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Six options for music in church

As I see it you have seven options when it comes to music:

• You can stay with what you have. This is not an altogether bad idea. I have a pastor friend who opted for this choice. They even ran an ad in the paper that said, “The church where you can still sing Amazing Grace.” He told me every time he ran that ad new people showed up. Probably not unchurched people, mind you, but he did get visitors. God loves all kinds of people. As Rick Warren says, “It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people.” I believe God wants some churches to stay traditional. You may be one of those churches. If you and your people love traditional music don’t let anyone shame you into doing anything different.
• Transition. This is my least favorite option. It assumes that if you move slowly enough, and skillfully enough, that you can transition someone who loves traditional music into someone who loves contemporary music. This is rarely the case. I am pretty sure I would not want someone transitioning me. I have liked the music that I like for a long time and I am pretty sure I would be irritated if someone tried to change that. And, here is another problem. Long before you transition your service into being something that is attractive to unchurched young people it will become irritating to the people you have. In the best of cases, everyone is equally unhappy.
• Freshening up. This may sound like the transitioning model but there is a key difference. The freshening up model understands that we will never become a North Point or Willow Creek. It also understands that we don’t have to be stuck in 1950 either. Freshening up means we do a few new songs. Note the word few. We do some old songs in a new way. We do some new things, but we understand the limits.
• Blending. This approach seeks to find a happy balance between traditional and contemporary. It has its limits, but if done skillfully, this may be the best approach for most churches. The trade-off, of course, is that you will not really please people on either end of the spectrum. This seems to be the most common approach I see in my travels. Done poorly, this approach will make everyone equally unhappy.
• Change to a contemporary model. Don’t rule this option out. I’ve seen cases where this was marvelously successful. It does require a good deal of skill in change management. The key variable is the sense of urgency on the part of the church. I am thinking of one church that radically changed from a 1950s model to a contemporary model with much success. A key factor was the fact that the church was desperate. It was about to die, and it knew it. It knew that it must change or die. The pastor was given broad latitude to change the church radically and quickly. They quickly grew tenfold. Another factor was the setting. They are close to a university with an abundant supply of young people.
• Multiple services for different people. I am drawn to this option as well. One service for people who like contemporary music. One service for people who like traditional music. One service for people who like a blended approach. This approach is, of course, more work for the staff. It also has the problem of being more difficult to maintain unity in the church. But these problems can be overcome. Hopefully our unity is about a common Lord, not a common style of music.
• New church. Here is another good option. Start a new church with the new style to reach new people. Send a critical mass of your people to launch this church. I am thinking now of one church that did this with great success. The pastor telling me the story said there was a hidden benefit. He said the church was too diverse and it was going to be difficult to maintain unity. As he saw it, it was better for one group in the church to leave and start their own church than to stay and be a constant source of friction in the church. In this model everyone wins. The mother church wins because she is more unified. The daughter church wins, because she has the critical mass of people and resources to launch a church in a substantial way.