – things like synth pads, leads, drum loops and orchestration.
These elements can also be added to your live worship services, but sweetening like this can only be done if your entire band uses in-ear monitors and a click track. Search for “click tracks” here at WorshipIdeas.com. If you can pull this off your music will be so good your congregation’s mind will be blown, and you’ll approach professionalism that rivals major touring acts.
Recording original songs and arrangements. Have you written a worship song or created a contemporary hymn arrangement? It’s imperative to get those ideas recorded – if you hope to get your music published a publisher needs more than a lead sheet. If you want to use your music in your own ministry your musicians need to hear your song in MP3 format just like any other popular worship song. And once you get your recording process down pat you might even want to record a CD of your praise team for your congregation to enjoy.
Bottom Line: Use recording techniques to take your ministry to the next level.
Worship Planning: To Theme or Not To Theme?
Dan Leverence on crafting your praise set:
Several months ago, I attended a large gathering of worship leaders and during one of the sessions, someone introduced themselves by saying, “Hi, I’m __________ and I’m a recovering thematic worship planner.” I didn’t realize that thematic worship planning had become taboo and lots of questions began to flood my mind.
Why in the world would he say that? And what did he mean? Have worship leaders really begun to abandon the potentially beautiful connection between the music and the message? Doesn’t that do a disservice to the people we lead?
After gathering my thoughts again (and pondering the value of thematic planning for weeks afterward), I began to realize that there are still compelling reasons why I continue to plan worship thematically. Each week, I prayerfully, assiduously, and deliberately choose songs that will help reinforce the message that our church community will hear from the Word of God. And I do it unapologetically. I still believe that thematic worship planning has remarkable benefits and while some are the obvious ones you might expect, not all of my reasons are simply for the congregation at large.
Thematic Planning Reinforces the Message
This one is most obvious. Particularly in America, where it seems Biblical literacy is at an all-time low, anything I can do as a worship leader to help underscore any piece of truth from our weekend teaching is worth it to me. Music and the spoken word have the ability to dance together in perfect form and when one of our songs complements a teaching pastor’s message perfectly, our people connect to God’s truth on a different level – one that I believe is helpful.
How to Start On Time (and Get People to Show Up On Time)
Jon Nicol on starting your services promptly:
We aren’t naive about what it takes to change something that’s not only ingrained in the culture of our church, but in the broader culture of our community. So we’re taking a long, slow, multifaceted approach to changing our culture of tardiness.
7 Tactics to Curb Lateness
Here are some of tactics we’re using to encourage on time arrival. Some of these will work for your church. Some will not. But hopefully the list will spark some ideas that can help your situation.
1. We close the auditorium doors at start time. Our new building has two sets of main doors off the lobby that enter the right side of the auditorium. A secondary set of doors are down a large hallway and enter in the back of the auditorium. We now close the main doors right at 9:30. These doors have a sign that reads: “Please enter through the back entrance after the service begins” with an arrow pointing towards the secondary entrance.
It communicates to people that starting the service on time is important to us, and we want to eliminate distractions for those already worshiping. One chronically-late church member jokingly calls the rear entrance “The Door of Shame.” We opted not to use that particular moniker for the rear entrance signage.
2. We shut down kids-check in at 9:30. This one is both an administrative thing and a lateness-deterrent. At our church, we dismiss the kids to their worship time partway through our service. So parents who miss kids check-in have to leave the service with their kids and check them in at the classroom.
A couple things to note here: To avoid new people from missing check-in, we give them the “fast pass.” Our host team is on the lookout for new families. They greet them and lead them to the front of the line. After checking them in, they get a quick tour of the classrooms where their kids will go later.
And one thing we’ve realized: guests aren’t typically the ones who arrive late. It’s our regular attendees. So that led to the next two tactics to help change behavior.
3. We communicate clearly the beginning and end of our kids ministry check-in. Our check-in time runs from 9:10 to 9:30. This time was added to our website and printed material. It’s a subtle hint that people should arrive before the posted service start time.
Worship Leader…Get A Real Job!
David Manner on part time worship leaders:
Now that I have your undivided attention, I do believe that full-time worship ministry is indeed a worthy calling and vocation that requires preparation, education and skills. And yes, it is a real job. But what if opportunities were no longer available for you to lead worship vocationally? What if you needed to voluntarily or were asked involuntarily to step aside from full-time worship ministry for an interim or extended period of time? What if you are unable to land a worship ministry position after graduation? What would or could you do to provide for your family while still responding to God’s call? Some of us have found ourselves in that situation only to realize we are not trained or are not training to do anything else.
Statistics show that 95% of churches average 350 or less in worship and that 75-80% of those churches average 150 or less. Forced terminations as a result of corporate business modeled leadership, unhealthy staff relationships, and ageism are all on the rise. The church planting movement has amplified the need for additional volunteer and part time worship leaders. Even larger, more established congregations are no longer realizing the need for full-time worship and music staff as they try to stretch their financial resources to accommodate their various multi-generational, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-venue worship needs.
Churches Changing Bylaws After Gay Marriage Ruling
Worried they could be sued by gay couples, some churches are changing their bylaws to reflect their view that the Bible allows only marriage between one man and one woman.
Although there have been lawsuits against wedding industry businesses that refuse to serve gay couples, attorneys promoting the bylaw changes say they don’t know of any lawsuits against churches.
Critics say the changes are unnecessary, but some churches fear that it’s only a matter of time before one of them is sued.
“I thought marriage was always between one man and one woman, but the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision said no,” said Gregory S. Erwin, an attorney for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, an association of Southern Baptist churches and one several groups advising churches to change their bylaws. “I think it’s better to be prepared because the law is changing. America is changing.”
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