Bridging the Generations in Worship
The choice of how to minister to multiple generations in worship is a serious dilemma.
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I was driving to the office recently and noticed an intriguing church sign: “We are traditional at 8 a.m. We are contemporary at 9 a.m. We are blended at 11 a.m.”
The sign reminded me of an ad I had seen in the newspaper: “We are charismatic in our worship, Baptist in our preaching, and Episcopal at the table.”
Comparing those two examples of life in today’s church shows how demanding it is on pastors and worship leaders to program services that appeal to multiple generations worshiping together under one roof. Interestingly, numerous churches program different kinds of music at different service times, yet have the same sermon throughout the Sunday schedule.
My question is: Is scheduling different worship styles at different times healthy for a local church? There are many voices calling pastors and worship leaders to adapt new trends when contemplating their style of worship in their churches. These novel methods for contemporizing worship seem compelling at first blush. Yet for the Pentecostal church of the 21st century, much is at stake.
Our dilemma
Pleasing multiple generations
The choice of how to minister to multiple generations in worship is a serious dilemma. Never before in church history have we had the complexities of four generations present in one service: builders (G.I. generation, silent generation, war babies), boomers, busters (Gen X), and bridgers (Gen Y, millennials). The dilemma unravels further when we consider divergent musical tastes of the older and younger generations.
A growing church with multiple services must carefully analyze the implications of either administering diverse worship services, as the church signs indicated, or programming multiple services that are identical. My pastor observed, “With our growth, it has been important that we keep everyone on the same page. Because people are hearing and singing the same thing, it has been easier to maintain unity in the midst of the various building programs and programmatic changes we have made. In today’s culture, people appreciate being flexible on Sunday—choosing a morning service format that fits into their schedule, knowing fully that whatever service they attend, they will not miss anything.”
Without vigilant teaching by pastors and worship leaders, sheep gravitate toward selfishness in matters related to worship music. We all like the music that was being sung when we were saved, whether it was 70 years or 7 minutes ago. And that is not to mention the preferences of ethnic congregants who also deserve a place at the table.
In an attempt to minister to the diverse elements in his congregation, one worship leader brings two outfits to church each Sunday. He sports a business-casual look at 9 a.m. and a suit and tie at 11 a.m. The early service features contemporary worship, and the later, traditional. My colleague also admitted a tinge of worry about the “unity thing.” Beyond the unity component, however, is a more insidious dilemma to this generational worship matter.
The majority of our churches have enough space to accommodate their multigenerational parishioners in one service. These churches must carefully monitor the style of worship being programmed to ensure balance and the disarming of potential worship wars. Worship wars spark in parish settings where intentional decisions about the worship life are either avoided or overlooked. (See sidebar “Focus on ‘Worship Wars’ Hides the Real Issue Regarding Connection to God.”) Even if a pastor is not musical, he or she is still the lead worshiper. As such, there are mandates to be served and cues to be observed. The pastoral mandate is to remain watchful of the worship life of the church. The cues a congregation renders, relative to the fruitfulness of corporate worship, are somewhat more subtle to monitor. Following is a list of congregational cues, which if ignored, ignite worship wars:
1. When a worship leader ignores a congregation’s musical preferences long-term, the effect is demoralizing.
2. When a pastoral change occurs with radical alterations to the sound or look of the worship, the effect is disheartening.
3. When one attends a lifeless church or one that does not have adequate instrumental support to present contemporary music with authenticity, the effect is disappointing.
These terms—demoralizing, disheartening, and disappointing—are not the emotions we are to feel as we enter His courts with praise. These emotions do not produce “joy unspeakable, full of glory.” Keeping worship alive and life-giving presupposes attention to detail.
Limiting the move of the Holy Spirit
Running tandem with the decision to change the dress of the clergy and the style of the worship is the tendency to capitulate on the moving of the Holy Spirit. Another leader recently reflected, “We’re trying to reach greater numbers of visitors on Sunday, so we discourage any public demonstrations in the Spirit. Instead, we wait until Wednesday evening—in a believer’s meeting—to manifest the Spirit.” Dumbing down a Pentecostal church’s response to the manifest presence of the Lord is dangerous to the health of the church and disingenuous to our Fellowship’s heritage.
Wayne Benson, president of Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, says, “A tree cannot grow apart from its roots.” In my experience, visitors have been greatly moved by the proper use of the gifts in public services. Visitors long for a demonstration of the supernatural; they crave a touch from the Master. They want a power encounter when they attend church, especially Gen X and Gen Y persons. It is indicting to ponder the recent Barna research that states: “Our surveys among regular churchgoing adults indicate that one-third of those people have never experienced God’s presence. Half of all regular churchgoing adults admit that they have not experienced God’s presence at any time during the past year.”1
As Pentecostals, we must balance the trend to value a visitor’s comfort with the charge to welcome the Holy Spirit among us each time we gather. The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus. His comforting and peace-giving attributes are necessary as congregants and visitors battle the cares of the day. One speaker mused, “I have come to believe that life is a continuous circle of being in a trial, coming out of a trial, or getting ready for the next trial.”
