16 September 2015 A.D. Thom Rainer: Six Reasons Some Church Are Moving Back to One Worship Style—A Very Modest Article with Very Limited Insights
16 September 2015 A.D. Thom Rainer: Six Reasons Some Church Are Moving Back to One Worship Style—A Very Modest Article with Very Limited Insights
Rainer,
Thom. “Six Reasons Some Churches Are Moving Back to One Worship Style.” Aquila Report. 4 Sept 2014. http://theaquilareport.com/six-reasons-some-churches-are-moving-back-to-one-worship-style/.
Accessed 16 Sept 2015.
Six Reasons Some Churches Are Moving Back to One Worship Style
Contemporary music, in some form, has been around a while. It is not this strange aberration it once was to many congregants. And many church members who did not grow up on traditional worship are hearing those hymns in new and meaningful ways. Simply stated, there is a much greater appreciation for different forms of church music than in the past.
You
could not help but notice the trend of the past two decades. Numerous churches
began offering worship services with different worship styles. It is not
unusual to see a church post its times of worship for a contemporary worship
service, a traditional worship service, and an occasional blended worship
service.
The
trend was fueled by two major factors. First, many churches were fighting
worship wars. The great compromise was creating a worship service for each
faction. Unfortunately, that created divisiveness in some churches as each
faction fought for its preferred time slot. Second, some churches had a genuine
outreach motivation. Their leaders saw the opportunity to reach people in the
community more effectively with a more indigenous worship style.
Though
I am not ready to declare a clear reversal of the trend, I do see signs of a
major shift. It is most noticeable among those congregations that have moved
from multiple worship styles back to one worship style.
So
I spoke to a number of pastors whose churches had made the shift back to a
singular worship style. I asked about their motivations for leading their
congregations in such a direction. I heard six recurring themes, though no one
leader mentioned more than three for a particular church.
1. Multiple worship styles
created an “us versus them” mentality.
2. The church did not have the
resources to do multiple styles with quality.
3. The church moved from
multiple services to one service.
4. The Millennial
generation has influenced many churches.
5. Worship wars are
waning.
6. Multiple generations are
becoming more accustomed to different types of church music and worship
style.
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