Now, that being said, I have a few brief comments to share about music and worship. I believe that music can attract people to church, as can numerous other things. And music (and other things) can retain people. However, the Holy Spirit is the only one that can truly bring people to Christ and keep people in church for the right reason. Like others have previously said, there are most assuredly people that go to church for the music but are pretending to be Christian. “I never knew you. Get away from me, you evildoers!” On the other hand, while it is of tantamount importance that we follow the Spirit’s guidance in ministry, I am reminded of Paul’s statement “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some of them.”

Ultimately, it is all in God’s hands, but I believe that we should do everything in our power along the way. It is His pleasure that we are vehicles for leading others to Christ, and our love for Him drives us all to serve to the fullest.

if we got rid of every dynamic media and production feature, i doubt we would lose anyone, save those who are there to be entertained, and we need their seat anyways. what we have been sold as “an enhancement to your worship experience” is most often the brainchild of some guy at a worship corporation designed to eek out a few more shekels from the faithful. if every hour spent strategizing on how to impress people with our churches was spent on our knees in prayer, revival would already be here. ouch. i better go pray now.

Now, this is a typical rant from someone that has no desire to welcome those who may be struggling in their faith. He would require them to adhere to this one line of thinking, and that the only reason we do “contemporary worship” was that it was some corporate driven desire. Well not being a corporate entity, and enjoying christian music in both the car and the church, I would find that his single barrell approach to worship a main reason why those who are unchurched and wandering, remain in that state. Only membership is allowed in the club, or their seat as he put it, unless you are GOD centered at all times…seems that post was far from GOD centered…

“Everyone is an “expert” on music, and most of them don’t know what they’re actually talking about.”

Don’t point the finger at someone else. I’m talking to everyone.

Also, I would hide this article the next time your church is looking for a music minister - killing his involvement in the mission is sure to be helpful.

Thanks for the feedback. This discussion is definitely the result of cultural contextualization. I don’t want to say that music doesn’t matter at all… it does, and it matters a great deal. But it is not the key element that brings people to church or keeps them in church.

That said… if a church is completely unprofessional in its music and has no desire to change, that church has other issues that are manifesting itself in its musical style. Music matters to people… but the idea that one style of music is going to appeal to most all of us 20somethings is just wrong. We don’t expect that, and while we like contemporary worship, it’s not the magic bullet that’s going to bring us.

If our Christian 20-somethings have gone off to college, the college town churches should be full of them. They marry and settle somewhere. Wherever they settle, they go to the church that most appeals to them for any number of reasons. These may be good reasons or bad reasons. I imagine that most of the people that attend Joel Osteen’s church are there for the wrong reasons.

We should make sure that people join the church for the right reasons. We should make sure that our younger children are properly discipled so that when they become 20-somethings they are well equipped to find a good church for the right reasons. If this happens, whatever worship music we end up will be chosen by spiritually healthy Christians and will most likely engender an appropriate offering of praise to our Lord from the congregation.

While I agree somewhat with the gist of your thoughts, I would say that the music style issue is an important one. You are right - people bring people. But I can also tell you that music style can definitely hinder a person from returning. My ministry context is definitely different than most who would read or post on this blog (entertainment-driven Las Vegas) and I can assure you that our music is a huge factor in who we reach. We are a church composed primarily of 20s-30s and our band members are primarily professional musicians. They bring it loud and hard and it definitely is a factor in helping our diverse crowd return. Also keep in mind that we attract a large group of nonbelievers who have some strange misconceptions about church. Our music engages their heart and mind long before I speak.

Bottom line: music should both glorify God and engage the hearer. If one of these factors is missing, the music has lost its purpose. Music is not necessarily central in our cultural context but it is vital to our weekend environments and is definitely a piece of our puzzle in a post-Christian culture.

I think the one thing no one has mentioned yet is that so-called “contemporary” music was largely written before today’s 20-somethings were born–a lot of it is 70s light rock/folk rock (at least in style, if not actual copyright date.) That’ll reach the 40-somethings now, people, not the 20-somethings…

Of course this is entirely anecdotal, too, but the things around here that I see 20-somethings being attracted to in church are honesty, non-judgmental atmosphere, people they can form relationships with pretty easily (often but not always of the same generation), and the good news of the gospel (when presented truly as good news.) As for music, sure, it’s always fun to hear stuff that is familiar (don’t we all enjoy that?) but we can enjoy learning new stuff too. At 28 I’m slightly too old for the ipod-obsessed generation, but yeah, eclectic music is all good.