Introducing Contemporary Worship Into a Traditional Church

August 30, 2021—A critique of Josh Hunt's article

According to the Wayback Machine*, Josh Hunt wrote “Introducing Contemporary Worship Into a Traditional Church” in 1997 (or sometime before then). In internet years it’s older than dirt, but it’s still up on his website and the content is still very relevant today. I think his line of thinking lives on in 2021.

I want to think critically about his article by focusing on a few points:

  • What is his motivation?
  • What was the outcome?
  • What scriptural basis does he have?

His motivation

On his page which lists his articles, this one appears with the heading “How to Introduce a Contemporary Service in a Traditional Church and Double Your Attendance”.

Within the article itself he says:

I had this feeling in my gut that contemporary music would make a big difference in reaching the post World War II crowd.

I grew up on the mission field and knew that to reach people, you have to eat their food, dress their dress, and play their music.

Was there a way we could harness the power of contemporary music for the use of the kingdom and do it in the traditional church God had called us to?

It’s clear that his motivation is growth in numbers through “reaching” a different demographic.

The outcome in his own words

We searched for a way to make these two odd bedfellows coexist. Was there a way we could harness the power of contemporary music for the use of the kingdom and do it in the traditional church God had called us to? And really, we wanted more than coexistence. We wanted both groups to appreciate the other out of a spirit of Christian unity. Were these pipe dreams? Had all our learning driven us mad?

Five years later, we tentatively suggest that this wedding is possible. This is the true story of the successes and failures of trying to introduce contemporary worship into a forty year old, traditional Baptist church.

Josh Hunt says that after five years, these things have happened:

  • They harnessed “the power of contemporary music for the use of the kingdom”
  • They did that within a formerly-traditional church
  • There is Christian unity between the traditional and the contemporary groups

What does he mean by these things?

The power of contemporary music

It’s not immediately clear what he means by this. Presumably he means the attractive power of contemporary music. It draws people who like it.

I bet it was the same in the late 90s as it is now: younger people like contemporary music and tend to be happy to migrate to a contemporary church that suites their taste.

I find support for this when he says:

There is a limit to how far you can stretch this service and still appeal to traditional people.

Contemporary attracts contemporary.

So I think he means they have harnessed the power of contemporary music to attract a younger crowd.

As you read his article you can get a feel for some of the prices they have paid (and continue to pay). And I interact with some of those things below. But it’s clear that Josh attributes the growth in numbers directly to their change in music style. They added a different music style, and that brought in a different generation.

Within a formerly-traditional church

Josh uses the present tense when he calls his church “traditional”. However, it’s clear from what he has written that it was no longer traditional at the time of his writing.

First, Josh views contemporary and traditional worship as mutually exclusive. True, he has a whole paragraph on how to blend aspects of both. But then he says:

Lesson # 3: don’t try to mix formats. If you prefer one style over the other, there is always a tendency to want to keep the some movement of one toward the other. We have learned the hard way to avoid this tendency. Once two formats are established, people know what they want, the come to the service they want, and they don’t like surprises.

This is the beauty of the multi-congregational approach. We don’t have to get people to change their worship in order to reach people who want more contemporary worship. All we have to do is get them to grant permission for another type of worship to exist. Our people will do this as long as we don’t gradually introduce more and more contemporary elements into traditional services.

We can do this because we do not believe that one format is inherently better than the other. God does not prefer contemporary worship over traditional. They both have strategic value. Many of my neighbors, who are mostly retired couples, will not be reached through contemporary music. They want their church to sound like church. We want to have a high quality traditional worship because we believe it is pleasing to God and strategically valuable in ministering to our community. With this conviction firmly in place, it frees us from the temptation of allowing a service’s format to drift. Of course, not to worry. If it drifts much, people will let you know.

Do you see how traditional and contemporary worship are mutually exclusive, even within Josh’s success story?

Later he says:

Be careful about what you do with special, all-church events. If you say with your lips that choirs are just as good as vocal bands but you invite the vocal band to sing for Easter and Christmas every year, you are sending two messages. We have had to be very careful that these major inter-congregational events are handled in an even-handed way. People are watching to see what kind of invitations their group gets, and what kinds the other guys get. Actions speak louder than words.

Do you see how careful Josh says they have to be when these two groups interact?

Also:

I have a nagging feeling that the difference between a contemporary mind set and a traditional mind set goes deeper than music. As stated earlier, part of me wonders if this won’t end up being a ten year birthing process of a new church. People who like contemporary music tend to have different opinions on a wide variety of things, such as denominational loyalty, church government, how money is spent, and ethical issues such as drinking in moderation.

Did you catch how he dressed up the phrase “slow church split”?

In Josh’s words they have:

  • Two mutually exclusive worship services
  • Two distinctly different groups of people
  • Tension anytime these two groups interact
  • On a trajectory to split

What do you call one organization with these attributes? Traditional? Contemporary? To me it sounds a lot like one traditional church and one contemporary church meeting in the same building at different times and sometimes doing things together, and at some point in the future they very well might decide to part ways.

Whatever you call that organization, it’s certainly no longer what it was.

