Posted on February 26, 2018 by Dr. Will Whittaker
Ephesians 5:19 NLT “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts.”
One of the things I expect to hear from most leaders of intergenerational worship ministries is that their choirs and congregations sing varied types of music. While it’s is entirely possible to have an intergenerational music ministry where all the music is basically the same, I don’t really know of many. When I studied intergenerational choral ministries in SBC churches in Georgia, all of those I interviewed indicated using more than one type of music in their church. While I interacted with hundreds of leaders, I only interviewed 62 leaders in depth, and almost all indicated that used contemporary choral music with their choirs. While contemporary could mean anything newly composed, I made sure to clarify what I was looking for were choral arrangements of contemporary/modern worship songs that would not fit better in another category. Southern gospel was also high; this is not surprising due to the geographic region here in the south. Traditional Church Anthems, which are generally written by certain writers and arrangers, also are published by publishing houses that typically sell these types of work. Equally popular are hymn arrangements, which vary in “style” and “type” but are based on existing hymn tunes. Black gospel, classical/historical works, and spirituals (which I classify differently than Black gospel) are not as prevalent in our Georgia SBC intergenerational churches. See the results found below:
Here are some things I found that were interesting. Some of these results raised more questions than answers:
What does this all mean?
I think it means that different generations “prefer” certain types of music…but that’s not news. I do think it’s probable that Southern gospel is more common (not extinct) in smaller to medium-sized churches, because large churches have greater concentrations of younger cohorts. I think black gospel is the more common in larger churches/choirs because there is likely more racial diversity in those churches. Although I would also mention that many of the largest churches/choirs in my study were in more urban/metro areas. I’m not sure what to think about why Hymn Arrangements are used more by Generation X leaders, but as a Gen X leader myself, I would agree that I prefer hymn arrangements over traditional church anthems…maybe it has something to do with a familiar hymn tune in a new way that something traditional, yet newly composed, lacks?
As for my church, I’d say we fall within these ranges. We qualify as a large church choir (from the parameters of my study), from a metro area, with a large cohort of choir members who are Gen Xers and Millennials. Their leader is also a Gen Xer. So, we don’t do much Southern gospel. In fact yesterday was the first time we’d done a true southern gospel song in quite awhile. We do a lot more Black gospel, hymn arrangements, and contemporary literature and yes, plenty of traditional church anthems!
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“Intergenerational Worship” is worship in which people of every age are understood to be equally important.
Howard Vanderwell