Because life is choppy, filled with irregular circumstances and dysfunctional people, I question moving the manifestations of the Holy Spirit to a midweek expression. One needs to encounter Jesus through authentic worship and transformational preaching each Sunday. Welcoming the presence of Jesus into a sanctuary by singing fosters breakthrough, deliverance, and healing. These attributes of the Master’s touch function in all settings, large or small. Jesus responds to our worship of Him.
Changing worship styles
I served a pastor who felt something must change in our approach to worship every 6 to 9 months or the touch of revival would lessen. We learned new songs, massaged the worship order between services, altered the liturgy—anything to keep soft before the Lord. Change theory, though, requires insight in terms of its application—presupposing trust, sensitivity, and avid communication. If worship leaders do not consider these areas, disaster may ensue.
But many new pastors and worship leaders—even with good intentions—make changes too fast after being elected. Conversely, long-timers who have not changed their approach to corporate worship in a decade suffer from the same sword. Either extreme is problematic. Considering both sides, the challenge of rapid change is more rampant today.
This quick-fix approach to the worship life of a church, without bringing the congregation along philosophically, asks for difficulty. A lack of communication about changing the scope of worship leaves parishioners with the unfortunate choice of interpreting the pastor’s ideas without context. Worship is a personal journey into the presence of the Lord. Long-term church members travel a road well-worn and trusted. By changing the style of the transportation midstream, the cart often gets in front of the horse. Frustrated, the faithful exit the worship encounter without connecting to God.
How can a pastor make so obvious a mistake? Pastors do not intentionally lead their flocks into worship chaos. Rather, many simply rely on the visible to the exclusion of the invisible. It is easier to attend a conference than to hear from the Lord. After being inspired at a conference, a pastor may return home and make a paradigm shift without taking into account the need to stair-step his congregation in the process. As I travel the country, I continually hear similar stories. Zeal outweighs prudence. Dramatic changes in worship style, without considering the impact on the faithful, create trauma for a congregation.
Further, quantum leaps in worship style for reasons related to visitor friendliness tend to alienate the church’s base. This also leaves the wistful pastor in a tentative position, now relying on new members and the foggy commitment of visitors to hold the bag for the budget.
A change in church life as monumental as altering worship style or space is a process that requires careful management. For example, a pastor may sense stagnancy in the worship and attempt to solve the dilemma pragmatically by attending a conference on church growth. At the conference, the dynamism of the megachurch and its charismatic leader blur the core issue in the pastor’s mind. The pastor then returns home and substitutes the look of the worship space for discerning what God would say prophetically, through His still, small voice. I know situations where pastors came home from a conference, canceled the choral program, fired their music staff, and altered their worship so severely they alienated hosts of members. All this was done in an effort to replicate what was happening in another region of the country. These kinds of wild maneuvers prove counterproductive in time. What may work in a megachurch halfway around the country may not work in your church.
Conferences are a great way to explore new ideas, obtain fresh perspective, and observe different applications to our mission. However, greater strategy is found on our knees. E.M. Bounds wrote: “The work of the ministry is prayer.” Often, Pentecostal leaders do not need more information; they need more revelation.
God has a unique plan for your church and its worship identity. While large churches hold keys to unlock or codes to decipher relevant cultural clues, many times these keys and codes only work in a specific geographical or demographical setting. Those codes may unlock their community, but not necessarily yours.
To minister grace to multiple generations in a local church, pastors must first hear from God about the worship life of the church. Biblical models for worship must be taught. Issues of Pentecostal tradition must be caught. And leadership from the Holy Spirit must be sought.
The decision
Pastors face a dilemma—either program identical services or completely unique worship components for each service. Then, one must contend with the following challenges, which demand a verdict.
1. The challenge of unity (Ephesians 4:3) We are called to protect the unity of the church. How can we maintain the spiritual focus of the congregation with differing music being sung in worship from service to service?
2. The challenge of diversity (1 Corinthians 12:12,26) We are called to care for one another by valuing the preferences of others. Can God be in a musical style that is different from what I prefer?
3. The challenge of mutuality (John 13:35) We are called to unlimited availability, unlimited liability. How can the older care for the younger if we are segregated by musical preference in separate services?
If the choice is to keep the entire body thinking and saying the same thing in identical services, the respective challenge then becomes one of keeping multiple generations on task by blending hymns, choruses, and gospel songs into a flow. This flow, if done correctly, transports the congregation into the presence of the Lord.
The Lord’s presence is not welcomed by a certain “hip” repertoire, but by joining humble hearts hungry to worship God. Choosing music that speaks across generational lines unifies a congregation in this pursuit. After all, as Tom Brooks wrote, “It’s not the state of the art, but the state of the heart that matters most to God.”
