Today’s post is more of a poll than it is a teaching.
I want to know…what worship style are you?
Piano? Banjo? Organ? Guitar? Synth? Vocoder?
A few weeks ago I shared my criteria for selecting new songs as well as how I find new songs.
A friend of mine messaged me privately when I mentioned who the “staple” songwriters were that I look for.
You see, he leads worship with predominantly “Black Gospel” music. The most “crossover” artist he does is Israel Houghton. But he’s into songs from Judith Christie-McAllister, John P. Kee, William Murphy, Vashawn Mitchell, James Fortune, Charles Jenkins, Kurt Carr, Byron Cage, and Fred Hammond.
Me? These songwriters and artists aren’t even on my radar. But the question begs to be asked: should they be?
Is the Guitar Overtaking Worship Music?
What’s interesting is that this type of music doesn’t require the ever popular, guitar-oriented worship band with two singers. It’s driven by a couple keyboards, organ, 6-9 singers, and sometimes even a choir.
I know for me, this type of music doesn’t get included in my repertoire. I’m as white as white can be. But it got me thinking: why don’t I include this type of music on occasion? Am I missing a beautiful element of diversity in my services?
What worship style are you? Do you feel the style of your church isn’t given voice in our current, modern worship music?
And it seems that most churches are conforming to the guitar, tenor-vocal driven, modern, pop/rock worship sound.
As the body of Christ all over the world, our styles should be unique. The message of the Gospel never changes but as we incarnate that truth in different cultures it needs to take on new flavor.
So I want to hear from you, friends. What worship style are you?
What music do you select? Who are you listening to?
You can leave a comment by clicking here.
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
The music at my white, middle class, Evangelical church is ALWAYS Contemporay Christian. Now, we have excellent music. We have skilled musicians and though the worship component is a bit up and down, we do have some marvelous times in God’s presence. I wonder what it would be to worship to a different style of music? I don’t think I ever have.
Hi Holly, what do you mean the worship component is a bit “up and down”?
Of course, none of us want to pigeon hole ourselves by defining ourselves. I would say that we are the typical pop/rock tenor “style” of worship. I am always eagerly awaiting the newest Bethel, Hillsong, Matt Redman, One Sonic Society albums. We’ve tried to stray from the style but at the end of the day we minister out of what we know and who we are.
Yes, we are a predominanty white church, which is reflective of the demographics of our area. But we also have a Latino service as well, and sometimes combine with Bilingual worship. Even in those times though, we are doing typical “modern” worship but just in two languages.
But really, who cares about style? I don’t think God does. I think the real question is are we adding faith to the words that are projected onto the screen. I always liked the Hallmark card analogy. There’s a huge difference between handing somebody a Hallmark card that was completely conceived by somebody else. The illustration, the silly or sappy words. What makes it personal to the recipient is not what style it’s in or how clever it is, it’s the writing in the margin that the giver adds. THOSE are the meaningful words. In the same way, when we use singing as a tool to worship, what gives our worship weight is not the reciting of somebody elses words, it’s making those words our own by adding faith.
Perhaps I got off on a tangent there. But I think it’s a worthwhile tangent 🙂
Thanks for your comment, Casey! I love it that you have a bilingual worship service. So great. I know that style isn’t the most important question, but still important. Each of our churches choose a certain style for a specific purpose. I think it’s important to care about style, but not at the exclusion of the heart. You know?
This is a great post (I love your blog btw).
I’m one of the worship leaders at a predominately Black Church. So we are definitely drawing from those Gospel artists you mentioned above. We’ve been “branching out” into CCM as well with our song selection with some Chris Tomlin and Paul Baloche. We haven’t quite made it to Hillsong and Bethel yet, but they are definitely on our radar.
We are entirely piano driven (I don’t think I’ve ever heard a guitar played in my church, lol). So the guitar-driven CCM-style songs take on a different feel in our setting. Plus, vocally, the WL usually does ad-libs and guides the song while the vocal team (3-6 people) carry the melody/harmony throughout.
That being said, I Iisten to a lot of Gospel and a lot of CCM music and I love both styles. There are great songs across both realms. For our church, based on our demographics and what our congregation is largely accustomed to, I ultimately see us moving into a blended style where we can sing great songs from both styles and use them in our worship…probably by giving the CCM songs a more Gospel-style feel in the instrumentation where applicable (e.g. no electric guitar solos since we don’t have a guitar, lol, or maybe changing up the groove/feel).
