The Church Question .3

On Monday answered the question of what is most important for the local church: discipleship or evangelism? (HERE)

Yesterday I shared my answer (HERE).

Today I want to look at how discipleship and evangelism affect the worship ministries of local churches.

Every Sunday a church should desire that their music would reach the faithful followers of Christ and be relevant enough to inspire unbelievers towards Christ. To state the obvious, this is NOT an easy thing to do.

Even when people can agree that part of music in church is about being relevant, then the debate becomes about what is truly relevant.

Relevant for me is probably a lot different than what is relevant for my grandparents. And relevant for me shouldn’t be given more value simply because I’m young.

This is what I see happening in most churches. They throw out the hymns and bring in the praise choruses as if they are more relevant to young people.

I’ve talked a lot about Dan Kimball and the new network he is starting along with Scot McKnight and Erwin McManus and a few others. It is called The Origins Project. Their tagline is “Ancient Text. Present Context. Future Textures.” This is what I see happening that encourages me greatly:

We can value the past within our present context to produce a future texture. In music this means hymns done with modern instrumentation, bringing the electric guitar out, singing songs that people enjoy singing together, expanding what worship means within daily living, and it means being more creative with what it means to worship as a church. It means valuing what is relevant for me and for you.

Within worship music, what does being relevant mean to you?