In Fayetteville, GA, there is an expression of the Church called Rolling Hills Baptist Church.
They moved to a Tinseltown Theater complex and the operating costs for them now is only a third of what is was before.
My name is Russ and I’m a preacher’s kid.
So, I’ve pretty much been a “kid” of the church my whole life. Of course, I’m a grown up now and have been for the last 15 years, but I still feel like I’ve never known anything else.
I wasn’t one to go buck wild out of high school and make an idiot of myself and embarrass my family.
I wasn’t a prodigal son (in the “out of church” sense).
I wasn’t the crazy preacher’s kid who fell into the stereotype of preacher’s kids…hating the church and anything to do with it.
I feel like my journey has been a pretty good one. Not perfect, but pretty good. I thank God for His grace in my life, because like the next guy, I fall short of His righteousness and glory on my own. I’m not any better or worse than the person next to me in church, and I want it to be known that I struggle with pride, lust, greed, and every sin that anybody else does.
My name is Russ and I’m a preacher’s kid.
In my last post, I talked about what the Church in America needs to be successful. It needs only to BE a collective representation of Christ to the communities that surround.
It doesn’t need to be another entertainment venue or concert hall.
It doesn’t need to be a comedy club or a dramatic theater.
The Church is God’s. We are His.
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. http://read.ly/Ps22.27.ESV
Blended worship probably means different things to different people, but the most common use of the phrase seems to be in regards to styles of music used for worship services. The typical goal of a blended worship service is to use music from different generations to create an environment that appeals to (or provides a worship experience for) different generations. It’s basically a little something for every generation represented: some hymns, some choruses, some traditional, some contemporary…you get the idea.
I’d like to propose an ancient approach to the Blended Worship gathering. Throw out the emphasis on style. Style is important to an extent, but shouldn’t be our main focus.
Through relationships and really serving our congregations we can learn a little about them and hopefully they can learn a little bit about us and why we do what we do.
Focus on unity. Emphasize being on the same page.
It’s one thing to try and shove modern worship music down the throats of older generations that prefer a more traditional approach. It’s another thing (and a totally different thing might I add) to try and lovingly win the trust and support of those older generations by letting them in on your methods.
To just throw them away and leave their heritage, traditions and even music styles behind is not the goal…which is why I think we try and create a “buffet” of musical styles with our blended worship services. We want our older generations to be happy and we want our younger generations to be happy. Our goal should be to create an environment (regardless of music style) where everyone KNOWS the who, what, and why of the elements involved.
Who: If your primary service wants to reach out in any shape, form or fashion, WHO is the target group? If everyone knows, understands, and ultimately supports reaching out to a specific target group, it’s easier to grasp the selected music style chosen.
What: What elements can be used to create an atmosphere that influences that particular target group? Most likely music is the gateway. If ALL generations understand this and are on board with this, it’s so much easier to sacrifice preference.
Why: Creating a serious vision/mission statement for your music ministry can go along way to help ALL generations understand the purpose of your worship ministry. Insider focused? Outsider focused? A little of both? Balanced? Young target? Old Target? In between?
The more I hear about different services being cranked up to cater to the different generations the more I’m saddened. I feel like with our good intentions to really create environments where people feel comfortable expressing their worship, we’re falling into a hidden trap. One that the enemy has set for us and that we’ve not seen coming. It’s a little wedge of good intentions that continues to divide generations.
I’ve gone as far at times to think that even having youth group and children’s ministries can (at times) take away from “family worship.” I know I can be extreme with those thoughts, so I won’t linger on them, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder what the Church in America would look like if we worshiped TOGETHER. Young and old. Not saying we shouldn’t have separate ministries, but I just wonder.
Blended worship to me is all about getting people on the same page. Not fragmenting our services into sub services for the sake of pleasing people. Sure we want our congregants to express their worship fully, but if the first thought in their minds is, “This is MY favorite style of music” or “I hate this style of music” then it seems to me we’re only catering to self and not teaching sacrifice.
Blended worship shouldn’t be about the music, but more about blending generations together into ONE SHARED HEART. ONE SHARED PURPOSE. ONE SHARED VISION.
Bringing glory and honor to God TOGETHER.
Ultimately these are just my thoughts, and are not in any way an attack on any individual “blended worship” services or “approaches” but just what I feel the Holy Spirit has dropped into my heart to wrestle with. If you’d like to join me in wrestling with and pondering these thoughts, please do.
What does your church do to promote Family* Worship?
Do you see any problems with compartmentalizing every age group into a worship environment designed ONLY for them? Benefits?
Can children and teens “sit through” and participate in family oriented worship?
Are we asking too much of them to learn from and participate in generational worship?
Is Generational Worship something that we should pursue during our weekend gatherings or is it something we should promote and teach for people to pursue during the week with their OWN FAMILIES? Or is it something we should try and blend into both?
Please feel free to respond with answers, insight, and questions of your own. This post is not meant to be antagonistic, but I truly desire to learn more about WHY we have such segmented times of worship every weekend.
* By Family Worship I mean environments that creates opportunities for families to worship together. And in a larger more general sense environments that creates opportunities for worship to happen with more than one generation present. And I’m not only referring to musical worship.