For those who are interested, here are some cool examples of how CCM and Gospel will take a different approach to the instrumentation:
Chris Tomlin – How Great Is Our God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFN8TBfgNU
Jonathan Nelson – How Great Is Our God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JGl19pTGX0
Chris Tomlin – Forever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6umWkVwpfBk
Darwin Hobbs – Forever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18jqm5gEe-0
Cyrus, this is great. Thanks for sharing the links. Here’s my question: is the reason you don’t use guitars because you’re not going for that style or because you don’t have any guitar players? Are you just piano or drums and bass as well? I love to learn how others lead!
Thanks David,
For instrumentation, we’re just piano and drums, but our piano player has a second keyboard that he plays bass on with his left hand since we don’t have / can’t afford to hire a bass player. The worship leader for the day just sings, we don’t play instruments ourselves at the same time (though one day I hope to be able to as I keep music improving my skills, hehe).
The reasons why we don’t have a guitar player are both genre-specific/cultural and financial. Genre-specific in the sense that like 99% of Gospel music is keyboard driven. And financial in the sense that since we can only afford 2 main musicians right now, it’s going to be a keyboard player+drummer and not a guitarist+drummer since we need the piano to cover the Gospel stylings that most of our music has.
That being said, if someone joined our church who was a really solid guitar player and wanted to play for the praise team/choirs, I’m sure we’d definitely bring him/her aboard. In that case, some of our praise team songs that are originally CCM may switch to having the guitar lead with the keys being secondary. For the more Gospel-styled songs and traditional choir songs, the guitarist would mostly take a secondary roll…fills/accents, adding color, etc. And we’d probably very very gradually work in more noticeable lead-guitar parts so that we don’t make things to jarring for our older members who might not be used to heavy guitar in their worship music.
This is a great article. I do agree with Casey, that at the end of the day, style doesn’t really matter. I try to teach my congregation that very point. I, like Cyrus, do lots of Black Gospel music. However our congregation is a bit more blended and therefore we do a mixture of both styles. There is tension, and that’s why the teaching I do is important to be able to move past style and truly worship God in Spirit and Truth.
We stick to what we know and are familiar with. As for me personally, I am traditionally out of a Black Church tradition, and therefore usually default to the artists listed in the article. However I have to be mindful of everyone’s tastes and cultural/personal preferences. It’s an interesting thing to have to constantly be mindful of.
I can speak to Cyrus on the financial piece. That may or may not be something traditionally white churches even have to think about. Black Churches (Church Of God In Christ) typically always pay musicians. White Churches (Assembly Of God) typically don’t. There seems to be an expectation for people to just give their gift to the Lord as an offering.
Finally, the reason that the music is heavily keyboard driven, is because that is the tradition of the Black Church. Organ and Piano is the staple for that tradition of music. Guitars are used as color, but rarely are the driving instrument. That’s why even when you hear black artists redo Contemporary songs, the guitars are not driving. The links that Cyrus provided are excellent. Here are a couple more songs re-done. I’ll just post the re-arranged version.
Indescribable – Kierra Sheard – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdZViD4rxDE
Better Is One Day – Darwin Hobbs – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NkFQTCojws
Mighty To Save – Anthone Evans – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rksm5G8M4k
Breathe – Byron Cage – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhK4XGFYd38
Above All – Marvin Sapp – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCr1A96bbq8
Thanks David!
Awesome post, Marquel!
To touch on the financial piece a bit more. I think part of the reason why there’s a pattern of paying musicians (at least main musicians) in Black Churches is that Gospel music (especially contemporary Gospel) can be very difficult to play and requires a higher degree of musical ability than a lot of CCM songs. From all the rhythms and syncopations, to the crazy altered chords, Jazzy substitutions, and “Gospel fills/runs,” it can get pretty complicated. So the pool of people who can play the music, “like the album,” is smaller. Plus, it’s nearly impossible to find chord charts for a lot of Gospel music….so it has to be largely learned “by ear”
I played bass on a worship team where we were primarily playing CCM and I was fine. Some whole notes, simple groove, or driving 8th notes across some 4-chord progressions and I was good to go on a lot of the songs. But put me on a Gospel team, and I’m not even able to keep up yet. The bass, especially, carries a lot of the feel and intensity in Gospel songs with the groove, fills, altered chords, re-harms, etc. Hence why we’d either have to pay a professional/semi-pro bass player, or wait for a volunteer who’s at a really high level to play.
