How worship services have changed since 2000

[Warph]

How worship services have changed since 2000

May 9, 2014 By Gene Veith

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/

LifeWay CEO Thom S. Rainer cites the findings of the National Congregations Study from Duke University on how church services have changed over the last 10 years.  It isn't just a matter of contemporary worship styles or the worship wars.  The study cites changes that also, I dare say, apply to liturgical and traditional services.  See the list of 9 changes after the jump.

From Nine Rapid Changes in Church Worship Services – ThomRainer.com:
1.Choirs are disappearing.  From 1998 to 2007, the percentage of churches with choirs decreased from 54% to 44%.  If that pace holds to this year, the percentage of churches with choirs is only 37%.

2.Dress is more casual.  In many churches, a man wearing a tie in a worship service is now among the few rather than the majority.  While the degree of casual dress is contextual, the trend is crossing all geographic and demographic lines.

3.Screens are pervasive.  Some of you remember the days when putting a projection screen in a worship center was considered a sacrilege.  Now most churches have screens.  And if they have hymnals, the hymnals are largely ignored and the congregants follow along on the screens. (This is now happening with my Church...Warph)

4.Preaching is longer.  I will soon be in the process of gathering this data to make certain the objective research confirms the anecdotal information.

5."Multi" is normative.  Most congregants twenty years ago attended a Sunday morning worship service where no other Sunday morning alternatives were available. Today, most congregants attend a service that is part of numerous alternatives: multi-services; multi-campuses; multi-sites; and multi-venues.

6.Attendees are more diverse.  The Duke study noted the trend of the decrease in the number of all-white congregations.

7.Conflict is not increasing.  In a recent post, I noted the decreasing frequency of worship wars.  The Duke study noted that overall church conflict has not increased over a 20-year period.

8.More worship attendees are attending larger churches.  Churches with an attendance of 400 and up now account for 90% of all worship attendees.  Inversely, those churches with an attendance of under 400 only account for 10% of worship attendees.

9.Sunday evening services are disappearing.  This issue has stirred quite a bit of discussion the past few years.

Does this ring true where you worship?

[Catwoman]

Where I go to church, ALL of that sounds familiar.  Especially the more informal dress.  My father still wears a suit to church, rain or shine.  He tends to stick out like a sore thumb! lol

[Wilma]

I am beginning to believe that nobody dresses up for anything anymore.  I was raised to believe that it was honoring the Lord to look your best when visiting his house.  I just can't go along with the casual clothes that seem to be acceptable now. 

[Catwoman]

Taking the time to gussy up a bit shows respect...And respect isn't something that is "popular" right now.  We live in a culture where "halfway" is good enough.  And, if you can combine that with a cynical, put-down artist attitude, then you're REALLY in like flint! lol  I agree with you, Wilma.  That is how I was raised, as well.

[patyrn]

We belong to a traditional style United Methodist Church (one of the few traditionals in our Conference), but we see the more relaxed modes of worship subtly appearing.  It is not all bad, but I especially love having a choir performing traditional church music with an organist who loves playing the traditional hymns on the pipe organ.  Music is a huge part of the worship service for me.  We are of the smaller congregational size (250 usually in attendance in 3 services), but the mega churches with contemporary styles of worship are definitely attracting the younger generation. 

[redcliffsw]

If a church has no good old fashioned Bible preaching, then the rest of the church thing is most likely unbiblical/liberal too.  Real preachers are hard to find.  There's not much Christian leadership in this country anymore.  Many look to the Federals for their own betterment and existence.   

I saw a sign the other day that said something like "Remember How Church Used to Be?"
Well, I won't enter any of their doors if they're liberal and about all of 'em are liberal including the UMC.

[Bullwinkle]

      My Sunday church is most times, the prairie. I don't think the supreme being cares how I'm dressed. The music out there is just fine and there is beauty everywhere you look.

      Johnny Paycheck did a great piece about being turned away at the door of a church because of his cowboy hat and beard. Don't remember the title.

[srkruzich]

i don't own a suit, i don't own a tie.  I don't dress in rags either.  God doesn't look at how well we are dressed, he looks at our inward dressing. the only reason people dress to the 9's in a church is to impress others.  Shrug. 

IF your going to church to show off your clothes your going for the wrong reasons.   The church is a hospital for healing not a social club

[Wilma]

Casual or dressy, I still believe that the Lord wants us to always be our best.  And for me that is being clean and as well dressed as possible.  Not being dressed so that I don't have to change to go play beach volleyball after.  That might be extreme, but it seems accurate.

The purpose of church is to learn and worship.  But there was a time when it was the only social gathering in a community that was available for everyone.  People wore their Sunday best because their work clothes were dirty from the past week's work.  Dressing up was not for the purpose of showing off your new clothes.  It was merely putting your new clothes to the use for which they were intended.  A woman's dress and a man's suit were not easily washed.  Probably not washed at all.  So they were worn for events that didn't require taking a chance on them getting dirty. 

My mother washed with a machine that was powered by a small gasoline engine.  She had to carry the water to the stove to heat it, then carry it to the machine.  The water had to last from the sheets to the overalls.  The fewer clothes that needed to be washed each week, the better.   So we were careful with our school clothes, changing them as soon as we got home from school, so they could be worn another day. Now, even the dressiest clothes can be laundered at home.  Throw them in the machine, then the dryer, take them out and wear them.  I still can't understand why a woman feels that blue jeans are appropriate for church.

[Warph]

Me, I wear shorts, polo shirt and sandals to church on Saturday as well as most of the men.  Nothing worse than wearing slacks, shirt, coat and tie when it is 110-115 degrees out.  Sunday is dress up day.  That's why I go on Saturday.  We MSLutherans are a cool bunch of sinners.