Young worship leaders are capable of singing the contemporary songs well, but are often unfamiliar with hymns. Therefore, they generally avoid singing hymns altogether or show little vitality when they do sing them. The focus of a worship encounter, however, is to welcome the life-giving flow of Jesus by singing passionately. Enthusiasm replicates.
A balanced Pentecostal service is one in which a hymn is sung with the same authority as a newly written chorus. Young worship leaders have a responsibility to invest in hymns, and seasoned worship leaders need to incorporate contemporary compositions in the flow of worship. And both need to do it with authenticity. This may stretch the mode of accompaniment from the traditional piano and organ to a rhythm section. Pastors also need to be worship savvy, assisting the different generations to gain a healthy perspective about a balanced musical repertoire.
In a conversation with Edward Polochick, conductor of the Lincoln, Nebraska, symphony orchestra, I gleaned an important insight into how conductors program new music into the repertoire of an orchestra. He said, “When I program something new, I converse with the audience before we play the selection. I do not wait for the listeners to form an opinion based on personal criteria. Rather, I bring them along on my journey, teaching them about the piece in question, giving them the composer’s background, why I feel the selection has merit.”
Too often, pastors do not assist a congregation in developing a balanced view toward worship, especially if something new is being presented. But there has to be context to make an intelligible decision. Otherwise, one’s participation in something new in worship becomes arbitrary.
Our duty
Our duty as pastors in bridging the generations in worship is threefold. First, as Polochick has reminded us, explain everything that is new. A contextualization is a gesture in peacemaking and diplomacy. There is an adage in the profession of education that has merit here: “To be terrific, you first must be specific.”
—Tom McDonald |
Second, teach a yearly series on worship. Too much is at stake in these tempestuous times to not address this topic annually from the pulpit. As has been said, “Music has replaced doctrine as the most divisive issue in thousands of congregations.”2 Invite a pulpit guest to occasionally punctuate your worship series. Cap off the series with a Sunday evening worship encounter—an entire service dedicated to lingering in the presence of the Lord via song.
Finally, schedule a yearly retreat with the worship community of the church. Wait on God and process the relative vitality of the worship life of the congregation. Do not delegate the worship of your church to a committee or a subordinate.
Robert Rhoden, Potomac District superintendent, says, “A church is like a plane. It takes two wings to fly. Relative to the church, those two wings are preaching and worship. If the preaching and worship are in order, the church will fly.”
Too many pastors are trying to fly the church on one wing. We need both. Our duty as worship leaders is to prepare, rehearse, and present worship with sensitivity and introspection. When I am asked to lead worship, I always begin the process by quieting my spirit in the presence of the Lord. Reflectively, I ask two questions: First, Lord Jesus, what would please You in the service? Second, what will the people attending this service need from Your hand?
Only after I have prayed do I feel a rush of creativity for that service’s worship component. Then I remember Ephesians 5:19: “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (NIV). The text is about singing heartily to the Lord in a variety of styles. Psalms are songs about the character of God. Hymns are melodies of consecration and doctrine. And spiritual songs are tunes in which we give testimony to His goodness.
This verse indicates a triplicate of music genres to be sung in worship. That correlates with having at least three generations present in the typical Pentecostal congregation on any given Sunday. Blending worship material is biblical. In fact, worship leaders need to plan music to appeal to older believers, middle-agers, and young people whenever possible. Creating a medley of worship songs that magnifies the Lord and edifies the believers is an art form that carries a lofty responsibility. (See sidebar “Music in Pentecostal Worship”.)
It is a serious task to lead a congregation to the throne of God each week and avoid the minefields of the worship wars. These disputes about worship are not a phenomena limited to the evangelical church of North America. Alan Philps wrote that a fight broke out in July 2002, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem about the placement of a chair used by an Egyptian monk near the entrance to the roof. It was a hot day and the chair was moved to the shade—against written policy derived in 1757—and, as such, violated the status quo.
“The fracas involved monks from the Ethiopian Orthodox church and the Coptic church of Egypt, who have been vying for control of the rooftop for centuries,” said Philps. As a result, 11 monks were treated in a hospital for their injuries.3 At issue—the position of a chair. Before we shake our heads, let us reflect on our own lives as pastors and worship leaders. How often have we fought over the trivial, not wanting to be moved?
Simply put, worship in the 21st-century church is evolving. We are enfolding the music of revivals and of the youth into the mainstream of the Pentecostal ethos. I, therefore, call for pastors and worship leaders to be open to the wind of the Spirit and to the values of our Pentecostal heritage as we—grandparent, parent, and child—all sing to the Lord under the same roof.
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Endnotes
1. Barna, George. The Habits of Highly Effective Churches (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1999), 83.
2. Schaller, Lyle E. 21 Bridges to the 21st Century (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 14.
3.www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F07%2F30%2fwmonk30.xml