This is why I was concerned by the recent decision by the United Methodists to endorse ‘blended worship’ as THE solution to end flagging attendance.

The UM Portal itself noted on June 10 that some congregations were vibrant and growing by using hymns and choirs (in robes!).

I was recently in a growing Baptist congregation in upstate New York that uses hymns (piano accompaniment) – I was there for the 30-minute Wednesday night sermon.  We sang 4 or 5 hymns and an invitational.

It’s not the style of music but that the congregation participates.  In our Massachusetts church, after a couple of whole-church learning sessions, we decided on a blended service that started with choruses but also included hymns; that church now uses an active blend, but it is the music the congregation can sing.

Consider the Taize movement.  The songs are almost chants, and there is no real leader in the service, except that there is a suggested program for what comes next.  There are times of public and private scripture reading, times of silence and times of singing – the accompanist decides when is the appropriate time to start & stop singing.  Taize works because those who come participate.

The worst choice is one that the congregation doesn’t participate in.  They probably won’t join in to Gregorian chants, but neither will they join a too-loud concert of unfamiliar Contemporary Christian music.

At our church in Massachusetts in the 1990s, we had relied on outside missions teams to run our summer camps and perform repair and maintenance of our buildings for most of our history.  We were a self-run independent congregation, but a sliver denomination in an area that was overwhelmingly post-Christian, with 90% not attending any kind of Christian assembly on a consistent basis.

Even so, we started our own mission (co-funded with outside support!) to the up and outs in downtown Boston, and planted the congregation on Beacon Hill, just blocks from the statehouse.

This was similar to what Eric Metaxas refers to as the UPG of cultural elites.  His essay on Gabe Lyons’ book The Next Christians illustrates the importance of reaching those with influence and the dangers of retreating to our closeted safe congregations.

By giving in to our pride and abandoning the elite culture of places like New York City Christians have hurt the rest of the culture by allowing a secular worldview to dominate the whole culture, just as it did in England before. Surely a God who would have us humble ourselves and pray for demon-worshiping cannibals would have us humble ourselves and reach out to pro-choice television anchors, too.

It’s a question worth pondering.  How is your congregation reaching out to those not like you, those in civic and cultural leadership positions in your community?

One thing that struck me this year was the introduction.  Dr King was called ‘the spiritual leader of the nation.’  Not Billy Graham.  Not the other 4 speakers at that event (whose names are largely forgotten).  Dr King’s use of scripture to make a moral and social point in the middle of his speech, his insistence that civil rights was a spiritual problem to be addressed by spiritual means.

My home church did that earlier this month when they covered the front lawn with 2,470 crosses, to call attention to the abortion issue.  Not a political statement, but a statement of belief, calling attention to the problem in a way that would not be ignored by passers-by.  It got attention.  The sign was torn down and some of the  crosses were uprooted and thrown into the street.  The sign was replaced with a simple message: “considering abortion? there is an alternative.  call us” and gave the number.  It made the paper.

There are other examples, of course, of Christians giving the faith a bad name.  Protesting funerals.  Pastors arrested for unholy acts.  For these we cringe, and move forward in spite of them.

What are you doing to advance the Gospel in the community?   Wilberforce and his group of friends reshaped England and Western Civilization by speaking out against slavery and complacency.  How are you exercising spiritual leadership?

Some of us receive meager bonuses, or special pay at other times of the year, so it’s an interesting phenomenon to watch from the outside.  But for the enterprising charity, it can be a windfall, and some have come to rely on this time of year to stay ‘in the black.’

Today I received one of the most effective notices I’ve seen.  It was the end-of-year tax statement.  Normally, these come in January, since most organizations don’t want to spend the extra accounting time calculating the receipt twice.  But this charity has found a way to make the effort pay off.

Team Impact is an impressive ministry.  About a dozen strong men travel around giving shows.  It’s easy to get a crowd to show off extraordinary feats of strength: bending frying pans, tearing phone books, breaking blocks and crashing through ice walls.  In schools they give a message of strength and humility, of good character.  And they invite the kids and their parents to the church for an evening repeat performance.  At the church house, they can give Christian testimony and offer an altar call.  It’s effective.

What they did today that was effective was to send the receipt for my token gift before the end of the tax year, along with ministry information and a donation envelope.  It puts them top of mind, reminding me of how I supported them back in April, with a gentle request for continued giving, inside a mailer they are required by law to send me.  They did not waste the opportunity.

The biggest take-away is to always give existing donors an opportunity to support you again.

Have you advertised on community and online bulletin boards?  I posted notice for our church’s presentation on the ‘Events’ page of the local paper,and the 3  local TV stations and 3 radio stations that had events pages.  Posters went up at workplaces and stores that were amenible.  (Not many stores will post flyers at high impact times like this -for fear of alienating those that come later and don’t have space to post - but you can ask.)

Every special music presentation should point the listener to an understanding of the miracle of Jesus’ birth.  If the music & story line doesn’t implicitly say so, the moderator or pastor must make the connection clear between the birth and death and resurrection.  Don’t assume everyone there is a believer.  I have a Jewish coworker coming to hear me sing, knowing it’s a church; she will hear the Gospel plainly.

I say this because I was chatting on an online news site last week and another mentioned he was a-theist; he wasn’t against God, just didn’t believe it was true.  He said his friends told him his lack of belief would send him to hell, but never told him how to be saved.  I mentioned that some believers don’t know how to share the faith, and pointed him to an online explanation of the plan of salvation.  He replied with thanks for my concern, at not condemning his position but offering a solution.  He said he’s never been told the Gospel before.

