Blogger Tony Morgan explains the methods of using free tickets to manage your Christmas Eve crowds. Continue reading.
Five Myths About Young Adult Church Dropouts
The Barna Group reveals myths about young adult church dropouts:
Myth 1: Most people lose their faith when they leave high school.
Reality: There has been considerable attention paid to the so-called loss of faith that happens between high school and early adulthood. Some have estimated this dropout in alarming terms, estimating that a large majority of young Christians will lose their faith. The reality is more nuanced. In general, there are three distinct patterns of loss: prodigals, nomads, and exiles.
One out of nine young people who grow up with a Christian background lose their faith in Christianity—a group described by the research team as prodigals. In essence, prodigals say they have lost their faith after being a Christian at some time in their past.
More commonly, young Christians wander away from the institutional church—a pattern the researchers labeled nomads. Roughly four out of ten young Christians fall into this category. They still call themselves Christians but they are far less active in church than they were during high school. Nomads have become ‘lost’ to church participation.
Catholics Adjust to New Mass Translation
Talk about worship wars! In case you haven’t heard, the Catholics have made extensive changes to the wording of their Mass and it went into effect this past weekend.
I have friends who are Catholic composers and while some of their songs can be “revised” to fit the new wordings, other songs have to be scrapped because the new texts are changed drastically.
Here’s an article reporting on people’s reactions to the changes this past weekend.
Here’s an article about the how and why the Mass has been revised.
Parking Poll
The other day I rode by a traditional-looking church that had parking for the pastor AND his wife! Which got me thinking – do contemporary churches reserve parking for staff members? Take the poll below!
Loading ...Which Hymns Work Best For Contemporary Worship?
At worship conferences I teach a class called “Blending Hymns With Contemporary Worship” to packed, desperate audiences. It seems to be the never ending problem: how to use hymns in contemporary worship.
Just which hymns should you use? I believe there are popular hymns that everyone should know – hymns that have stood the test of time and cross denominational borders. And, some hymns are more conducive to contemporary worship than others.
A few years ago I coined the term “hymn cranks” which stirred up some nasty emails. “Hymn cranks” describe those trouble-making people in your church who are constantly pestering you to use hymns, hymns and more hymns. At one church where I worked a guy in the congregation kept himself busy during the praise set by tallying how many hymns were or were not used. You can imagine the trouble I was in if I dared to NOT do a hymn on an given Sunday.
Then there was the deacon who was fixated on obscure, antiquated hymns written by Isaac Watts. This hymn crank wasn’t satisfied that we did a healthy dose of popular hymns – he constantly pestered me to use his favorite, How Sweet and Awesome is this Place in our praise sets. I have sung hymns my entire life, consider myself to be somewhat of a hymn expert and had never heard this one. Here’s the second verse of this lovely ditty:
Here every bowel of our God
With soft compassion rolls;
Here peace and pardon bought with blood
Is food for dying souls.
I’m sorry, but we’re simply not going to sing a hymn about God’s bowels in a contemporary worshiping church with electric guitars. (And if I had attempted to rewrite the lyrics he would, of course, have been infuriated.)
This deacon finally worked himself up into such a hissy fit that he threatened to leave the church. Over a hymn about God’s bowels.
And people wonder why the average tenure of a music director is two years. (He eventually regained his senses, calmed down, and I never did do that hymn!)
In no particular order, here are the top ten hymns everyone should know, drawn from years of polling at my HymnCharts.com website and my personal opinion, that work best with contemporary worship:
Amazing Grace
Holy Holy Holy
Be Thou My Vision
Come Thou Fount
All Hail the Power (CORONATION)
What a Friend We Have In Jesus
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
I Surrender All
Crown Him With Many Crowns
It Is Well With My Soul
The classical chord structure of these hymns is what makes them usable in contemporary worship as well as lyrics that are, for the most part, singable and modern enough for the average person in your congregation.
