Blended worship resources

[kbontrager]

The irony is not lost on me.... my question is about blended worship resources, and it doesn't fit on the 'modern, contemporary music' board or on the 'traditional, liturgical worship' board. Sigh. :)

I lead three Sunday services at my church, 2 of which are to be 'blended' and one which is contemporary. The addition of the contemporary service is relatively recent; fortunately, that environment comes more naturally to me, so the addition was a welcome one. One of the obvious results of this transition is that attenders who prefer the contemporary environment migrated to the new service. What I didn't think about was the effect this would have on the blended services; we had assumed that they could stay the same as they had always been. But we now have a less contemporary-minded attendance in those services, so I'm being encouraged to adhere to guidelines like these: (1) keep volume down, (2) avoid 'driving' drum beats, (3) avoid numerous 'repeats' in the contemporary songs, (4) keep instrumentation simple with hymns. But still keep the 'best' of all eras of songs alive. Argh.

So I'm looking for resources for music for the blended services. Any ideas?

[fmckinnon]

Hey,
That's kind of a tough situation. I led worship for Wesley UMC here on St. Simons Island for a couple of years, and it wasn't that tough because when they started their contemporary service, the other two services were 100% traditional.

When you say "blended" - is this older "blended" service only blended in music selection? I mean ... does "blended" only apply to the style and selection of songs, or are other liturgical type elements removed, done, changed, etc, (ie. creeds, announcements, offerings, using media and projection, etc)?

[MarkSooy]

The term "blended worship" has a specific meaning given to it by Dr. Robert Webber. It has to do with "blending" the historical elements of worship with more recent developments. If you want specific resources about this specific type of worship you can do a search under his name and find books, hymnbooks, etc.

I think you are talking more about what can be better termed "integrated" worship. In other words, you are seeking to integrate both some recent music, with more traditional music in the same service.

The best way to do this is to stay focused thematically, and do song packages in complementary keys allowing for easy transitions. Also, try to break away from the bad habit of talking about "Contemporary" and "traditional." If you use more generic terminology -- like upbeat, middle-of-the-road, and slower -- all different styles can fit into those categories.

[kbontrager]

Thank you for the clarification of terminology. Yes, with the definition given in the above comment, our service is 'integrated'. The historical tradition for our congregation would have been a very simple service.... opening prayer, opening hymn, announcements, hymn, prayer, offering, sermon, closing hymn.... something like that. What we have now is a service that follows a similar pattern, adding in a choir piece, and using both older and newer music for corporate singing.