Radical Worship in Inter-generational Churches

Introduction

My name is Katie Morse and I attend Star Friends Church in Star, Idaho. I have grown up immersed in the Friends tradition. A third generation Friend, I attended Greenleaf Friends Academy and George Fox University, both Quaker-founded institutions.
A member at Star, I also serve on the worship team. I've always enjoyed music and worship music specifically has always been one way that the Lord blesses my heart. In the last several years, I have had more opportunities to step into a leadership role on the worship team. The idea to pursue a project related to worship was suggested by one of the pastors at our church as a chance to further develop those leadership skills.

SING! Conference 2018

The Pickett Endowment enabled me to attend the SING! Conference in Nashville, TN. The Conference was put on by Keith and Kristyn Getty. The Gettys are what many consider modern hymn writers. They have written and recorded numerous worship albums for individual and congregational worship. One of their most notable songs is In Christ Alone which was written in partnership with Stewart Townend.

There was an incredible amount of valuable content at this conference, so I hope to describe in more detail in subsequent posts. Some of the most significant learnings for me was the emphasis on the lyrics we sing. The Gettys are passionate about singing the gospel in our worship. What we don't sing, is just as important as what we do sing. In previous generations in the church, hymns enabled this well. Many hymns are scripture set to song or they are inspired by a passage of scripture. Some hymns are a narrative of the gospel or a personal account of the journey to salvation. This conference emphasized the added depth of worship that we get as Christians by singing about what God has done and who He is. If we only sing about one aspect of God or one aspect of the gospel, we fail to remind ourselves of the entirety of the good news. 

This is the one thing that draws us all together. This is the commonality shared by millennials as well as the oldest members in our churches. We share the same humanness, repentance and salvation through the same loving Savior. This is a personal story for each of us, but we share it as a congregation. When we sing about our story alongside someone who has a very similar story, we are supported and encouraged and grow closer as the body of Christ. Congregational singing is important. 

Of course the Gettys strive for musical excellence and do a wonderful job at writing hymns that musically feel modern, but they emphasized that any perceived "lack" of musical resources or abilities available to us at our churches shouldn't deter us from worshiping or make us feel that it is somehow inadequate. We must remember why we worship and who we worship. Worship is not about us and our preferences, but about His name being glorified and our hearts lifting thankful praise to the one who saved us. He gave us our very own personal instruments, our voices. Hymn-style songs are especially conducive to a cappella voices. If we have no band, we at least can sing!  

Friends Summit 2018

After this project started, it became apparent that the Northwest Yearly Meeting needed a band to represent the region at Friends Summit 2018, a Quaker youth and young adult leadership conference that was held in Colorado Springs, CO. After some prompting from those around me, I agreed to lead worship for one of the mornings at the conference. I mention my hesitance because the conference had about 350-400 people in attendance, much larger than anything I have done before and a much different environment. This was definitely was a stretching opportunity, but the Lord was and is faithful. It was the perfect exercise of all that had been emphasized up at the SING! Conference. We worshiped Jesus together. What a blessing that is!

I also presented a workshop at Summit titled, Radical Worship: The Singing Church. The content was primarily from the SING! Conference, both the written literature and the various worship leaders involved and the pastors and theologians that spoke about worship. The workshop was pretty well attended. I think there are worship leaders in the Friends denomination that are interested in equipping and enabling our inter-generational congregations to better worship!