Several people have mentioned the difference between or even a blend of both traditional and contemporary worship music. How are those terms defined? By style, by use, personal preference or other criteria? Is there a hard line on what consitutes each? When or can something move from traditional to contemporary worship? Do those terms extend to other forms of worship like servanthood or evanglism?

Our worship includes psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs both old and new. And our style is a blend of traditional and contemporary.

Half of the musicians on our team are classically trained. They are pretty tied to sheet music. The other half play by ear. They can only play with chord charts.

We are slowly growing in our musical abilities and appreciation for one another. But it is rather difficult at times to blend the different musical backgrounds into a cohesive unit. So any magical solutions that you might know of would be really helpful!

As far as struggles, my main trouble involved the commitment and lack of commitment of musicians, particularly youth musicians. My primary responsibility is with our 2 youth teams, and kids are VERY BUSY - I run into the problem that some of our kid’s are simply stretched way too thin and find it hard to make it to rehearsal regularly, and sometimes actually bail (without prior notification) on their responsibilities altogether at the last minute (”I’ve got a paper due first thing in the morning”), which really throws a wrench in what is otherwise (without cancellations) a top-notch team. I’ve tried implementing rotations to make it easier on my musicians/vocalist, but then they tend to plug into other youth groups that need them more, yet let them come and go as they please. Maybe I’ve set my standard too high, but I feel that 1.) God deserves our best and 2.) bad music can be a hindrance to people focusing on God during our worship time. So, I guess the struggle comes down to what sort of expectations we should put on a volunteer team, especially busy students.

At my church, we have very powerful times of praise some weeks, and not so intense times of praise during other weeks. I need to be careful and check myself every time I step on that stage to make sure I’m not bastardizing the time of praise into just another Sunday morning high. It’s about praising the One who is worthy, not the high we sometimes get.

The most difficult challenge we face (or at least I face) as a worship leader is helping, leading, and guiding my brothers and sisters on a journey in worship that has as its end result a bigger picture of God, a greater love for Him, and a greater desire for His glory. It is a challenge to lead people in something that should ultimately deny every selfish instinct in us when we live in a selfish world.

The greatest challenge is not navigating the worship wars, hoping that in the end Jesus is glorified and we don’t have too many casualties. The greatest challenge is helping our people (and ourselves as well) to understand that worship is not contemporary or traditional, or even music for that matter, but rather it is adoring, bowing down to, and treasuring an infinite God who has redeemed us.

We must pray that God would release us of our selfish ways in worship. We too often want to meet God on our own terms instead of glorying and delighting ourselves in Him.

In terms of how to address this problem: 1) It comes in teaching. 2) It comes in the way we lead and the words we speak while leading 3) It is reinforced in the music we select 4) It is ultimately combated with instilling in people a big view of God rooted in the truth of His Word.

Related issue - it is so easy to continue to default to thinking of the worship time as being successful or not based on how many hands were raised, how many intense faces, surging shouts, open singing, etc. For those of us who come out of less doctrinally grounded charismatic backgrounds, subjectivism dies hard. I’d benefit greatly from a treatment of what post-worship evaluation should look like in light of the overarching priorities of what we’re aiming at as we lead God’s people in worsship.

Being the worship pastor at a church of about 250, my constant struggle is recruiting enough volunteers to create any amount of depth in the ministry. Our church is an area outside metro Phoenix - the average age of our church attenders is 50, and the area has historically been more of a retirement community. Like any church we gain some new folks, and then lose some for various reasons. Right now we have one full team, but if one person is sick, or out-of-town, we feel it acutely. One band member leaves for the entire summer.
We do have some younger musicians who are talented and who I am mentoring and trying to involve more, but they are still too young to be regular participants. I also have been told that maybe my standards are too high, but I don’t believe it’s helpful to lower standards just to add more warm bodies. I’d be willing to work with all levels of talent, as long as their hearts are rightly motivated.
SO, we make announcements from the front, in PowerPoint announcements, in emails, etc. I encourage my team to pray for God to provide and to keep their eyes and ears open to possible candidates. I even have some “spies” in the congregation who take note of those who sing well on Sundays. BUT, is it just a matter of being content with what God has provided, praying more earnestly? I am not a fan of paying musicians on a regular basis.