There are always those clinging on to former ways of doing ministry and have a hard time with job retraining as the market shifts. Think of it similar to moving from KJV to more modern translations, or churches moving from Bus ministry picking up kids, to more modern children’s ministry, or from large pageant style theatrical christmas dinner productions to feeding the homeless dinner instead or some other ministry. This shift is causing lots of relational stress in many churches at the moment and needs to be understood in a broader historical and philosophical context to minimize the inevitable conflict that all transitions cause. Currently we are moving from pop/rock band with vocalist ensemble of 4-8 to just lead vocal with maybe 1 or 2 backup singers at times. Historically, changes in orchestration have changed from time to time, which leads to controversy in the church. Should it be a constant shift and balancing act? Yep. Is it a necessary sacrifice to make sure that the REAL heritage that we pass on is the GOSPEL and not our little particular language and stylistic preferences? Yep.
We are free to use any language we want, but we must be thinking about leaving the 99 to go out and rescue the 1 that is lost! Is it hard for church families to change with the times? Yep.
Either we bring the gospel and our services in a way that people can relate to, or we lose our ability to connect people to God and become irrelevant because we are holding onto a language that makes God seem foreign, antiquated, out of touch, cheesy, … God is the great I am, not the Great I was. Our little church had to make that same decision, to speak Swedish like they had always done, or shift to English as the culture around them shifted that way, in order to stay relevant. The incarnation of Jesus as an ordinary Jewish human, speaking the local language and relating his message to fishing with the fisherman, sowing with the farmers, … and his disciples like Paul relating to their philosophers’ teachings, their statues to the unknown God, and 1 Corinthians 9:22b, here’s a little snippet “ I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” That was a huge part of the reformation: translate the truth of scriptures into the local vernacular language and have the services in that same language, not in Latin, which no one spoke anymore outside of church. Every time God interacts with humans, he does so in their own language so they can understand, wanting to be close to them, not expecting them to learn some angelic language to communicate with him. This philosophy of missional outreach is clearly seen in the scriptures. What musical style/language should we use? Since music is a language and we are someday going to worship God in every language and tongue and therefore musical style, we are free to use any one we want, whichever is most useful, most likely the one that is our own natural tongue (think reasoning for using modern translations in church). Why do we even have a band? Because the scriptures tell us to be creative (made in God’s image Gen 1) and gives us freedom to use every instrument at our disposal for His praise (Psalm 150) and to accompany the people as they sing. A history of worship music from old testament to rock and roll Modern Church Orchestration Evolution and what it means for you: too many vocalists!