Marquel, I’m glad you brought up the financial tension. Where do you stand on the issue? Do you think all church musicians should be paid? Should some be paid? Maybe this is material for another post 🙂
In this day and age, there is sort of a different “cloth” of musicians coming out. Many of the musicians I know and rub shoulders with are musicians who are formally trained in this field as their profession.
I remember an older woman at my church talking to me when my team was going through transition, as our church got to a state where we couldn’t afford to pay our musicians. Many of our musicians left. (They weren’t really committed to our church, and were there as a result of the relationship they had with the previous music pastor.) I told her that we couldn’t afford to pay the musicians and she said, “When I was growing up, we didn’t pay anyone! I played and was never paid and it was fine.”
But she was a hobbyist. The musicians I know are trained professionals. This isn’t a hobby for them. This is how they pay the bills. This is how they put food on the tables. It seems strange that some people would expect that they should be Christians, love the Lord, and do their craft for free. Jesus said, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”
Peter Shu said before became a Christian he was a part of the musician’s union. He’d get paid $75 dollars for showing up with his keyboard to a gig, even if he didn’t play. He then said, he became a Christian and started playing everywhere for free! That didn’t work, and doesn’t make sense. So he became a music pastor to be able to provide for himself and his family doing what he was gifted to do – and for The Lord.
All that to say, that I think it depends. I’ll leave it at that. I think this should definitely be another topic in a different post, David!
Well, Marquel, I may just have to do another post on this. I think the discussion would be enlightening. Look for it soon!
Hey Dave,
Great conversation as always. I believe that every church has a current(flow). As a piano/singer/songwriter worship leader I love all genres. I belong to a nondenominational church where we do everything from vashawn to Israel to Judith to Chris Tomlin to planetshakers. It’s about expanding your borders. Every song you make it yours. Coming from a “Gospel” background I love a great song that speak to the heart of God and paints a small glimpse of His greatness to the people of God. Some of our greatest moments of expression have not been a particular style but blended together creates a beautiful tapestry of Glory for God.
Whatever you do make it your expression. The song may be organ driven on the CD but it may add another dimension on guitar.
We do ” Break Every Chain” by Jesus Culture as it is covered by Gospel artist Tasha Cobbs. The gospel community is buzzing about this phenomenal song that has been in the CCM world for a few years. As songs like Indescribable, our God is Greater and How great is Our God.
So yes expand your borders make it yours you’ll be surprised how it will turn out.
Warning some people may not be able to get past the style so teach the songs yourself as opposed to letting them hear it. Cause them to fall in love with the melody and lyrics. Then let them hear another “version” of the song
Hope that helps
EJ
EJ, I love that you borrow from such a wide range of influences. Since you have a “Gospel” background do you tend to conform to that style with all your songs?
Great discussion about music styles…… We are an ethnically diverse church, and that element is probably my most favorite aspect of our fellowship. But it also means we must relate to all cultures present. That’s driven by a desire to serve and love people, not a mandate from our leadership or demand from anyone in our congregation. I have yet to master the soulful feel of gospel music on my keys, but I do play and sing the gospel music that’s within our reach and our congregation is so responsive and appreciative. My suggestions? Start with the chorus and bridge of “Nobody Greater” by VaShawn Mitchell. Kudos to you and your team if you can do the studio version. I can’t pull it off, but we do the verse and chorus. We tag that on to the end of a worship set and the ceiling blows off our sanctuary on Sundays. “That’s Who You Are” by Freddy Rodriguez is also very accessible. “When I Think About the Lord” and “Awesome” are staples when we have our choir with us on the platform. All this material is driven by a drummer and bass, so even if your keyboard player is not that experienced with gospel, it’s still within reach on a very basic level. When we play this style of music, our acoustic guitar player takes a back seat and just hits the chords. There’s something about this style of music that NEVER GETS OLD.
There’s just a whole different rich texture to this type of music, not just the style but the message as well. I feel like in order to get a more well-rounded and complete worshipful expression of lyrics, message, heart, revelation of God, etc for their congregation, every worship leader needs to venture out into the unknown include this style of music. Be forewarned though, approach with much patience with yourself and your team. Baby steps…..
