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Music for a Multigenerational congregation
Hey everyone,
I lead worship for a congregation that spans a few generations a lot of churches try to address music for this situation by offering different types of worship at different times. We don't that and as a result we sort of have to try to play music that caters to everyone. We end up playing rock, folk, old hymns and new songs, sometimes all in the same service. Anyone else in this sort of situation? How is it working out for your church?
I lead worship for a congregation that spans a few generations a lot of churches try to address music for this situation by offering different types of worship at different times. We don't that and as a result we sort of have to try to play music that caters to everyone. We end up playing rock, folk, old hymns and new songs, sometimes all in the same service. Anyone else in this sort of situation? How is it working out for your church?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on -
Yep, we do it and it works fine. The praise band does the first half of the music, and the pianist does the second half. It's kind of like two worship sets, but the way we have the service divided up, its natural. Over time, the older folks have come to enjoy the modern music quite a bit. In fact, I'd venture to guess that very few people in our congregation don't like the modern stuff.
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Permalink Reply by Debra McClellan on -
We also do a "blended" service. We don't go as far as "rock" but we combine new contemporary, with old praise choruses and hymns. (Like you, often in the same service.) Some of the older folks would prefer all hymns, but they are still sticking around, so I guess they get enough of what they like to stay. I've learned over the last few years that you can NEVER make everyone happy all the time. You just have to follow the Lord's leading and work closely with the church leadership to make sure everyone is on the same page. We have gradually added video and drama, as well. Now they are both accepted as vital elements in our services. It is a challenge to plan a blended style service, but such a blessing to look out at your congregation to see everyone from elementary age kids to senior adults worshiping!
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Ward on -
Thanks for the responses. Stevo, I'm curious about the two worship set thing. How exactly are your services divided? how does that work?
Debra, I agree it's great to see such a diverse congregation worshiping together. One of our members just turned 100 years old! 5 generations of their family have come to our church! It's great. Also, AMEN to the never making everyone happy comment. Oh man, I've been learning that the hard way the last couple of years. Some people will just complain no matter what. They will just find something, anything, that makes them unhappy. Like you said, all we can do is follow the Lord, get on the same page as a staff, and worship.
thanks for the feedback guys!
Jimmy
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on
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In our case, we have three songs, then a congregational prayer, then two more songs. This gives us an appropriate place to divide the singing between modern and hymns. Three modern songs, prayer, two hymns.
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Permalink Reply by Debra McClellan on
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Have you ever considered combining a contemporary song with a classic hymn? We do that all the time. For example : How Great Is Our God with the chorus of How Great Thou Art. We will also do We Fall Down with Holy Holy Holy. It's a great way to show that a marriage of both styles can work really well.
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Permalink Reply by Pete Brower on -
:-) We tried to make everyone happy and it backfired. We grew our service offering to 3 services. A traditional, a blended, and a contemporary to give everyone a service they were happy with. That ended up being a lot of work and the congregation worried that we were a church in trouble because each service had a small attendance (roughly a third of our membership). They never saw the people from the other services any more. So we cut the smallest, the traditional and made the blended a little more traditional friendly. Didn't completely solve the problem so we went back to one service which is where we started a few years ago. Now everyone is unhappy because the one service doesn't fit anyone as well as the three did. We tried combining all the elements in that one service but some people demand certain elements and others demand not to have those elements. The approach we are taking now is to change up the service in it's entirety from week to week and educating our membership to think about the person sitting next to them might have a different tastes in worship when we do a service that doesn't completely fit their personal likes. Seems to be working so far. They are all much happier to worship in a full building and see all the people they subconsciously thought had left. And we do have the full range of members from the retirement home residents to families of all ages to college students.
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Permalink Reply by Nathanael Lewis on -
Our church made a decision (been this way since before I started) to go for youth - rock-concert loud music often. But plenty of old people come, and keep coming - but they are known to bring ear plugs!
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Permalink Reply by Debra McClellan on
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You are right. You just have to know your congregation and make the decision on where your focus will be, while still showing respect for multiple generations.
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Permalink Reply by Michael on -
The truth is in the churches we should have "Christian Rock" for the youth, young adults in their teens, 20's and 30's and a more contemporary style Christian Classics and Hyms for the older generation and elders of the church. Grandparents bring your ear plugs! That's for sure! ha ha
There should also be a seperate acoustic sing alongs for the young kids in preschool and elementary grades, that will help them build emotion and excitement for the Lord.
We need to keep praising and worshiping the great I AM. Keep raising your voices to the heavens and for heaven's sake, please pray for the true Messiah to return. Keep fasting and praying my fellow Christians.
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on
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Don't forget which generation invented Rock! Just because we're over 40 doesn't mean we've moved on to elevator music!
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Permalink Reply by Benjamin Luce on -
I didn't know you are ancient, Stevo!
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