Recently I had a conversation with a church leader from an urban Atlanta church. We discussed the need for leading songs of worship that reflect and speak to each church’s local community. My own Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper succinctly speaks to this need in his new book Rhythms of Grace: How The Church’s Worship Tells The Story of the Gospel:
“The main thing culturally is to know who you and who your congregation is, and seek to empower them to sing and celebrate the gospel in a way that connects with who they are. If your church looks like a NASCAR fan club, it should sound like a NASCAR fan club when people talk and sing. Don’t try to force the church into being something it isn’t.”
So how do you do that if your congregation isn’t well represented by the kind of worship songs and sounds familiar to you, the leader? Here are a couple ideas:
1. If you have people in your congregation who are gifted musicians and/or songwriters, I’d encourage them to write new songs that reflect your context. They can do it because they are in it.That’s something we’ve done at Sojourn, simply because writing original music helps us to reflect our community through the music.
A lot of the articles I’ve written on my blog are about songwriting, because I hope to encourage as much local songwriting as possible. And a few years ago on TheWorshipCommunity.com, I wrote a series called How To Develop A Songwriting Community In Your Church. You can see each of the four articles in the series here:
2. I’d also encourage you to look scour the musical landscape rather than simply rely on the most popular CCLI songs. I don’t mean you should shun the CCLI biggies. I love many of the songs on that list, as well as many of the songs that Passion, Integrity and other popular movements, labels and artists release, year after year.
I’m simply saying you should use the Internet and your church networks to find songs that independent writers and churches are producing, and you should study the hymns, spirituals and gospel songs of our ancestors in the Christian faith.
It’s Not Just About Your Church Members. Consider Your Worship Music Team
If you don’t have the musicians in place who can pull off a certain sound or certain kinds of songs, then you have to keep praying for them and looking for them (and witnessing to them when you find them, if they aren’t already Christians). For instance, we occasionally hear from Sojourn Church members at our Midtown campus who want us to develop a more urban, R&B sound at that campus (which is in an inner-city neighborhood that has many African Americans). But it’s not that simple, for two reasons.
1. We know that we need more African Americans on the worship team. Otherwise it is going to seem gimmicky. We have a few, but we need more. Which brings me to my next point:
2. We don’t have enough musicians who are skilled in the urban sound. We have great musicians, including some who can play contemporary urban music well. We just don’t have enough of them. The higher percentage of our musicians cut their teeth on other sounds.
The benefit of raising up musicians from your church community is that they will often be proficient in the kind of music that your community recognizes and loves. But this isn’t always the case in the early going, particularly if your church is a new plant or campus that exists in a different neighborhood than the sending church. It takes time to do it right.
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