Alice, I like that you mentioned this comes out of a desire to serve and love your people. That’s what it’s all about.
Well, as usual, I’m going to go against the grain here. Style of music does matter. It’s fine to say it doesn’t matter to God (which I agree with), but it does matter to those attending your church. Hopefully it doesn’t sound too bad to say that I’m not worried about what the people attending our church think though, because I think the style of music matters more to those that aren’t attending your church. Is the style of music being played the reason they didn’t come back? If your church offered different styles, in different services, would they come back, to a different service, to see if it was a better fit? Or is the music style the same for all services so it wouldn’t matter when they came – they aren’t coming back because they don’t like the music.
We, by no means, to it “right”, but to answer the question – at our church, we have 3 very distinct worship services. Sunday Early AM – “Hi-Def” service, which is basically a Christian rock concert. Sunday Late AM – “Blended” service, which is a typical mix of light contemporary and re-mixed hymns, with a full choir and praise team up front. Sunday PM – “Country Church”, which is bluegrass/country gospel, occasionally southern gospel quartet – high tenors and a deep bass that can handle the deepest tunes JD Sumner ever sang.
I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a more diverse combination of musical styles in one church. It works. Hi-Def is heavily attended, Blended has the highest attendence, and Country Church is well attended, but definitely the ‘older’ crowed. I have the honor of being in the choir and on the praise team for the Blended service, and playing guitar and singing bass for Country Church.
The reason I say ‘it works’, is because I have talked to folks that come to Country Church that I never see in the morning services. They will tell you that they wouldn’t come to our church, at all, if it wasn’t for the bluegrass/country music in the PM service. Likewise with folks that go to Hi-Def – you couldn’t hog tie them and make them attend Country Church. It makes me wonder if churches that tried to be more diverse with the worship/music portion across their difference services would have a greater impact in their communities? I don’t know… but it’s something to ponder.
To be clear – I had nothing to do with this arrangement. The church had the three services with the different styles of music long before we began attending. But looking back, I do think the diversity of worship styles available was a major factor in our decision to join the church.
Damon
Damon, thanks for sharing about your church. So cool! Does your congregation seem to like the style separation? Or do you hear comments about how people wish everyone could be together?
Yes, very much so. We constantly hear positive comments about the diversity of the services and how folks appreciate the choices. Several people have told us that they wouldn’t be at our church if it wasn’t for the service they opt to attend. They typically say something like, “we love the pastor and our connection group, but if all of the music was like the [fill the blank] service, we wouldn’t be here.”
I probably should have mentioned earlier that the sermon is the same in each service, preached by the same pastor. The only difference between the services is the style of music. So folks aren’t really missing anything by choosing one particular service.
Very cool, man. Love to see this working for you guys.
We are part of a small church, aprox. 250 people. We try to sing more of the contemporary music, but also hymns.
It is not very easy to have every weekend all the instruments in the band…
The difficult part is that we are not a band with the same people, but each weekend is maybe someone else at the acoistic guitar, at the drums…
Regarding your question: I play piano, and I love to use piano sound in most of the songs.
I do not think that it must be a certain style of music in church. But it must be a common sense in every aspect of the worship. Never forget that we are on stage to drive people in worship to God, and not in capture their attention to outselves.
We have to check all the time the pulse of the congregation, in order to be efficient, in order to give the gifts that all have for other to enjoy it.
Did I mentioned that I live in Romania? Sorry for misspelling.
Marius
Hey Marius, thanks for the comment! Do you feel your “style” is connecting with your congregation?
Most of the time, yes.
A big challenge when assimilating a musician to our worship band is helping them learn the genre. Often only professional musicians are comfortable in multiple genres of music. I’ve recruited and trained a group of musicians to play the modern worship style. To the outside observer it might seem like a simple choice to play different genres, but it isn’t often that simple. It comes back to the matter of excellence. We can do a black gospel song, but can we do it in an excellent way that doesn’t distract? We can, but it is going to take significantly more work.
There is a second issue: our insecurities as leaders. In a similar problem as above, many worship leaders are only skilled in one genre and even if the want-to is there, fear or our own limitations keeps us away. This isn’t necessarily a criticism. We can’t be all things to all people.
