Contemporary Music and Worship

An Unashamed Plea to Consider Contemporary Worship…

in the same way we consider, plan, and design traditional worship.

This post grew out of an email to Josh Thomas, the Lay Vicar of a beautiful offering of daily morning and evening prayer. In a shameless plug for the website, it is www.dailyoffice.org. The website offers daily morning and evening prayer from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and incorporates other resources such as canticles from Enriching Our Worship, U-tube clips and music from a variety of sources and genres. I have been using the site for some time and am an overdue contributor. (My check is in the virtual mail, Josh!)

I answered a comment Josh made about only knowing one Episcopal Church that routinely used screens during their worship services. My comment, and subsequent longer second comment at dailyoffice.org got me thinking about my various experiences with contemporary worship. This post should probably have a warning label, just as some sermons should carry one. Caution: May be offensive. However, I will herewith post my musings about contemporary worship and music.

First, I believe there is a danger of making a congregation into an audience. I hear much more joking around – and it really is joking – from clergy and lay people alike prior to a contemporary service. Please understand that I think humor can be appropriate, but the level of humor I hear prior to contemporary services all seem metaphorically related to an audience and actors in a theatre or some kind of musical production. The following come to mind easily: “It’s show time!” rather than a prayer before exiting the sacristy. “We’re getting ready for the big tent.” “Let’s get on with the ‘shew’.” And even, “Okay, on stage everyone.”

Secondly, I have noticed in several places that the contemporary worship service tends to die off or disappear when a particular clergy person departs the church. It generally is the person who saw a need for the service or “built” the service by attracting people. Clergy come and go, and parishioners do the same if they are particularly attached to a clergy person. Admittedly, without any statistical analysis, it seems to me the service is often built around a charismatic person. The people who attend the service are never really incorporated into the parish as a whole. People bond with the priest rather than the parish. I do know of places where it is different, so please understand this is not meant as criticism of some excellent contemporary services that currently exist.

In addition, the level of education and deepening of faith seems to be missing at times. People come to worship and that’s it. While this certainly happens at other services as well, I think often the theology of the contemporary liturgies and music, especially those written by individuals rather than by a liturgical body, support an individualistic type of worship. It’s a sort of coming for my worship “fix” and then going home to live my life unchanged. Much of contemporary music strikes me as being rather “I, Me, Mine,” focused on personal salvation rather than the common prayer that takes place in much of the more traditional music and liturgies that has lasted through the centuries.

I also find that parishioners often expect to “fix” their contemporary service if a new priest is younger than the previous priest. I frankly haven’t seen much of a relationship between the age of the priest and whether or not a contemporary service thrives.

Right now, many people in the Episcopal Church are trying to figure out just where technology fits in with how we worship. In my limited experience as a vocational interim – nine parishes in thirteen years and four parishes with contemporary worship services – these are some of the things I learned about successful contemporary worship services.

·      All service planning must acknowledge everyone has a different definition of "contemporary" and gain agreement and define it so everyone on the design team can be satisfied. Notice: I do not say it should satisfy everyone who says they want a contemporary worship service.

·      Excellence is essential. So often I see contemporary worship with untrained musicians, half-hearted clergy, lack-luster participation and sloppy projection and sound systems. All of that combines to make sloppy liturgy. Offer your best to God! If you do not have the resources to do something well, you haven’t any business doing it at all. Be patient. If it is really what your church is called to do, the resources will come together.

·      Pay close attention to any passivity on the part of service attendees. One of the major gifts of the Episcopal Church is participatory and common worship.  Contemporary service needs to be more than entertainment. People need to pray and sing, to join in with the liturgy in a meaningful way. I think in the contemporary genre you have to work really hard to see the worship stays God-centred, participatory and grace oriented.

·      Be wise about deciding that because the church needs young people, then all young people must want contemporary music.  Actually talk to some young people who currently don’t attend church and see what would make them come.

·      Be careful about deciding to do a contemporary service because the church has grown or because a small group is pressuring the church to do so. You might be ignoring the statistical wisdom that says when it's simple overcrowding, add another service that is more of what you already do well. (This is at the stage of adding a third service because the other two services are at 75-80% capacity.)

·      Decide carefully what type of service you add when you have 3 thriving services and want to add a fourth service to bring in new people. That may well be the time to start something different, but talk to people who do not attend the church rather than parishioners who do. People may be longing for something completely different than you had in mind. It might be sung candlelit Compline or Celtic liturgy, or some other forms that lets you still build on what you do well.

·      Check for openness in the congregation to the type of worship you are planning, especially among parish leaders. Will people actually invite friends and neighbours who don't attend church to go with them to the service? If Vestry and other leaders have to be persuaded to show up and consider it a "duty" to be got through, rather than an opportunity to experience something different, you may wish to reconsider. Once again, if your leadership does not wholeheartedly support the service, you may wish to reconsider. And not just support with their mouths, but also with their presence, prayers, and inviting mentions of the service and what it offers.

Four other important items:

 "Contemporary" music often ends up being picked by baby boomers so the music is nostalgic rather than current. I've seen the expressions on the faces of younger first-time guests in such services and their expressions look like children indulging their parents.

Pay attention to the underlying theology of the music and select music for the liturgy the same way we do with so-called "traditional" worship.

·      Listen and learn from the astonishing revelations some younger people give out when they visit an Episcopal Church. Statements like this, "Wow! I love the silences in the service. " "I was looking for tradition and I found it here." "I tried one of those mega-churches but it was like going to a concert. I wanted to go to church."

·      Consider that attracting more people may not be the kind of worship but rather the kind of service. Do you have hands-on service? Is it at times when young singles young couples, and couples with children can participate? Can their children participate in a meaningful way? Does it “click” with the passions and abilities of people in the parish? Will it make a difference in your community or elsewhere?

What all this has taught me is it is much more important to ask people about their best, deepest, and most fulfilling worship experience and get them to tell you that story. Then you can look at common elements to design worship that will be those things. Forget surveys: ask people for stories. If they have never worshiped before, ask them how they imagine fulfilling worship would be. Christians are people of the story and we live by stories!

Where technology is concerned, I see major successes with flat screen televisions in the narthex (foyer) and parish halls or gathering spaces, and in keeping up with technology for communicating with people. Always being mindful of those left behind by technology who still want paper, yet using social networking, multi-person text messaging, and the most current available methods with those who like best to be communicated with in those ways. I ask new members how they prefer to get their communications. And yes, it does mean more work for a parish, but the returns are great.

Please understand. I am no expert. This is simply what I have distilled from what will soon be fourteen years of ordained ministry as a vocational interim. The experience is based both in the churches in which I served and those in which I consulted. I am currently serving in my ninth interim position. All but one of those churches wrestled with what type of service to do to attract younger people, or with a contemporary service in some form. I served in one position, as an associate, that was not a declared interim position but that was without a doubt my purpose there. I have been interim rector or vicar or consultant in churches ranging in average Sunday attendance from Family to Corporate size.