quiet reverence vs. joyful noise

Sometimes we get asked why we do the kind of music we do at NewPointe. Sometimes people ask, "Could you throw in a hymn every once in a while for those of us who prefer to worship that way?"

The truth is, if we all had our personal preferences, the Sunday morning services at NewPointe would probably look very different from the way they look right now. We all have preferences. We all have things we wish the church would do differently. What we have to ask ourselves is: Am I on board with the mission and vision of the church? If you attend NewPointe, you ask: Am I on board with the mission and vision of NewPointe?

What is the mission? It's simply this: To lead people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ through relevant environments designed to encourage intimacy with God, involvement in community, and influence in the world.

So what's that have to do with preferences? Well, maybe my personal preferences are not the best possible means by which to accomplish our mission. And at NewPointe, we've decided that we're not going to sacrifice the next generation on the altar of our preferences.

On Sunday mornings, we aim to create a relevant environment that will connect with people who view church as having nothing meaningful or worthwhile to say to them. So we design our services to speak the language of the generation we're trying to reach. In many cases, this includes your kids and grand kids.

As for the music...well, we could debate that from now until the cows come home, but as a church, we've decided to take the "joyful noise" approach over the "quiet reverence" approach.

We've found that our current generation is attracted to high-energy, exciting, colorful, multi-sensory things. Concerts, ballgames, amusement parks... Now, we're not trying to be a theme park or "put on a show" but we are trying to speak the language that our generation speaks.

Let me bring this back to the music theme I began with: I was doing some reading the other day and I read this verse (Isaiah 6:4): "At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook..." And I got to thinking, it's hard to shake doorposts and thresholds with organ music and traditional hymns. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

We, as church leadership, have decided that we're going to land on the "shaking doorposts and thresholds" side of things. And it has more to do with being relevant and connecting with a generation than it does anything else.

Do I wish we did some things differently at NewPointe? Sure. But I'm more concerned about reaching people for Jesus Christ. So my preferences will lose out to that every time.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.