Christian unity between the traditional and the contemporary groups

Josh has a strange way of defining “Christian unity”. Again, in Josh’s words they have:

  • Two mutually exclusive worship services
  • Two distinctly different groups of people
  • Tension anytime these two groups interact
  • On a trajectory to split

His article is also full of examples of conflict being resolved by acquiescence (the pulpit placement), people being repelled to the other service/group (the piano player who didn’t really like contemporary music), unresolved issues, and effectively a church split in the making (however amicable it has been).

What kind of unity is that? I think Josh’s definition of “Christian unity” is “uneasy ceasefire”. Strange.

What is this church like in 2021?

You have to do a bit of sleuthing to find out which church Josh Hunt was talking about. I think I found it. On his bio he says that he served as Minister of Education at Calvary Baptist Church, Las Cruces, New Mexico.

During the eleven years he served this church, they went from one service and one Sunday School to four services and four Sunday Schools. Overall attendance nearly tripled.

Calvary Baptist’s constitution says they were incorporated on July 21, 1951. In 1997 (apparently when Josh wrote this article) the church would have been 46 years old. And recall he wrote it to summarize the previous five years of “trying to introduce contemporary worship into a forty year old, traditional Baptist church”. 46 minus 5 = 41, close enough to “forty years old”.

It’s difficult to discern the character of a church from a distance. Not to mention it’s easy to be condemning so it’s kind of risky. But let’s assume this is the church he was talking about. If so, then a few things are definitely true:

  • The church is still around
  • It has two services. That aligns with what Josh said in his article (although it is different than four services like his bio says—but keep in mind quite a bit of time has passed since Josh Hunt was there, and also COVID is a thing)
  • Evidently it still uses contemporary music

They only got one shot

In Josh’s words, his church more than doubled in numbers by embracing contemporary music. That happened with Calvary Baptist, but it didn’t happen again—they’re still two-service, not eight-service or sixteen-service. And they didn’t go back to traditional music. So Josh’s advice for them was:

  • Single use only. Once you’ve embraced contemporary music then that’s it. It’s not like you can embrace it again because you’ve already used that trick and are there. It’s not a goose that lays golden eggs
  • A one-way street. Josh details no plan for going back to traditional worship if the church wanted it, and after 24 years the church Josh was talking about hasn’t gone back

What’s next for churches like this?

I want to focus on the first point. How would this church double in numbers again? What tricks or untapped resources remain for it? If doubling your numbers is why you (like Josh Hunt) are embracing contemporary music, then what are you going to do once you’re there?

Will you find ways to become content with your size (isn’t that self defeating)? Will you decide it’s more important to focus on growing your congregation in depth (so you’re telling me the numbers aren’t important after all)? Will you find more groups to “reach” and continue tacking on more services to suit all these different groups? Will you be too bogged down by internal strife generated by the transition (was it worth it)?

Surely God has given his church a better growth plan than this.

Where is the Bible?

I don’t see a single Bible verse. Instead, Josh’s article is full of appeals to… well, read it for yourself. Here’s how he concludes his article:

On the positive side, let me be clear I am positively enthusiastic about our journey into contemporary worship. It has allowed us to use our resources more efficiently. Contemporary worship is not the only way we could have five weekend services, but it is one way.

It has allowed us to reach people faster than ever before. We filled a 250 seat auditorium in 18 months using contemporary worship. And, we have reached into a different segment of the population. Contemporary worship not only reaches people, it reaches people we probably could not reach with a traditional worship service alone. Much of this has to do with music. We hope in time to have additional worship formats–country music perhaps.

I think the contemporary worship helps the people it reaches to worship better than they would in a traditional worship. It is true of me. I worship better with contemporary music than I do with traditional music because I am not fighting against my own tastes.

I just like contemporary worship. I think church leaders need better reasons than personal taste to do something. However, I think it would be very difficult to start a contemporary service unless the leadership did enjoy it. It would be impossible for me to help with a country service. Philosophically, I would have no problem, as long as they didn’t ask me to come or pay for the steel guitars.

To summarize, Josh says contemporary music:

  • Is more efficient
  • Has wider, quicker reach
  • Frees people’s worship
  • Suits his personal taste

But again, where is the Bible in any of this?

Does the Bible have anything to say about how important a church’s efficiency is, or whether it’s more important to be effective, or what it even means to be efficient or effective in “kingdom” work?

Does the Bible have anything to say about how to “reach” people, what “reaching” them even means, and whether the weekly gathering of God’s people should be for evangelism or for mutual encouragement of people who are already saved?

Does the Bible have anything to say about whether people’s personal tastes in worship are good and need to be “freed” or if there are any dangers and they need to be changed?

Does the Bible have anything to say about what Christian unity is?

There is not a single Bible verse referenced in his entire article. Would Josh be able to use scripture to back up his claims about efficiency, effectiveness, freedom, and worship? Or does he only have subjective pragmatism on his side?

The point

If you want to tack on another service and fill your auditorium by attracting more people, then maybe Josh’s advice is for you. Just keep in mind it might come at the cost he outlined:

  • Alienated members
  • Uneasy ceasefires
  • Disunity

Do you want this for your church?

I also suspect there’s a lesson to be learned here about come-and-see philosophies of evangelism. Maybe I’ll explore that later.