Dear Young Worship Musician,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing your gift into the local church.
Though it’s popular to avoid putting roots down in a church and getting connected, thank you for going against the tide.
We love you, pray for you, and enjoy watching God launch you into your destiny.
Your creativity helps us see a new shades and colors of God’s glory.
Your heart inspires us to love Jesus.
Your passion calls us to worship God with full abandon.
Our hearts are full of joy to see a young person growing their musical skill, using their gift, and investing their time in the church. There’s so many other places you could play music. So many other things you could do with your time.
But you’ve chosen to stand with multiple generations and raise a loud sound of praise to our glorious King.
We don’t understand the technicalities of music – your pedalboards, the tones, and all you invest into sounding good.
We don’t always love every song you sing. In fact, the fast, loud music can be hard to swallow sometimes.
But as I look around, I see other young people in the room who love it. And because of that, I love it. These are our future church leaders, pastors, missionaries, artists, and entrepreneurs. If I demanded my own way or pined for my own preference, I wouldn’t be raising up the next generation or blessing what God is doing today.
I realize that I should have a degree of discomfort. Because we should be taking new ground, reaching new people, and trying new methods to do so.
I’m proud to be part of a church that is reaching the young people.
I’m proud to be part of a church that offers a place for young artists and musicians to grow, serve, and catch a vision for their life.
I’m proud to worship with you every weekend.
Keep growing your creativity – but not at the expense of your heart.
Keep practicing your instrument – but don’t ignore God’s priorities.
Keep loving and serving your local church. We, for one, are grateful.
We love you.
Sincerely,
Your Biggest Fans
What is your takeaway in response to this letter? Is this what our young people need to hear?
Is this the culture that is developing at your church?
What are you noticing and learning about the generations living and worshiping together?
Fire away in the comments. It’s always, always better when you share! You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Related Post: What the Older Generation Needs to Hear From the Younger
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
Hi David, thank you for your blog! I have been continually encouraged since discovering your blog over a year ago. Your posts recently have been especially timely for our church as we are struggling through a generationally driven worship “war”, and losing band members over it. My heart aches as we go through this and seek Gods will for our worship ministry, and our involvement as team members.. It’s kind of a mess right now.
I appreciate your words to the younger worship leaders here: that they are our next leaders, pastors, etc. And that we should be willing to see what they love and encourage them if it draws them to Jesus Christ.
Darcy, worship wars have been happening for a long time. What is the nature of yours? Has any progress been made in resolving it?
My takeaway in response to this letter is this: a humble heart stirs a humble heart.. and when my pride or preference drives us me in ministry, I lose sight of what Jesus sought and is seeking to establish : loving and leading people by being a servant. I’m looking forward to reading “What the Older Generation Needs to Hear From the Younger”
Wise, mature words, Jason. Love it.
David, ours is that the older people are not comfortable with contemporary and the Elders cannot come to a decision about what our worship style should be. They are trying to please everyone and leaving us without vision and purpose. Where there is no vision, the people perish, right? The remaining music team members are scrambling to put together a group every Sunday and it is suffocating to not have the leadership behind us. So discouraging. Our church is about 500 people now. Dropped 125 this year.
Short version: Technology doesn’t replace spirituality or musicianship.
Long version: Usually we can tell when someone is ill. We go to a doctor to determine why for certain, and get treatment. When it comes to music, we may have different tastes, but we know when something isn’t right. We have a negative reaction to it, spiritually, mentally and physically. Your average non-musical member and a trained musician both experience the same thing. This is part of the understanding of “aesthetics”. The non trained listener may not say anything, because they don’t have the vocabulary or ability to explain it. The highly trained, highly experienced musician will feel the very same thing. But, they should have the skill and experience to conclude why, and do something about it. Example ! I was visiting a church recently that does cutting edge music with fantastic cutting edge effects and sound system, complete with awesome inappropriately used monster sub-woofer. They were playing some very modern recorded instrumental pre-service music. Pretty cool ! Then, they played a jazz track from the late 40’s or early 50’s of some big band stuff with a “stand up bass”. BIG problem. The stand up “pizzicato bass” un-amplified was essentially a warm sounding thud (with lots of thrash and trash) behind the horns. That was where the bass and recording technology was for the day. I looked around and could see that almost everyone was uncomfortable. The sub-woofer had so much trash in it that it was aesthetically painful. The sound crew never came to the conclusion that their lack of understanding was the problem.
Conclusion: Technology can not replace musicianship or fill a void in knowledge.
Thank you, your blog is a blessing!
I love this: “But you’ve chosen to stand with multiple generations and raise a loud sound of praise to our glorious King.”
The younger generation needs to know what the older thinks about them, that the are the next conquerors, the next dreamers, the next to lead the people to the Presence of God.
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