In your Christmas audience may be an uncle, grandma, child or friend who has never before clearly heard the Gospel.  They just came to hear the music, or to spend time with someone, or to keep peace in the family.  Never let the opportunity pass to provide a reason for the season.

Knowing what to sing

The first is that folks don’t know the music.  Our church used to sing a lot of new choruses.  But then we’ve got several Christian radio stations.  When I lived in Massachusetts, there were none.  We didn’t hear many new choruses.  There, it would take several times singing to get the words down.  If you have a choir, teach the chorus to them and let them support the congregation at first.

Today, our church has the opposite problem.  The new worship pastor likes to use hymns as well.  The old folks love it, but the young people didn’t grow up with them, and it’s both foreign words and strange music.  Again, having a choir helps support the singing.

It’s too hard

The second reason is the range.  A lot of choruses are sung in the same key they are played on the radio.  By a Tenor.  Today’s choruses tend to be written for high voices, but most of  the congregation are middle to low voices, and a fairly small vocal range.  When the song exceeds their ability to sing it, they will quit singing.

Sounds like a concert

The third reason is that we present the music as a concert.  Many churches don’t have choirs, but only a worship band.  Often the music is loud, like a concert, in a warehouse situation, and even if the person did sing, they couldn’t hear the other voices around them.  It sounds like they are singing alone, and if they feel they don’t have a good voice, they’re not comfortable singing alone in public.

The solution would be to lower the volume of the instruments, or sing a capella some.  Sound management in the room (dampening, amplifying congregation sound, etc) can also help.

Conclusion

When people don’t sing, it’s because the music leader is picking music the congregation doesn’t know, or because they feel like they’re singing alone, or they don’t see how their singing adds to the sound, there being so much else from the band.

To improve congregational singing, the simplest is to have a choir, and to tone down the instruments some.

Congregations not singing

His job as a xxx at Lifeway has led him to an understanding that”people do not sing like their parents and grandparents did. And even worse, the leaders of those churches don’t seem to know it.”

He notes that “worship has become very produced with visual enhancements and top sound re-enforcement.”  Not that it’s bad, in an of itself.  It actually helps the singing if the words are up on the screen, and not small words in a hymnal down in your hands.  It lets them “lift their voices” to the Lord.

The problem is when the it turns into a performance, and the musicians start treating the congregation like an audience.  In those cases, the music gets in the way of worship of God.

That’s really a false assumption.  There are thriving  churches with country music.  There are robust congregations that sing hymns.  There are active parishes with robes that sing chants.  Some use orchestras, some rock bands, some a piano and organ, some a CD player.  Some are a capella.

When music gets in the way

Matt Redman’s “The Heart of Worship” was written after his home church, Soul Survivor, in Watford, England, topped singing. The congregation was struggling to find meaning in the busyness, so pastor Mike Pilavachi decided to get rid of the sound system and band for a season.  “When the music fades, and all is stripped away…” was more than a good lyric.  It was how the church reconnected with the heart of worship, how the church family learned to be “producers in worship, not just consumers.”

Reconnecting the music

Eventually, Soul Survivor Church added back the music, but with purpose. The music was then to support the congregational worship, not an activity that mimicked worship.
______
Source: Crosswalk.com Song Story

Pastor Bob Roberts has a number of WORLD leaders… Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia, representatives of the State Departments and Muslim republics around the world, etc at his church to talk about the needs of people around the world and how the church can be instrumental in meeting them.

The speakers include Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia, representatives of the State Departments and Muslim republics around the world.  To be an effective witness to the world, we need to know what matters to them.

What caught my eye was the strategy for reaching out:

rather than start with the head, and try to get to the  heart, we should start with the hand (serving together with Muslims, etc to meet needs of Muslims), which will win us into their heart, which will allow us the opportunity to discuss things with the head (about issues of disagreement in faith, etc).

What can your congregation do to reach the hands of your target group, in a way that you can engage their mind and turn their heart.

I’m not sure the difference between being missional and being mission-focused.  I suspect they are at least close to one another.  Both move a congregation to being aware of missions, and into actually participating in missions.

I know from experience it starts with being aware of the need.  It means going deeper than just ‘bless all the missionaries over there’ to knowing about what a specific missionary does day to day in relationship with a specific people group.  The congregation begins to pray for and to give  donations to that specific missionary over and above the generalized denominational offerings.  Finally someone breaks out and goes somewhere.  Over time, if nurtured properly, the whole congregation gets behind the movement and a sizeable portion of the congregation gets involved.

It’s transformative.

In almost every case, it pulls the members closer to one another and closer to God.  They get a sense that what they are doing is important, and if they didn’t do their part, people would starve or die from disease, and people would go to hell without Jesus.

Perhaps the difference I’ve seen are those that focus their attention on the unreached peoples elsewhere in the world, and those that serve the forgotten, abandoned and estranged people in their local community.  Both are important.  Both should be celebrated.  And people need training in how to be ‘on mission’ in both locations.

Enter Church Publishing Incorporated (CPI), a publishing source for Episcopal support materials.  The story I get from the CPI press release is that their initial offering is five books of practical wisdom.

• Starting from Zero with $0: Building Mission-shaped Ministries on a Shoestring, By Becky Garrison
• Mission-shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions in a Changing Context
• Mission-shaped Parish: Traditional Church in a Changing Context, by Paul Bayes, Tim Sledge, John Holbrook, Mark Rylands, and Martin Seeley
• Mission-shaped Spirituality: The Transforming Power of Mission, by Susan Hope
• Mission-shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today’s Church, by Steven Croft

I haven’t read them, but the titles seem interesting.  (I just received Becky’s in the mail this weekend.)  If you’ve read one or all, let me know what you think.  If you want to get a copy, they are available from the CPI Bookstore.