Interestingly, the older the hymn, the easier it is to translate to a praise band. Even though songs like At Calvary are in many hymnals, they’re not actually hymns but “Gospel songs.” The sing-songy, lilting quality and chromatic melodies give these late 19th and early 20th century tunes an inherent dated feel, and it’s pretty hard to create convincing contemporary arrangements with them.
Bottom Line: Season your praise sets with the most popular hymns.
5 Reasons to Use Video for Church Bible Readings
I think one big failing of contemporary worshiping churches is the lack of Scripture used in the service – here’s a post about how and why a church uses video to enhance their Bible readings.
Turn Two IKEA Towel Hangers into a Guitar Wall Mount
Lifehacker has a great tip for hanging guitars with an inexpensive IKEA hanger that looks pretty nifty. Read more.
Worship Team Dress Code
4 Him vocalist Andy Chrisman was worship pastor at Church On the Move in Tulsa, OK, and now hosts a world-wide syndicated radio show, “Worship with Andy Chrisman” which is currently heard on more than 400 stations internationally with an estimated 5 million listeners each week. Visit his website at andychrisman.net.
Question: I am wondering what kind of a dress code you have for your musicians or people you have on stage. I have a team of all different sizes, ages, and styles. I want to come up with a dress code to bridge this. I don’t really have an issues with people dressing scandalous but mainly sloppiness, then I have those that have great style. How do you make a team have an excellent look without looking like you are pushing trying to look a certain way. I need to find some unity in this!! I don’t want the team to think all that I care about is the way they look but want them to know that we could be a distraction to the congregation if we look too sloppy or even too appealing. I want to look our best for God. Presentable but not distracting to the body. I hope I make sense. Maybe you can help?
– Jenna Sorensen / Worship Leader / Life Change Church / Muskegon
Hey Jenna,
We’ve had this question come up several times lately so I thought I’d give you my thoughts. This is a common issue for worship teams who want to get rid of the choir robes and matching outfits, yet keep a sense of order when it comes to the personal clothing choices of their players and singers. Below are a few guidelines we ask our people to follow:
1. Keep it “G-rated”.
It should be obvious that they refrain from wearing plunging necklines, short skirts, and tight-fitting clothes (this goes for men as well). There’s no good reason to flaunt what God gave ya on the church stage. Sometimes we do have to remind our people from time to time that we want the congregation to appreciate their musical abilities and not their physiques.
2. Reflect the style of the congregation.
There are very few men who wear suits and ties in our church and most of the congregation are in jeans. It’s a casual atmosphere. Someone wearing a suit on our stage is going to be extremely out of place. Also, our pastor tends to dress in a casual style as well (slacks/jeans and a button down shirt). We like our worship team to look as if they could have been pulled up from any row in the auditorium. However, this is not a license to be sloppy….
3. Take a little pride in the way you look.
We have a number of 18-22 year olds on our stage each week, and having a 19-year old son I know that, for the most part, not a lot of forethought goes into appearance. Before you come to church: take a shower, run an iron over your clothes, keep the MuteMath t-shirt in the closet.
4. Dress your age.
18-year olds should look like 18-year olds, 40-year olds should not. I can’t think of many things more sad than someone trying to look young and hip well beyond their ability to do so. Enough said.
A good way to keep these rules enacted is talk about them often. The more we discuss them, the less awkward a situation will become when it arises. I will say that I refrain from talking to the ladies on our team about their appearance if at all possible. I will designate one of my female leaders to address these issues in private one-on-one. I also encourage certain members of our creative staff who are not on stage to critique the appearance of our worship team from time to time.
Earlier this year we dealt with a situation with one of players where his appearance was extremely different from the rest of the people on stage. This was a young man who had a great heart, loved our church, and had become a “go-to” guy at his position. I sat down with him in my office, told him how proud I was of him and how much we all loved having him as part our worship experience each week. I asked, not demanded, if he would be open to changing his look just a bit. I even offered to have one of our younger worship leaders take him shopping (on our dime) and set him up with a hair stylist who goes to our church. He was not offended at all by our conversation. In fact he was thankful that we would invest in him and care about his progress. Sometimes people just need a nudge in the right direction.