With that aside, there is great benefit to crossing styles. I believe our music can become too routine and predictable. Changing styles can breathe life into a congregation and open their ears to hear a truth in a lyric.
Ultimately I think bringing in different styles is valuable and useful, but we need to be reasonable about what we can do. I need to be honest with myself about my own insecurities and address them through working on my craft. I need to do the same with my teams. It is good to work hard and take some risks from time to time in this regard.
Wise words, Chris. In response to your comment, I’ve learned the value of delegating. When It comes to pulling off a big Gospel song, for example, I know my limitations as a singer. But that’s not to say there isn’t someone more gifted in this area who can do it with excellence. Lesson learned: leaders, always look around to see who is more gifted than you in certain areas. Give those people a place in your ministry. Would you agree?
This is such an issue in some churches so I appreciated the article. I even laughed out loud because I get approached all the time about when we are gonna sing out of the Hymnal again.
The church I attend is at it’s best a piano lead church with organ and drums. However, we do songs that are guitar driven. We have a lead guitar, rhythm electric, and bass every set. Even started incorporating multi-tracks. It’s all good. I let the song lead the style and do my best to match the original if the band is comfortable.
I will say I love the layers that guitars can add. And while you can layer with just about anything, one can’t argue it’s popular right now.
Here’s a few artist we look to for songs:
– Eddie James – Freedom
– BJ Putnam – Glorious, Sing A New Song, Our Father
– Plantershakers – I’m Gonna Praise, Nothing Is Impossible
– Martha Munizzi – Excellent
– Ken Reynolds – One God
– Trent Cory – We Praise Your Name
– Ricardo Sanchez – I Call Your Name
soooo many more!
Enjoy the blog very much! Thanks for creating a forum like this!
No problem, Chris. Thanks for taking the time to contribute! Do you ever try new styles or do you stay pretty consistent?
Hi David!
I have been a reader of your blog for a while now, but decided to chime in on this one. I lead worship for the student ministries at my church. We are about as multi-cultural as you can get, and I find it difficult to really pin down a style though I will admit that we don’t do much gospel at all. 🙂 In fact I was just talking to one of my musicians the other day and laughing because when I looked at our set list it looked like this:
Savior (Worth Dying For)
Christ in Me (School of Worship)
Died for Me (one of our originals) I Have Decided/Coming your way (Desparation Band) We took this song and did a mash up with the hymn I Have Decided to Follow Jesus (currently pondering tacking the bridge from All the Poor and Powerless by All Sons and Daughters on to this medley….)
So in one service we did some screamo, some fairly heavy rock, some coldplayesque rock, and a hymn. Yet it all flows together beautifully.
When my team leads our main service, we do take in to account that as a general rule most of the congregation will not be able to worship to something that has screaming in it and adjust accordingly; although I will say that we recently led the worship service and did one song that had a little rap in it. There were some shocked faces, and people that didn’t really know what to do with it, but that decision was made very carefully and the guys that did the rapping part are so annointed to do what they do half my singers were in tears, lol.
I like to push the boundaries of “worship music” because truely I believe that the church should be setting the standard for creativity rather than lagging behind and just now catching on to trends that happened 10 years ago.
All that to say this. I really don’t think it matters what your style is. What is important is: does the group you are leading connect? Are you doing the song *just* because it sounds cool, or is the message of the song relevent to what you think the Lord wants for the service?
This post was waaay longer than I originally indended 🙂 Just my 25 cents
Tiffany, thanks for chiming in. You should do so more often! Wow, it sounds like you’re doing some pretty edgy stuff! Has your lead pastor given you freedom to push the boundaries and experiment with different styles like this?
He has, David. Of course, with student ministries I think it is easier to push the boundaries to more edgy things.It was actually my lead pastor’s idea to collaborate with the rap group. I am so blessed to be under the leadership i have.They are not afraid to blaze a trail, that is for sure! 🙂
Hey David, I know this is a weird question but I’m curious for your opinion.
What’s your opinion on Metal music? Do you think it can glorify God? I believe it can, but I have people in my church that tell me that’s impossible.
Hey Levi – good question. I believe that it can. I don’t think there is inherent evil within sound. It has to do with the intent of the artist. There’s no Christian or secular G chord or Em chord. If you create music of any style for God’s glory, it will glorify Him. Make sense?
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