worship music Archives - Rich Kirkpatrick

The Best Church Music is: UNCLUTTERED – Matters of context and clarity.

Rich KirkpatrickAugust 7, 201801.9K views

To value clarity in congregational music we often fight an uphill battle. Besides music styles and the history of our own local church, the ever-changing goals of what church music should be and “do” creates a moving target. Do we gather a congregation to be sent or do we attract to turn a crowd into a congregation? There is value, of course, in these two ideas about what a worship service should aim to do. They do not have to be mutually exclusive, but one will win out when it comes to church music. Do you have a cluttered desk of values? Does your church music make the points and support the goals that everyone openly understands? Or, do we keep things vague because the questions are too hard and it is politically expedient to muddle an issue that is often expressed emotionally? In other words, do we dumb down…

Country music isn’t that bad!

Joel BucknerFebruary 28, 20170718 views

Over the past few weeks, my worship team has been reading The HD Leader by Derwin Gray. The book speaks about building multiethnic churches and embracing diversity. According to the book, a homogeneous church is one that is made up of 80 percent or more of the same ethnicity. Ring any bells? I certainly grew up in a church that was homogenous. Every Sunday we had a full-on production: big choir, praise and worship team, a loud and passionate preacher, and it wasn’t church without a b3 Hammond organ. My church experience shaped my perception of what worship was “supposed” to look and sound like. It was what I was comfortable with, and for a long time, it was all I knew. I moved to Nashville, the music mecca, a few years after college and my perception of worship and church began to change as I was exposed to new…