Multi-Generational Leadership in Corporate Worship
(Editor’s note: Drew Russell serves as the Music & Media Pastor at First Baptist Church in Magnolia, Arkansas. The following Worship Arts Project is in fulfillment of one of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Worship at Southwestern Seminary. Drew will graduate in December 2018.)
1 Chronicles 16:23–24 calls for the church sing. Mark 16:15 calls for the church to pray. Matthew 4:4 implores the church to read the Word of God. Matthew 28:19 says to evangelize. 1 Corinthians 11:26 calls for the church to bond together in communion.
Though all of the aforementioned aspects of the Christian faith share intricacies that warrant a breadth of discussion, all of them are unified under one word: worship. The issue with the definition given to worship by so many well-meaning believers is that it depicts an extremely incomplete picture of what worship truly entails. Worship is the culmination of what the head knows, the hands do and the heart adores. The proper defining of worship is essential as the discussion of multi-generational leadership within the corporate gathering begins.
The Problem
Churches have a duty to foster healthy, Biblically-founded worship services that encompass the spiritual needs of the collective body. As such, a proper understanding and implementation of multi-multi-generational leadership is essential for healthy congregations.
The Project
In order to explore various ways of incorporating such leadership, a project intended to test and evaluate these means was formed. Naturally, this project was contextualized to the church and ministry it would be explored in. However, the mechanics of the project can certainly be applied in a large variety of capacities.
This project consisted of four key initiatives carried out over the course of one month. These initiatives included the facilitation of a youth-led Sunday, an adult and senior-adult led Sunday as well as a final service that encompassed all generations throughout the church.
1. Youth Led Sunday Facilitation
The first of the four steps taken to emphasize and incorporate multi-generational leadership into the corporate worship services was to intentionally involve youth, specifically students aged 12–18 in appropriate leadership roles. One particular that is notable with this implementation is the intentionality of song selection. For some, the connotations associated with “Youth Sunday” involve ill-prepared students singing songs the congregation is unfamiliar with. Though there is much that could be and has been said in regards to song selection within the local church, the emphasis here is this: the songs selected for this Sunday are from the same library of songs selected for every Sunday.
In this case, students was tasked with leading and facilitating a corporate worship service on Sunday morning. A choir consisting of these students was expected to fill the loft, sing prepared selections as well as lead throughout the course of the service.
In addition to the youth choir’s involvement, students were given roles in various areas of leadership that each required varying levels of skill and aptitude as well as commitment to rehearse and prepare. The first area that students were given leadership in involved the instrumental accompaniment of the worship service. Also, four students were also placed in leadership roles on the platform in the form of a praise team. A final area that students participated in during this service involved prayer and reading of Scripture. Within this context, the congregation responded quite favorably to students being involved in this and there is distinct and practical benefit in doing so.
2. Sanctuary Choir/Adult Led Sunday Facilitation
The second step taken within this four-step plan involved a service that looked very much like the typical worship service facilitated by First Baptist Church. This church has, as mentioned earlier, a long history of being a choir-led church. As such, much of the focus of this service is familiar to the congregation.
However, though this service looked familiar to most congregants there were intentional distinctions throughout this service that further solidified the focus of this project. For instance, the similarities in structure between the youth-led service the week before and the adult-led service of this particular week reinforced the philosophy that all generations are able to lead the body with humility in a Christ-centered manner. The similarities promoted the idea that stylistic preferences do not have to be the predominant factor of corporate worship gatherings. Also, the sanctuary choir consists of a wide variety of generations within the church. By definition the sanctuary choir represents a working example of multi-generational worship leadership
3. Senior Adult Led Sunday Facilitation
Of all of the steps within this plan, the facilitation of a senior adult led Sunday proved to be the most difficult to achieve within this specific context. Perhaps the reason for this is quite simply many older adults are already involved in the overall corporate worship services at the church. Finding senior adults who were not already involved yet willing to serve proved to be challenging, and many older men and women who at one time served in the roles that were needing to be filled felt that they could no longer serve in those capacities.
Unsure of what to do, after prayerful consideration a senior-adult male was chosen to serve who had been a long-time choir member and had expressed a willingness to serve and possessed the talent and capacity to lead well. This provided a face of leadership that represented the target demographic. Likewise, though the overwhelming majority of the songs used were theologically-sound hymns with deep ties to an older generation, they were all accompanied by modern arrangements that stayed true to the melody yet did not feel out of place with our usual set of accompanists. This conveyed the idea that style is fluid but content and truth is not.
4. Generational Worship Day
The final aspect of this project and the conclusion of a month-long focus on multi-generational leadership was manifested in the form of a large-scale worship service. This worship service incorporated both middle and primary children’s choirs, the youth choir, the sanctuary choir, our instrumentalist team, youth instrumentalists and a praise team of children, youth and adults.
One key differentiator of this service in relation to the previous three was the inclusion of children. The inclusion of the children in this service introduced a number of positive attributes including the opportunity to explain the philosophy of generational worship to children and parents, a way to bring excitement and reason to preparation and an avenue to bring potentially unchurched family groups in whom had children involved in the ministries of the church but were not active themselves.
On this day, the church sang together led by a mass choir and instrumental team of 2nd graders through senior adults. After this, a special selection was sung and the Kindergarten and 1st grade choirs joined everyone else on the platform.
Once again, careful consideration was given to this approach. If left unchecked, there is a temptation for this type of service to become more celebratory of successful programs rather than a picture of true, Kingdom-minded exaltation. Because of this, many aspects of the service including style, song choice and service order were left intentionally unchanged. The objective of this distinct Sunday, at the very least in regards to the involvement of these different groups, was to highlight the inclusiveness of all generations in worship and to exemplify how stylistic preference plays little role in effective execution
Philosophical and Theological Evaluation:
The mechanics of the project as well as the short-term benefits and long-term implications of a generational focus were evaluated both personally and through the use of surveys of various, trusted members of the congregation.
From The Perspectives of Others
Though most of the philosophical and theological assessment returned favorable results in regards to the direction of the music ministry, there were a couple of specific instances that necessitate attention. The first comment to discuss said that “overall, I think we need to dig deeper into the Bible with our kids.” Due to the anonymous nature of the survey it proved difficult to assess exactly the basis for this comment. However, it is encouraging that church members recognize the value in instruction and it is certainly a key area to investigate. An imperative question to ask in response is “was enough Scriptural basis communicated throughout the scope of this project?”
The second comment received which brought a different perspective to the forefront said that the “structure of our worship service is great and has no need for much change.” This was startling as there was a definitive intention of keeping the service logistically as close to an average Sunday service as possible. This could be in reference to an aesthetic change involving more people on the platform or a logistical issue involving children or youth.
Personal Assessment
There is certainly much work to be done for worship pastors and church leaders to ensure that all generations of God’s children are being properly trained, instructed and equipped. Inter-generational worship is certainly just one aspect of the means God has equipped the church with for the purpose of this noble pursuit. As has hopefully been proven in the pages before, generational worship is a valuable, Christ-centered and Biblically-founded tool for the purpose of promoting unity, sanctification and Kingdom-minded growth amongst the collective church body. Leaders have a responsibility to be good stewards of this gift and to use it effectively. Depending on the context, the means of implementation might vary significantly from the aforementioned discussion. However, the foundation that it is built upon must not.
